Chapter 2 - The Ghost from the PastThe word hung in the air like a live grenade. Wife.
Adrian froze, his breath catching in his throat. The room seemed to tilt on its axis. He stared at the woman in front of him—the frumpy clothes, the drab hair, the fake posture. He flashed back to five years ago, to the night a burning car plunged off the coastal cliff, claiming the life of his first wife, Clara, the mother of his child.
"That’s impossible," Adrian rasped, taking a violent step backward. "Clara is dead. We buried an empty casket. The police found her DNA in the wreckage."
"The police found what Vanessa wanted them to find," Elena said smoothly, wrenching her arms free from the stunned guards with a sudden display of raw strength that caught them entirely off guard. She stepped forward, pulling off her oversized glasses and letting her hair cascade down her shoulders.
The resemblance was undeniable. The bone structure, the fierce emerald eyes, the fierce tilt of the head. It wasn't just a resemblance—it was her. Clara Whitmore had risen from the dead.
Vanessa shrieked, pointing a shaking finger at Elena. "She’s an imposter! Adrian, don't listen to her! It’s a plastic surgery scam! She’s a gold-digger who read about Clara’s death and changed her face to steal our fortune!"
"Shut your lying mouth, Vanessa," Sophie interrupted, stepping away from Elena and walking toward an antique mahogany toy chest in the corner of the room. "She didn't change her face. She just hid it so she could find the truth."
Adrian stood paralyzed, his mind racing at a million miles an hour. If Clara was alive, why did she return as a maid? Why hide in her own house?
"You want to know why I came back, Adrian?" Clara—formerly Elena—stepped closer to him, her voice trembling with barely suppressed rage. "Because on the night your precious Vanessa tried to murder me, she didn't just push my car off that cliff. She took everything from me. And she left something behind."
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Sophie threw open the heavy lid of the toy chest. She reached past stuffed animals and wooden blocks, pulling out a loose floorboard at the very bottom. From the dark cavity beneath, she extracted a small, heavy black box.
Vanessa’s face drained of every drop of color. She lunged forward like a striking viper. "Get that! Take it from her! Destroy it!"
