Chapter 3 - A Name Buried in the Past
I stared between the newspaper and the woman, trying to force logic back into my thoughts.
"This has to be some coincidence."
"There are many people who look alike."
She nodded calmly.
"That's exactly what I told myself twenty-two years ago."
"What?"
She slowly sat on the wooden bench.
"I was married once."
The words were almost lost beneath the wind.
"My husband was charming."
"He listened."
"He cooked."
"He helped my parents."
"He became exactly the man everyone wanted him to be."
Every sentence sounded painfully familiar.
Too familiar.
I felt my heartbeat accelerate.
"Then one night," she continued, "we traveled together."
"By train?"
She nodded.
"I woke up alone."
My mouth went dry.
"What happened?"
"No one ever found him."
I frowned.
"But the newspaper says his wife disappeared."
She looked directly into my eyes.
"That's the story he always leaves behind."
The coldness in her voice terrified me.
"He changes his name."
"He changes cities."
"He changes professions."
"But he always chooses women carrying old wounds."
"Women who desperately want peace."
I stepped backward.
"No."
She reached into her worn leather bag.
One by one she placed photographs onto the bench.
Different women.
Different decades.
Different hairstyles.
Different countries.
Every one of them smiling beside the same man.
Always slightly older.
Always using another name.
One photograph froze my blood.
It had been taken only six months earlier.
I recognized the café instantly.
It was the very café where my husband had first introduced himself to me.
Except...
The woman sitting beside him wasn't me.
She was another smiling brunette wearing an engagement ring.
Written across the back of the photo were only four chilling words.
"She never came home."
Before I could ask another question, headlights appeared beyond the abandoned station.
A black SUV rolled silently onto the empty road.
The colorful woman's face turned pale.
"They found us."
May you like
She grabbed my wrist with surprising strength.
"We have to disappear before he realizes you're still alive."
