Chapter 3 - The Ghost of the Past
Robert’s heart slammed against his ribs with the force of a hydraulic press.
He threw the car door open, ignoring the rain that instantly soaked his tailored Italian wool suit. The cold wind bit at his skin, but he didn't feel it. He strode across the wet gravel, his eyes locked on the small figure slumped against the stone pillar.
"Hey," Robert said, his voice dropping an octave, rougher than he intended. "Who are you?"
The girl’s eyelids fluttered. She was shivering so violently now that her teeth clicked together. She tried to pull her ruined coat tighter, but her fingers lacked the strength.
"You... you look like her," the girl whispered, her voice cracking into a dry cough. "Grandma said... said you had eyes like the sea before a storm."
Robert stopped dead in his tracks.
Sea before a storm.
Those were Clara's exact words to him during their first summer in Cape Cod, seventeen years ago. Nobody else knew that phrase. It was a private joke between the two of them, born from an argument about whether his gray eyes were blue or green.
"Where did you hear that?" Robert demanded, dropping to one knee directly into a puddle. The water soaked through the knees of his trousers, but he didn't care. He grabbed the girl gently by her thin shoulders. Her skin burned like a live coal. "Who told you to say that?"
"Grandma... Rose," the girl gasped, her eyes rolling back slightly as exhaustion threatened to pull her under. "She... she said if I ever got too cold... to find the man behind the iron gates. She said... your name was Robert Miller."
The name hit him like a physical blow.
Rose.
Clara’s mother had been named Rose. But Rose had cut all ties with Robert when Clara disappeared. She had blamed him entirely, screaming at him in the hospital corridor, telling him he would never see any trace of them ever again. For a decade, Robert’s investigators had searched for Rose and Clara without a single lead, as if they had dissolved into smoke.
And now, a starving child with Clara's face and Clara's words was dying on his doorstep.
"Thomas!" Robert roared, his voice cutting through the storm. "Bring the car around! Now! Open the back door and turn the heater on high!"
Thomas, who had never seen his unflappable employer lose control, scrambled out of the driver's seat with wide eyes. "Yes, sir! Right away, sir!"
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Robert didn't wait for the car to move. He scooped the girl into his arms. She weighed almost nothing—just a fragile bundle of bones and wet fabric. As he lifted her, her head fell against his shoulder, and a small, folded piece of paper slipped from her pocket, landing softly in the mud.
Robert scooped her closer, ignoring the mud, and carried her straight into the Bentley.
