Because I think you’re my daughter.
Because I have waited 15 years to ask you anything at all.
Because the shape of your face is my history and your voice is splitting my life open.
Margaret could not say any of that. So what came out was smaller, stranger, and still too much.
“I think you may remember more than you realize.”
Sarah stepped back.
“I have to go,” she said.
Then she turned and walked quickly away toward the stand.
When Margaret returned to Jon, he took one look at her face and led her immediately behind a vendor truck where they could not be seen from the open market lane.
“What happened?”
“I talked to her,” Margaret said. “Jon, it’s her. She has the scar on her chin. She remembered the gardening methods. And when I asked about before the farm…” She swallowed. “She got scared.”
Jon’s face tightened.
Before he could answer, the market shifted.
The sisters were suddenly packing up. Fast. Not the ordinary end-of-day efficiency Margaret had seen before. This was frantic. Purposeful. The pickup bed filled with baskets, crates, folding tables, all of it loaded at a speed that spoke of alarm rather than schedule.
Then a second vehicle rolled out from the far edge of the parking lot.
A newer sedan with tinted windows.
As it passed their hiding place, Margaret saw Robert Greenfield behind the wheel.
“He was here the whole time,” she whispered. “Watching them.”
“And now he knows someone is asking questions,” Jon said grimly.
They got to their car fast enough to follow without being obvious. The pickup and sedan left town heading east. Past the familiar road toward the farm. Past the turnoff itself. Deeper into the mountains.
“Where are they going?” Margaret asked, map open in her lap.
“Somewhere we can’t follow without being seen.”
At the next bend, both vehicles vanished.
By the time Jon reached it, there was no sign of either one on the road.
“There,” Margaret said suddenly, pointing to a narrow dirt track barely visible through brush.
Fresh tire marks cut into the dust.
Jon studied it through the binoculars.
“That’s not a road,” he said. “Logging access maybe. Fire trail.”
“Then they’re hiding.”
Margaret pulled out her phone and dialed 911.
