Chapter 2 - The Corpse in the Coffin
The private booth at the back of a quiet diner three blocks away from the clinic felt less like a sanctuary and more like an interrogation room. Gemma sat across from me, sipping lukewarm black coffee through a straw, her jaw still swollen from whatever dental extraction she had undergone that morning.
“You have to believe me, Hannah,” she whispered, her voice cracking as she clutched my trembling hands. “I didn’t want to leave you. I never, ever wanted to leave.”
“Then why?” I choked out, tears blurring my vision as I stared at the face I had wept over for a decade. “Gemma, they found a body in that car. We identified the wreckage. We had a funeral! Mom and Dad... everyone fell apart!”
Gemma closed her eyes, a shudder wracking her frame. “It wasn’t my body, Hannah. That night on the highway... someone forced me off the road. A black SUV slammed into my quarter-panel. I rolled down the embankment just before the car caught fire, but before I could climb out, someone grabbed me from behind. A man. He threw a burlap sack over my head and dragged me into the woods.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Who?”
“I didn't know then. I don't fully know now,” she murmured, glancing nervously toward the diner windows. “They kept me locked in a basement facility in northern Wisconsin for three years. They stole my identity, my phone, my car—everything. The woman who died in that burning car... it wasn't me. It was a hitchhiker I had picked up twenty miles back to help her out. She had stolen my spare jacket and my purse when I went into a gas station restroom. When the car crashed and burned with her inside, everyone assumed it was me because my ID and jacket were right there.”
The room seemed to tilt sideways. The grief, the mourning, the anniversary ceremonies, the black dresses—it had all been built on a catastrophic, monstrous lie.
“Why didn't you escape sooner?” I asked, my voice barely audible over the hum of the diner refrigerator.
“Because they threatened you, Hannah,” Gemma whispered, a tear spilling over her lashes. “The second week I was held captive, the leader of the operation—a man who worked closely with our father’s corporate associates—showed me a live video feed of you walking home from your college apartment. He told me that the moment I tried to run, or the moment I contacted the police, you would be the one to pay the price. They staged the crash to look like an accident, but they made it clear it could easily become a murder.”
A cold, dark fury began to replace my shock. Our father. Before he passed away three years ago from a sudden heart attack, he had been a high-ranking executive in a massive international shipping logistics firm—a company heavily entangled in illegal cargo tracking and corporate espionage.
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“Dad knew,” I realized aloud, the horror dawning on me with crushing weight. “Dad knew you were alive, or at least he knew the truth about the crash.”
Gemma nodded grimly. “He helped cover it up to protect the company from a federal investigation. But three years ago, I finally managed to slip away during a transfer. I’ve been living off-grid, hiding under a false name, terrified to reach out because I knew they were still watching. But today... my tooth infection was so agonizing I had to risk going to a public clinic. And my phone died.” She looked up, her eyes pleading. “You were my only emergency contact I memorized by heart. I didn't know who else to trust.”
