Chapter 2 - THE MOTHER WHO BURIED AN EMPTY COFFIN"Tell me you're joking, Lawrence."
Victor Hale's voice sounded strained through the phone.
Lawrence stood alone inside a small conference room at Northcrest Academy.
"I'm not joking."
"That's impossible."
"I saw her."
"Are you certain?"
Lawrence closed his eyes.
"She has Abigail's eyes. She has Gold's face. And the woman raising her is Miriam Brooks."
There was a long silence.
Victor finally spoke.
"Then Miriam broke our agreement."
Lawrence approached the window.
Outside, students were crossing the courtyard beneath the bright Georgia sunshine.
Diamond was among them.
She carried her backpack with both straps over her shoulders, walking beside a boy who appeared to be explaining something on a tablet.
She looked happy.
Ordinary.
Completely unaware that the man watching her from above had once decided she should disappear.
"What do you want me to do?" Victor asked.
Lawrence swallowed.
"Find out why she's here."
"And if someone recognizes her?"
Lawrence's jaw tightened.
"Then we make sure nobody believes what they see."
Seventeen years earlier, Abigail Whitmore had gone into labor at St. Catherine's Medical Center.
She was thirty years old, expecting identical twin girls, and convinced that motherhood would be the happiest chapter of her life.
She and Lawrence had prepared an enormous nursery in their newly purchased mansion.
Two white cribs stood side by side.
Two rocking chairs occupied opposite corners.
Above each crib hung a delicate silver nameplate.
GOLD.
DIAMOND.
Abigail had chosen both names.
Her grandmother had once told her that every child arrived carrying a treasure the world had not yet discovered.
"Gold and Diamond," Abigail had said, resting her hands over her enormous belly. "Two precious gifts."
Lawrence had smiled.
At the time, he had not imagined how much he would come to despise one of those names.
The birth was complicated.
Abigail suffered severe bleeding during an emergency cesarean delivery and needed immediate medical intervention.
Both babies were born alive.
Gold was healthy.
Diamond required additional observation, but her condition was stable.
When Lawrence first saw them, they were lying beneath warm hospital lights.
Gold had smooth brown skin.
Diamond had unusual areas of lighter pigmentation that would later become more pronounced and be diagnosed as vitiligo.
Lawrence stared at the second child.
"What's wrong with her skin?"
The nurse looked surprised.
"She's breathing well, Mr. Whitmore. The doctors will examine the pigmentation changes."
"But why does she look like that?"
"Skin differences don't determine a child's health or worth."
Lawrence barely heard her.
He was thinking about photographs.
Public appearances.
The expectations of his wealthy relatives.
What people might say.
When a physician later explained that the unusual pigmentation was not contagious and did not make Diamond less deserving of a healthy, fulfilling life, Lawrence responded with only one question.
"Will the marks disappear?"
The physician could not promise that they would.
Lawrence walked out of the consultation room furious.
And while Abigail remained unconscious after surgery, he began making telephone calls.
By the following evening, he had contacted Victor Hale, a hospital administrator with serious financial problems and even more serious ethical weaknesses.
Victor knew someone who could falsify administrative records.
Lawrence knew how much money Victor needed.
A terrible agreement followed.
Diamond would be removed from the hospital through a fraudulent private placement.
The paperwork would falsely suggest that Abigail had consented.
A separate death record would be created to support the story Lawrence intended to tell his wife.
Miriam Brooks, a nurse who had helped care for the twins, was told that the child's parents had chosen adoption and that a legal placement had been arranged.
Miriam had recently lost her husband.
She had always dreamed of becoming a mother.
When she saw Diamond sleeping peacefully beneath her blanket, she felt an immediate connection to her.
She agreed to raise the baby.
She did not know that Abigail was lying in another hospital room, desperately fighting to survive.
Three days later, Abigail regained enough strength to ask about her daughters.
Lawrence took her hand.
"Gold is beautiful."
Abigail smiled weakly.
"And Diamond?"
Lawrence looked away.
"Abby..."
Something in his voice frightened her.
"Where's Diamond?"
He lowered his head.
"She didn't make it."
Abigail stared at him.
"No."
"Her condition worsened."
"No, Lawrence."
"I'm so sorry."
Abigail began crying.
She begged to see her daughter.
But Lawrence told her the hospital had already completed the necessary procedures and advised against viewing the body.
He repeated the lie so many times that eventually even he could speak it without hesitation.
There was a funeral.
There were flowers.
There was a tiny white coffin.
And inside it, there was no child.
In the present, Abigail sat at the breakfast table of the Whitmore mansion, examining photographs on her phone.
She was forty-seven now.
Elegant, composed, and admired for her charitable work.
But certain dates still hurt her.
Every September twelfth, she visited a small memorial garden behind their home.
She placed two roses beneath a stone angel.
One for the daughter she could embrace.
One for the daughter she believed heaven had taken.
That morning, a photograph from Northcrest Academy had appeared on a parent's social media page.
It showed Dr. Ward standing beside a scholarship student.
Abigail enlarged the image.
Her fingers stopped moving.
The girl's facial features were almost identical to Gold's.
But what struck Abigail most was her expression.
The familiar tilt of the head.
The thoughtful eyes.
The slight smile Abigail sometimes caught on Gold's face when her daughter forgot anyone was watching.
"Who is this?" Abigail whispered.
Gold entered the room carrying a glass of orange juice.
"Morning, Mom."
Abigail looked up.
"Sweetheart, come here."
Gold approached.
"What?"
Abigail turned the screen toward her.
"Do you know this girl?"
Gold rolled her eyes.
"Unfortunately."
"What's her name?"
"Diamond Brooks."
The glass nearly slipped from Abigail's hand.
"Diamond?"
"Yes. Weird name, right?"
Abigail said nothing.
Gold continued.
"She's some scholarship student. Apparently, she's supposed to be a genius."
Abigail stared at the photograph.
"How old is she?"
"Seventeen."
"And where is she from?"
"I don't know. Somewhere on the west side, I think."
Abigail's breathing changed.
Gold frowned.
"Mom?"
"Did you say her name was Diamond?"
"Yes."
Abigail slowly set down her phone.
For seventeen years, she had imagined what her second daughter might have looked like if she had survived.
Would she have Gold's eyes?
Would she wear her hair the same way?
Would she laugh like her sister?
Now she was staring at a girl who seemed to answer every question.
But Abigail had lived with grief long enough to fear false hope.
She forced herself to smile.
"She's very pretty."
Gold shrugged.
"I guess."
"Be kind to her."
"Mom, you don't understand. She showed up looking exactly like me. Everyone keeps talking about it."
"That isn't her fault."
Gold sighed and left the room.
Abigail remained seated.
When Lawrence entered twenty minutes later, she was still studying the photograph.
He noticed immediately.
"What are you looking at?"
Abigail turned the screen toward him.
"Have you seen this girl?"
Lawrence stopped.
For one terrible moment, he forgot how to speak.
Abigail watched his face.
She saw the shock.
The fear.
The guilt that flashed across his expression before he managed to conceal it.
"She's a student," he said.
Abigail's voice trembled.
"She has Gold's face."
"Coincidences happen."
"Her name is Diamond."
Lawrence reached for his coffee.
"So?"
Abigail stood slowly.
"Lawrence, look at me."
He did not move.
She approached him.
"Seventeen years ago, I buried a daughter named Diamond."
Her eyes filled with tears.
"And yesterday, a girl with that same name and my daughter's face walked into Gold's school."
Lawrence stared at her.
May you like
Abigail whispered:
"Tell me why you're afraid of her."
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