Emma’s Daughter Came in the Rain

CHAPTER 1 - The Girl at the Door

"Please! Don't leave! My mom needs you!"

The rain hit the hotel entrance like thrown stones. Clara Whitmore was halfway into her car when a small, soaked girl rushed forward and wrapped both hands around the door.

Two security men grabbed her at once.

"Wait," Clara said.

The child was maybe ten. Thin. Shivering. Her hair clung to her face. She was wearing a coat that had seen too many winters.

Clara lowered her sunglasses and looked at her.

"Who is your mother?"

The girl reached inside her ruined jacket and pulled out a wooden music box. One corner was cracked. The brass latch was dulled with age.

"This," the girl cried, holding it up with both shaking hands. "She said you would recognize this."

Clara took it.

The moment her fingers touched the wood, her breath caught. Inside the lid, nearly faded away, were the words:

To Emma, from Mom.

Her knees almost gave out.

Clara turned the tiny key. A soft lullaby spilled into the storm, thin and old and painfully familiar.

"I gave this to my daughter," she whispered. "Before the fire."

The girl stared at her, crying harder now.

"Your mother's name is Emma?" Clara asked.

"Yes. She said everyone thinks she died."

Clara's hand tightened around the music box. Emma. Her daughter. Dead, or so Clara had been told. Burned away twenty-four years ago in a house fire that had stolen everything.

Everything except this song.

"Where is she now?" Clara demanded.

The girl swallowed.

"In the hospital. But a man is trying to take her away."

Across the street, a black car with no license plates sat in the rain. The window slid down.

A man in black gloves was watching them.

Then the girl whispered, "That's him."