Emma's POV
The mailbox feels like a snake about to bite me.
I stand on my front porch, staring at the metal box at the end of my driveway. My hand shakes as I grip the porch railing. It's just mail, I tell myself. Bills. Junk advertisements. Maybe a magazine. Nothing scary. Nothing dangerous.
But my heart won't stop pounding.
"Mommy, watch!" Lily's voice pulls me back. My six-year-old daughter hangs upside down from the backyard swing set, her dark hair brushing the grass below. "I'm a bat!"
I force a smile. "Be careful, sweetheart."
She giggles and flips herself upright. The sound fills my chest with warmth. This is why I left. This is why I ran three years ago with a three-year-old baby and nothing but a suitcase. So Lily could laugh. So she could play without fear. So she could be a normal kid who pretends to be a bat instead of a child who hides in closets when Daddy gets angry.
"I'm getting the mail," I call out. "Stay where I can see you."
Lily waves at me, already spinning in circles with her arms spread wide. She's pretending to fly now. My beautiful, innocent girl who doesn't remember her father. Who doesn't remember the man who made me doubt my own mind, my own memories, my own worth.
Marcus.
I shake my head hard. Don't think about him. He can't find you here. Riverside is three hours from Millbrook. You changed your last name back to Cole. You don't have social media. You're invisible.
Safe.
I walk down the driveway, forcing my feet to move. The afternoon sun warms my face but can't melt the ice in my stomach. I'm being ridiculous. It's just mail.
I open the mailbox. Inside are the usual things a phone bill, a credit card offer, a flyer from the local pizza place. See? Nothing to worry about. I pull them out and start walking back to the house.
Then I see it.
One more piece of mail at the bottom of the box.
A postcard.
The image on the front makes my breath stop. It's a photograph of Riverside Lake at sunset beautiful orange and pink sky reflecting on calm water. The old wooden dock stretches into the distance. I know that dock. I know that lake.
My hands start shaking so badly I almost drop everything.
No. No, no, no. This can't be happening.
I haven't thought about that lake in seven years. Haven't been there since I was twenty-one years old, back when I had a best friend named Kara who made me laugh until I couldn't breathe. Back when I had dreams and plans and a future that seemed bright.
Back before Kara died.
Back before Marcus convinced me that small towns were for small people.
Back before everything fell apart.
I flip the postcard over with trembling fingers. There's writing on the back. Handwriting I recognize immediately, even though I haven't seen it in seven years.
My vision blurs. The words swim in front of me.
"I never left. Find me where we made our promises. K"
The postcard slips from my fingers. It floats to the ground in slow motion, landing face-up on the concrete driveway.
K.
Kara.
But Kara is dead.
I was at her funeral. I watched them lower the casket into the ground. I cried so hard I made myself sick. I blamed myself because the last words I said to her were angry words. Mean words about how she should mind her own business about Marcus.
Dead people don't send postcards.
"Mommy?" Lily's voice sounds far away. "Why did you drop the mail?"
I can't answer. I'm staring at the handwriting. The way the K has that little loop at the top that's how Kara always wrote her initial. The way the letters slant slightly to the right. The way the words are spaced just a tiny bit too far apart.
It looks exactly like Kara's handwriting.
My mind spins. Someone is playing a cruel joke. Someone found old samples of Kara's writing and copied it. Someone wants to hurt me.
But who? Who even knows about Kara? I haven't talked about her in years. Not to my coworkers at the library. Not to the other moms at Lily's school. Not to anyone.
The only person who knows about Kara is
No.
Marcus.
But Marcus doesn't know where I live. I made sure of that. I covered my tracks. I disappeared completely.
Didn't I?
"Mommy, you're scaring me." Lily stands beside me now, tugging on my sleeve. Her big brown eyes are worried. "Why are you crying?"
I'm crying? I touch my face. My cheeks are wet.
"I'm okay, baby." I bend down and pick up the postcard with shaking hands. "Just remembering an old friend."
"A friend from when you were little?"
"Yes." My voice cracks. "A friend who went away."
Lily studies the postcard over my shoulder. "That's a pretty lake. Can we go swimming there?"
The question makes my stomach twist. Riverside Lake is where Kara and I made promises when we were sixteen years old. We snuck out one night with our friend Rachel. We sat on that dock under the stars and promised we'd always be friends. We promised we'd help each other through hard times. We promised we'd never let anything come between us.
I broke all those promises when I chose Marcus over her.
"Maybe someday," I tell Lily, even though I know we'll never go there.
We walk back into the house. I put the other mail on the kitchen counter but keep the postcard in my hand. I can't stop looking at it. I can't stop reading those words.
"I never left."
What does that mean? Kara is dead. She left seven years ago in a car accident on Route 12. The police said she was driving too fast. They said alcohol might have been involved. They said it was a tragedy.
"Find me where we made our promises."
Someone wants me to go to Riverside Lake. Someone who knows about the promises. Someone who knows about Kara.
Someone who knows about me.
My skin goes cold.
This is a trap. It has to be. Marcus found me. He's playing mind games again. He used to do this all the time when we were married. He'd move my things and then tell me I moved them myself. He'd tell me about conversations we never had. He'd make me doubt everything.
He's doing it again.
But how does he know about the promises at the lake? I never told him about that night. It was private. Special. Just between me, Kara, and Rachel.
Unless Kara told him.
But when would she have told him? She hated Marcus. She tried to warn me about him. She said he was dangerous. We fought about it. That's why we weren't speaking when she died.
My head hurts from thinking. Nothing makes sense.
I need to throw this postcard away. I need to forget about it. I need to protect Lily and keep living our quiet, safe life.
But I can't stop staring at those words.
"I never left."
What if it's true? What if somehow, impossibly, Kara survived? What if she's been alive this whole time and now she needs me?
No. That's crazy. I'm thinking crazy thoughts. That's what Marcus wants. He wants me to doubt reality. He wants me to question everything. He wants me back under his control.
I walk to the trash can and hold the postcard over it.
Just drop it. Throw it away. Pretend it never came.
But my fingers won't let go.
Behind me, Lily hums while she colors at the kitchen table. The sound of her happiness should make me feel better. Instead, it makes fear claw at my throat.
If Marcus found me, he found Lily.
If he's playing games with postcards, what comes next?
I pull out my phone. My hands shake so hard I can barely hold it. I need to call someone. But who? I don't have friends here. I keep everyone at a distance. It's safer that way.
Maybe I should call the police. Tell them someone is sending me strange mail. But what would I say? "Someone sent me a postcard from my dead friend"? They'd think I was crazy.
Maybe I am crazy. Maybe I'm imagining things. Maybe there's a perfectly normal explanation and I'm overreacting because Marcus trained me to be afraid of everything.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
I nearly drop it from shock. An incoming call. The screen shows "Unknown Number."
My heart stops.
Nobody has this number except the library, Lily's school, and my landlord. I changed it when I left Marcus. I've been so careful.
The phone buzzes again. Should I answer? Should I ignore it?
What if it's important? What if it's about Lily's school?
What if it's him?
My finger hovers over the answer button. The phone buzzes a third time.
Fourth time.
I press answer and lift the phone to my ear. "Hello?"
Silence.
Then a man's voice. Familiar. Terrifying.
"Emma."
My blood turns to ice.
"I know what you received today."
The phone slips from my shaking hand and crashes onto the kitchen floor.