Russell lay bleeding beside me. Mr. Hayes held a gun with both hands. Claire had another weapon pressed against Daniel’s chest.
And somewhere above us stood a woman Russell had just called by my dead mother’s name.
**Margaret.**
My mother.
The woman I had buried nine years ago.
“Emily,” Russell whispered, gripping my wrist. “Whatever happens next… don’t trust what you see.”
I stared down at him.
“That advice is about ten years too late.”
The basement door creaked.
A shadow appeared.
Then a woman’s voice drifted down.
“Put the guns down.”
My entire body froze.
I knew that voice.
Age had roughened it. Time had changed
it. But memory is cruelly precise when it wants to be.
I had heard that voice sing to me when I was sick.
Heard it whisper goodnight through my childhood bedroom door.
Heard it tell me, during her final hospital stay, that everything would be all right.
“Mom?”
A woman descended the stairs.
Silver threaded her dark hair. A scar ran from her left temple toward her ear. Her face was thinner than I remembered.
But it was her.
