“Are you Elena Maris?”
Her eyes remained fixed on the woman across the street.
The woman hadn’t moved.
She simply stood there, watching.
Elena whispered,
“Who is your mother?”
The little girl lowered her eyes.
“Her name is Rose.”
Elena’s face went white.
Rose.
The name she had buried twenty-two years ago.
Her younger sister.
Her best friend.
The person she had searched for until everyone told her to stop hoping.
“No…”
Elena shook her head.
“Rose died.”
The little girl looked confused.
“My mom says she didn’t.”
Elena’s eyes filled with tears.
“Where is she?”
The child finally pointed across the street.
The blonde woman slowly stepped forward.
One step.
Then another.
Elena’s hands began trembling.
The woman’s face became clearer.
And suddenly Elena recognized her.
The same blue eyes.
The same small scar above her eyebrow.
The same trembling smile.
“Rose…”
The woman stopped.
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Hello, Elena.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Twenty-two years disappeared in an instant.
She ran across the street.
The two sisters collapsed into each other’s arms, crying like children.
“I thought you were dead,” Elena sobbed.
“I wanted to come home,” Rose whispered. “But I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
Rose looked toward her daughter.
“Of losing her.”
The little girl walked toward them.
Rose gently took her hand.
“Her name is Lily.”
Elena looked at the child.
“Why did you send her to me?”
Rose reached beneath her coat and pulled out an old photograph.
It showed two young sisters standing beside a wooden sign.
ROSEWOOD ESTATE.
Elena stared at it.
Then Rose whispered,
“Because your pendant wasn’t just a family heirloom.”
Elena looked at her.
“What was it?”
Rose’s eyes filled with tears.
“It was the key to the truth about what happened to our family.”
She turned the old photograph over.
There was a handwritten message on the back.
Elena read it.
Her face suddenly changed.
Because beneath the message was a name neither sister had spoken in twenty-two years.
The name of the person who had destroyed their family.
And Lily quietly whispered:
“Mom… isn’t that the man who’s inside the hotel?”
