Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WITHOUT A PAST
Two years earlier, rescuers had found Anna Mercer nearly eight miles from the wreck.
No one understood how she had survived.
The car had broken through a mountain barrier and fallen into a ravine during a violent storm.
Lily had been found strapped inside the crushed rear compartment.
Claire was gone.
Search teams assumed the river had carried her body away.
They were wrong.
Claire had crawled from the wreck before the flooding began.
Disoriented and severely injured, she wandered through the forest until she collapsed near an abandoned service road.
A private medical transport belonging to the Mercer Foundation found her before dawn.
She had no identification.
Her face had been badly injured.
Her fingerprints produced no immediate match because her records had been restricted after Grant received kidnapping threats years earlier.
She remembered nothing.
Not her name.
Not Grant.
Not Lily.
The Mercer Foundation paid for reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation.
The foundation’s founder, Henry Mercer, became protective of the mysterious survivor.
He called her Anna because she needed a name.
Months later, Henry died.
His will shocked everyone.
He left Anna control of a private charitable trust and appointed her acting chairwoman of the Mercer Foundation.
His attorneys protested.
Henry had anticipated that.
A recorded statement explained that Anna possessed “the instincts of someone who had already built a life before losing it.”
She had turned out to be brilliant.
She understood contracts without remembering studying law.
She read financial statements as if she had done it for years.
She could walk into a boardroom and silence executives twice her age.
The world believed Anna Mercer was Henry’s mysterious protégé.
Anna herself believed that too.
Until the dreams began.
A pink bicycle.
A child laughing.
A man sleeping beside her.
A mountain road.
And Rebecca.
Now Anna sat across from neurologist Dr. Samuel Park.
“You’re telling me these memories could be real?”
“They could.”
“Could they be invented?”
“Yes.”
Anna’s hands tightened.
“How do I know?”
“You verify them.”
She slid the Bennett family article toward him.
“That woman was me.”
Dr. Park studied it.
“The resemblance around the eyes is significant.”
“My face was reconstructed.”
“I know.”
“I had a daughter.”
His expression softened.
Anna looked away.
“She thinks I abandoned her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She thinks I’m dead.”
That truth was worse.
For two years, Lily had lived in grief while Claire lived beneath another name.
Anna stood.
“I’m going back.”
Dr. Park rose.
“Not alone.”
“I’m not asking permission.”
“Then at least understand something.”
She paused.
“Memory recovery is unpredictable.”
“You may remember people differently.”
“You may discover things you are not prepared to know.”
Anna looked at Rebecca’s photograph.
“I already discovered enough.”
Meanwhile, Rebecca entered Lily’s bedroom after midnight.
The little girl pretended to sleep.
Rebecca sat on the edge of the mattress.
“I heard you talked to your father.”
Lily remained still.
Rebecca brushed wet hair away from her forehead.
“Your father loves you.”
“That’s why we shouldn’t upset him.”
Lily’s breathing became shallow.
“He already lost your mother.”
“We don’t want him to lose Evelyn too.”
A tear slid from beneath Lily’s closed eyelid.
Rebecca noticed.
She smiled.
Then she whispered.
“Tomorrow, when your father asks what happened, you’ll tell him Evelyn scared you.”
Lily opened her eyes.
“No.”
Rebecca’s face hardened.
“I said no.”
The bedroom door opened.
Grant stood there.
Rebecca turned.
For one long second, no one spoke.
May you like
Then Grant asked quietly.
“What exactly did you just tell my daughter?”
