Emma's POV
The coffee cup slips from my hand and shatters across the kitchen floor.
I don't even notice. My eyes are glued to the postcard in my other hand—the one that shouldn't exist, from a person who's been dead for eight years.
"I never left. Come find me. —S"
"Mommy?" Lily's voice breaks through my frozen panic. My six-year-old daughter stands in the doorway, her backpack hanging off one shoulder, eyes wide with worry. "Are you okay?"
I shove the postcard behind my back like it's on fire. "I'm fine, sweetie. Just clumsy." I force a smile that feels like cracking glass. "Ready for school?"
But I'm not fine. Nothing about this is fine.
Six hours earlier, my morning started like every other morning for the past three years. Wake up. Make breakfast. Pack Lily's lunch. Drop her at Riverside Elementary. Work my shift at Cornerstone Books. Come home. Check every lock twice. Breathe.
That's my life now—small, quiet, safe. Exactly what I need after escaping Ryan.
Ryan. Just thinking his name makes my chest tight. My ex-husband wasn't the kind of monster you see in movies. He never hit me. Never screamed. He was worse. He made me doubt everything—my memories, my thoughts, my sanity. By the time I finally left him three years ago, I didn't even trust myself anymore.
But I'm better now. I go to therapy every week. I take care of Lily. I don't let Ryan's poison words live in my head anymore.
At least, I didn't until today.
I found the postcard in my mailbox after work, buried under junk mail and bills. The front shows a faded photo of Camp Hollow—the old summer camp where I spent every summer as a kid. The place where Sophie drowned eight years ago.
Sophie Bennett. My best friend since we were seven. The girl who knew all my secrets, who made me laugh until I cried, who promised we'd be friends forever.
Forever ended when she died at twenty-four.
I went to her funeral. I cried so hard I couldn't breathe. I watched them lower her empty casket into the ground because they never found her body in the lake.
So how is this postcard real? How is her handwriting staring back at me?
"I never left. Come find me. —S"
"Mommy, we're going to be late!" Lily tugs on my sleeve, snapping me back to the present.
"Right. Sorry, baby." I tuck the postcard into my purse with shaking hands and grab the car keys.
The drive to Lily's school usually calms me. I love watching her chatter about her friends, her teachers, the butterfly she saw yesterday. She's my whole world—the only pure, good thing I've ever created.
But today, I can barely focus. The postcard burns like a secret in my purse.
"Miss Emma?" Lily's teacher, Mrs. Henderson, waves from the school entrance as Lily runs inside. "Is everything alright? You look pale."
"Just tired," I lie. I'm getting good at lying lately. Three years of hiding from Ryan taught me that.
Work drags by in a blur. I shelve books at Cornerstone without seeing their titles. My boss, Mr. Chen, asks me twice if I'm feeling sick. I tell him I'm fine, but my hands won't stop shaking.
During my lunch break, I pull out the postcard again. I study Sophie's handwriting—the loopy 'S' she always made, the way she dotted her 'i's with little circles. It's perfect. Too perfect.
Someone is messing with me. But who? And why now?
Ryan. It has to be Ryan. He's the only person cruel enough to use Sophie's death against me. He knows she was my best friend. He knows I blamed myself for not being there when she needed me.
That summer eight years ago, I was so wrapped up in my new relationship with Ryan that I ignored Sophie's calls. She kept saying something was wrong, that she was scared, but I didn't listen. I chose a boy over my best friend.
Two weeks later, she was dead.
Ryan loved reminding me of that guilt. "You abandoned her," he'd whisper during our marriage. "You let her die alone. What kind of friend does that?"
I grip the postcard so hard it crumples. This is exactly something he would do—hire someone to forge Sophie's handwriting, send me a postcard to make me think I'm going crazy. Then he can go back to court and say I'm unstable, that I shouldn't have custody of Lily.
I won't let him win. Not this time.
After work, I pick up Lily from school. She's unusually quiet in the car, drawing in her notebook instead of talking.
"What are you drawing, sweetie?"
"Just a picture," she says, not looking up.
At home, I make mac and cheese for dinner—Lily's favorite. She eats slowly, still focused on her drawing. I try to act normal, but the postcard weighs on me like a stone.
"Mommy, can I show you something?" Lily holds up her notebook.
My blood turns to ice.
She's drawn a woman with long blonde hair standing by a lake. The woman is smiling. She looks exactly like the photos I have of Sophie.
"Who... who is that?" My voice comes out strangled.
"The pretty lady I saw today." Lily says it so casually, like she's talking about a butterfly. "She was at my school during recess. She stood by the fence and watched us play. She smiled at me like this." Lily gives a big, warm smile—the same smile Sophie used to give.
The room spins. I grip the edge of the table.
"Lily, what did this lady look like?"
"She had really long yellow hair and pretty blue eyes. She wore a blue jacket. When I waved at her, she waved back. But then Mrs. Henderson blew the whistle and when I looked again, she was gone."
Sophie had blonde hair. Sophie had blue eyes. Sophie's favorite color was blue.
But Sophie is dead.
"Did she say anything to you?" I try to keep my voice calm even though I'm screaming inside.
"No, she just smiled. But Mommy, she looked sad. Like she was crying but trying not to."
I can't breathe. This isn't possible. Someone is playing a sick game, and now they're involving my daughter.
After I tuck Lily into bed, I sit at my kitchen table staring at the postcard and Lily's drawing side by side. The woman in the drawing looks so real, so detailed. Lily isn't a good enough artist to make this up. She saw someone.
But it can't be Sophie. It can't.
My phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number.
My heart stops as I read it: "Your daughter has her mother's eyes. So trusting. So innocent. Keep ignoring me, Emma, and next time I won't just wave. —S"
The phone slips from my trembling fingers.
Someone was watching Lily. Someone is threatening my daughter. And they're using Sophie's name to do it.
I run to Lily's room. She's sleeping peacefully, her drawing notebook on the nightstand. I check her window—locked. I check the closet—empty. I check under the bed—nothing.
But I don't feel safe. I'll never feel safe again.
I grab my phone and pull up a number I swore I'd never call. A number I haven't used in ten years. My finger hovers over it, shaking.
Nathan Cross. My first love. Sophie's other best friend. The boy I abandoned without explanation a decade ago because Ryan convinced me Nathan was dangerous, obsessed, unstable.
I believed Ryan then. But Ryan's been lying to me for years.
What if Nathan is the only person who can help me now?
What if he's the only one who'll believe me when I say Sophie might be alive?
Or what if calling him is the biggest mistake I'll ever make?
I stare at Nathan's name on my screen, my thumb hovering over the call button. Outside my window, a shadow moves across my yard. I freeze.
Someone is out there. Watching. Waiting.
My phone buzzes again. Another text from the unknown number: "Tick tock, Emma. The clock is running out. Camp Hollow. Tomorrow night. Midnight. Come alone, or I'll come for her."
Below the message is a photo that makes my heart stop completely.
It's Lily. Sleeping in her bed. Taken from inside her bedroom window.
Tonight.
Right now.
Someone is in my house.