It was my baby picture.
“What is this?”
Carter finished pulling on a shirt and sweats. Both clung to his form in a way that would’ve distracted me thirty seconds earlier. He said, so gently, “The men told me about that man.”
I heard the shout again in my head. “Miss Nathans!”
“Oh.” I was six months old in the picture. I recognized it because AJ had given me a similar one. Only the backdrop was different. This picture had a tree and flowers in the background instead of a plain white wall. But it was me. Same dark eyes. I had light blond hair then. Some of it curled upward, like it was standing on top of my head, and my cheeks were plump and red.
I’d been happy in that picture. Tracing the image, I murmured, “AJ and I never really talked about our parents. He didn’t like to, so I never asked. The few times I did, he got really upset.”
Carter sat beside me and he took the picture, examining it for himself. “He never talked to me about them either.”
“Really?”
He nodded, handing the picture back. My breath caught at the look in his eye. It wasn’t…he rarely looked at me like that, but it was regret and sadness.
“That picture’s not of you, Emma,” he said.
I frowned. “What?”
He turned it over and showed me the back. Someone had written 1988.
“What?” I was born in 1986. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Emma, listen to me...”
I pulled out the other pictures—my old home, a smiling woman holding me—no, I double checked that picture, too. It was me, but dated 1989. I kept going. More pictures. All of me as I grew up. I shook my head. This wasn’t happening. AJ had had similar pictures of me, but I wore different clothes. His pictures had been of him and me, different times, different places.
Not these.
Then I came to one and froze. It was a woman. She was older—maybe early twenties—and she was standing with the man who had called my name twice as I got into the car, or at least the man I thought I’d seen. Biting down on my lip, I tried to remember. I hadn’t looked when he called “Miss Nathans” outside of Joe’s, and I hadn’t gotten a good enough look outside the gun range. The guard shielded him from my view. I held the picture up for Carter. “Who is that?”
“It’s the man trying to talk to you.”
On the back of the picture was written Andrea Nathans and Kevin Thorne. That couldn’t be, but…I turned it back around and stared hard at the woman. She had my eyes, my cheeks, my lips. She had my face and even stood how I did with her head tilted to the side and her chin up, just slightly. But her hair was lighter than mine, and her eyes were warm, friendly.
Mine were sad. It was a thing I’d noticed as I looked at my own pictures growing up. I’d been sad until…I glanced up at Carter—until now.
Lonely. That’s what I’d been.
This woman wasn’t lonely, but she had my face. Feeling so many knots in my stomach, I asked, “Who is she?”
Carter didn’t answer that question. Instead he said, “Kevin Thorne is a lawyer, and he hired a private detective to find you.”
I didn’t give a shit about Kevin Thorne. I raised the picture higher. “Who is she?” Carter’s eyes held mine over the photograph. They were understanding and sympathetic. I didn’t want to see his sympathy. I wanted answers. “Carter.”
“I’ve been in contact with the private detective. He’s the one who supplied us with these pictures.”
But they weren’t of me.
“Who. Is. She?”
“He said Mr. Thorne reached out to him years ago. He wanted him to find you, but he never could. He said there were no trails, no paperwork. He didn’t understand it until—”
Until Carter. Until my face became a permanent fixture with his in the media.
“—he was able to determine where you worked and also certain patterns. That’s how Kevin Thorne knew to wait for you outside of Joe’s and the gun range.” He hesitated for a beat. “Emma, I had my own guy check everything out. I had your hair sent in with a piece of hers for DNA testing. They tested everything.”
“Carter.” It was a soft warning, but I was gritting my teeth. If I didn’t get answers soon… My eyes flashed. “Cut the bullshit. Who is the woman?”
“Your sister.”
I had a sister.
They’d tested, and Carter had said it. I had a sister. I couldn’t…
I felt myself becoming numb. “Who is she? Are you sure?” I had a sister…
He nodded. “It was a match.” His hand cupped the side of my face. “I met you and AJ when we were little. AJ didn’t go to school, and I never thought about it. Hell, it wasn’t my place to question it. My own dad didn’t care, as long as I was out of his hair, but AJ made you go. I remember that now. There was a day you two were fighting about it. You wanted to stay home and play. He wanted you to go. He called you Ally that day.”
Ally.
“How old was I?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. You don’t remember?”
It was my turn to shake my head. “My memories are jumbled. I remember you coming over and sleeping on the couch. I remember getting excited when you were there and being worried if you didn’t come. I didn’t even care if you talked to me when you were there. You were there. You were safe. That’s what I remember. I hated when you left.”