Emma's POV
I delete the photo immediately.
My thumb smashes the delete button so hard my phone screen cracks. The image of Lily on the playground disappears, but it's burned into my brain. Someone stood outside my daughter's school today. Someone watched her swing and laugh and play. Someone took her picture.
My hands won't stop shaking.
I need to call the school. Warn them. Tell them to watch for strangers. But it's already five o'clock. The office is closed. Everyone went home.
Everyone except whoever took that photo.
I pace the kitchen floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. My mind races faster than my feet. Should I call the police now? Show them the text? But I deleted it. Stupid. So stupid. That was evidence and I destroyed it.
Marcus would laugh at that. He always said I was too emotional. Too reactive. That I made things worse by panicking instead of thinking.
Marcus.
My phone rings again. Same Unknown Number as the first call. The one I blocked.
But blocked numbers can't call. Can they?
I stare at the screen. It keeps ringing. Four times. Five. Six.
I answer. I don't know why. Maybe because I need to know for sure.
"Hello?"
"Emma, sweetheart." His voice drips with false concern. "Why did you block my number? That's not very nice."
My stomach lurches. It's him. Marcus. After three years of silence, he's back.
"How did you get this number?" My voice comes out steady. Stronger than I feel.
"How did I?" He laughs. That soft, cruel laugh I used to hear in my nightmares. "Emma, I've always had your number. Did you really think changing it would stop me? I'm hurt. After everything we meant to each other."
"We don't mean anything to each other. Not anymore."
"That's where you're wrong." His voice shifts. Harder now. "We have a daughter together. That means we're connected forever. You can't run from that."
Lily. He's talking about Lily. My chest tightens.
"You have no rights to her. The court took them away."
"Courts make mistakes." He sounds amused. "Courts can be convinced to change their minds. Especially when a mother is clearly unstable."
There it is. The game begins. Make Emma doubt herself. Make Emma seem crazy.
"I'm not unstable," I say through gritted teeth.
"Really? So you're not seeing things that aren't there? You're not receiving messages from dead people?"
My blood turns cold. "How do you know about"
"The postcard?" He finishes my sentence. "Emma, sweetheart, you're imagining things again. Just like before. Remember how you used to imagine I was following you? Remember how you thought I moved your things? You were sick then. You're sick now."
"I'm not imagining anything!" I grab the postcard from the counter and stare at it. "The postcard is real. I'm holding it."
"Of course you think it's real. That's how delusions work. Your mind creates things to cope with stress." His voice softens into that therapeutic tone. "You've been under so much pressure, raising Lily alone. Working that little library job. Pretending everything is fine when you're barely holding it together. Your brain is manufacturing evidence of threats that don't exist."
"Dead people don't send postcards," I whisper. But I'm not sure anymore. He's making me doubt again.
"Exactly!" Marcus sounds pleased. "Dead people don't send postcards. So obviously, someone is playing a prank on you. Or more likely, you wrote it yourself and forgot. Just like how you used to write yourself notes and not remember."
"I never did that."
"You did. Many times. I have documentation. Your therapist has documentation."
"You were my therapist! You manipulated everything I said!"
"Emma." His voice turns disappointed. "Don't start with the conspiracy theories. That's a symptom too. Paranoid thinking. Believing everyone is out to get you."
I want to throw the phone. Want to scream. But Lily is upstairs. I can't let her hear me lose control.
"Stop calling me, Marcus."
"I'm just trying to help. I'm worried about you. About Lily. A child needs stability. She needs a parent who can tell what's real and what's imagination."
"I know what's real."
"Do you? Because from where I'm standing, you're falling apart again. Getting strange postcards. Blocking numbers. Panicking over nothing. That's not a stable environment for a child."
The threat Is clear. He'll use this. He'll use my fear against me. He'll tell a judge I'm seeing things, imagining threats, not fit to be a mother.
"I have to go."
"Emma, wait"
I hang up. Block the number again. Then I block every Unknown Number I can find in my settings. My hands shake so badly I can barely work the phone.
He's right about one thing. I am falling apart.
But I'm not imagining things. The postcard is real. The photo of Lily was real. The calls are real.
Unless they're not.
No. Stop it. Don't let him in your head.
