The Voice Beneath the Marble Floor
CHAPTER 3 - TWO WIVES, ONE HOUSE
David's first instinct was to lock the door.
His second was to open it and demand the truth.
Instead, he stepped aside from the window and whispered, "Stay here."
Lena rose anyway, one hand braced on the table. She looked weak, but there was steel in her face David had not seen in years.
The key turned in the front door.
The woman entered with a leather tote on her shoulder and Lena's scarf around her neck. She called out, cheerful and ordinary, "Traffic was awful. Did Ellie eat?"
Then she saw Lena standing in the kitchen.
Everything stopped.
The tote slid from her hand and hit the floor.
Up close, the resemblance was shocking. Same height. Same hair color. Similar build. But not exact. This woman's jaw was sharper. Her eyes darker. Her freckles painted on too lightly, as if someone had copied them from memory.
Ellie appeared at the den doorway and stared. "Why are there two mommies?"
The woman looked at the child, and something like pain crossed her face.
David stepped in front of Ellie. "Who are you?"
The woman's shoulders dropped. "My name is Mara."
Lena gripped the counter. "Why me?"
Mara swallowed. "Because he said it had to be you."
"Who?" David asked.
She looked at him with a tired, haunted expression. "Your father."
The room seemed to tilt.
David's father had been dead for eleven months.
"No," David said. "That's impossible."
Mara gave a short, broken laugh. "I met Richard Hale three weeks before he died."
Lena stared at David. He stared back, both of them lost.
Mara slowly reached into her coat pocket. David tensed, but she only pulled out an old photograph.
She set it on the marble island.
It showed a much younger Richard standing beside a teenage girl with dark eyes and a defiant mouth.
Mara.
On the back, in Richard's unmistakable handwriting, were four words:
My daughter. Keep hidden.
"My name is Mara."
Lena's hand began to shake as she turned the photograph over again and again.
