The Fake Daughter at Dinner
Chapter 3: The Girl in the Locked Room
Margaret could barely speak.
"What does that mean?"
Clara lifted her eyes.
"It means he found your daughter before Natalie ever entered this house."
The dining room erupted.
Natalie shouted that Clara was insane. The guests whispered. A silver spoon fell from someone's hand and struck the floor.
Margaret raised one hand.
Silence returned.
Clara continued.
"Three years ago, Victor's men found a girl working in a coastal laundry. She had no papers, no family name, and a severe strawberry allergy. She also had the scar behind her left ear."
Margaret's lips parted.
"Elise."
Clara nodded slowly.
"Victor had her tested. He knew exactly who she was."
Margaret's knees nearly gave out.
Clara stepped closer, but did not touch her.
"He did not bring her home. He locked her in a private clinic and forced her to sign papers saying she was mentally unstable. Then he began searching for someone easier to control."
Natalie looked away.
Margaret noticed.
"You knew."
Natalie whispered, "I didn't know at first."
"But you knew before tonight."
Natalie's silence answered.
Margaret turned back to Clara.
"Where is she?"
Clara's expression cracked for the first time.
"She escaped."
"When?"
"Six months ago."
"Where did she go?"
Clara's hands trembled.
"Here."
Margaret stared at her.
The chandeliers seemed to blur. The room tilted.
Clara reached behind her left ear and carefully moved a strand of hair aside.
There it was.
A thin pale scar.
Margaret stopped breathing.
Clara untied the ribbon at her collar. Beneath the fabric, near her throat, was a faint mark shaped like a half-moon.
Margaret remembered kissing that mark when Elise was a baby.
Her daughter had called it her moon spot.
Natalie whispered, "No..."
Margaret took one slow step toward Clara.
"Say it."
Clara's eyes filled, but her voice stayed steady.
"My name is Elise Winslow."
Margaret covered her mouth.
Clara tried to smile.
"But when I came back, I wanted to know who in this house would recognize me without my name."
Margaret broke then.
She reached for Clara with shaking hands.
"My child."
Clara closed her eyes.
For the first time in eighteen years, she let her mother hold her.