I look at the postcard again. Study every detail. The image of Riverside Lake looks professional, like it came from a tourist shop. The handwriting looks like Kara's, but handwriting can be faked. The message is vague. "Find me where we made our promises." Anyone who knew me and Kara could have written that.
And the date in tiny pencil at the corner. 10/30. Tomorrow.
Wait.
I bring the postcard closer to my face. The date is written in pencil, not pen. The rest of the message is in pen. Why would someone switch to pencil for just the date?
Unless the date was added later. After the postcard was written.
I grab a magnifying glass from my junk drawer and examine the postcard under my kitchen light. The pencil marks are faint. Smudged slightly, like someone rubbed their finger over them.
Fresh. The date is fresh. Added recently.
But when? The postcard came in today's mail. So someone wrote the date before mailing it. Or
Or someone added it after it arrived.
The thought makes my skin crawl. Did someone come to my mailbox after the mail carrier left? Did someone stand at the end of my driveway, add a date to the postcard, and put it back?
I run to the front door and look out the window. The street is empty now. Mrs. Chen is gone. The mailman is gone. The bike-riding kid is gone.
No one's there.
But someone could have been there earlier. Someone could have watched me walk to the mailbox. Someone could have waited until I went inside.
I check my mailbox camera. The one I installed six months ago because I'm paranoid. Because Marcus made me paranoid.
I pull up the footage on my phone app. There3:47 PM. The mail carrier puts mail in the box and drives away. The box stays closed for three minutes. Then at 3:50, a hand reaches into the frame. A person I can't see. The camera angle is wrong. They reach into the mailbox. Stay there for maybe ten seconds. Then pull back and disappear.
My breath catches.
Someone was at my mailbox. Someone tampered with my mail.
I rewind and play it again. Slower this time. The hand is wearing a glove. Black. I can't see anything else. No face. No body. Just a gloved hand reaching in, doing something, then leaving.
Adding the date.
But why? Why add tomorrow's date? What happens tomorrow? What am I supposed to find at the lake?
My phone buzzes. Not a call this time. A text.
I don't recognize the number. It's not one I've blocked yet.
The message has three words: "Don't trust him."
My heart pounds. Don't trust who? Marcus?
Another text appears: "He's lying about everything."
I type back with shaking fingers: "Who is this?"
Three dots appear. Someone's typing. I hold my breath.
The response makes my world tilt: "The funeral was fake. I'm alive. I need your help. Please come tomorrow. Alone. K"
I drop the phone.
Kara. It can't be. It's impossible.
But what if it's true?
What if Marcus is lying? What if Kara somehow survived? What if she's been hiding for seven years and now she needs me?
Or what if this is exactly what Marcus wants me to think? What if he's behind all of this? The postcard. The texts. The calls. What if he's setting a trap and I'm walking right into it?
I pick up the phone with trembling hands. Type: "Prove you're Kara."
The response comes instantly: "You have a scar on your left knee from when we climbed the fence at the fairgrounds. You were wearing your brother's jacket because you forgot yours. I told you not to climb but you did anyway. You cried because you thought you'd get in trouble for ripping the jacket. I told your parents I ripped it. No one else knows that story."
My vision blurs. That's true. All of it. We were fifteen. I still have the scar.
Only Kara knows that story.
Unless I told Marcus. Did I? I can't remember. He made me tell him everything about my past. Every story. Every secret. Every memory.
He could know.
But what if he doesn't? What if this really is Kara?
I type: "Where have you been?"
"Hiding. From him. He tried to kill me. Made everyone think I died. I'll explain tomorrow. Please, Emma. I know you're scared. I know you don't know what to believe. But I'm real. I'm alive. And I need you."
Tears stream down my face. I want to believe it so badly. Want Kara back. Want my best friend who I lost seven years ago.
But wanting something doesn't make it real.
I walk upstairs to check on Lily. My legs feel like rubber. When I open her bedroom door, she's asleep, curled up with her stuffed bunny. So innocent. So perfect.
I close the door softly and go to my own room. I set my phone on the nightstand and stare at the ceiling. Sleep feels impossible.
But I must drift off eventually because I wake up suddenly, heart racing. Something pulled me from sleep. A noise? A dream?
Then I see her.
Lily stands beside my bed in her pajamas. She's holding a piece of paper. Her eyes are huge and scared.
"Mommy," she whispers. "Who's the lady in the red jacket who was watching our house tonight?"