The Song in the Dark

The heavy mahogany doors of Andrew’s private study slammed shut, cutting off the cries from the nursery wing where the estate’s trusted head nurse, Mrs. Gable, was calming the terrified twins.

Inside the study, rain lashed against the arched leaded glass windows. Andrew stood behind his desk, staring at Claire as if she were a specter constructed from his deepest grief and unhealed guilt.

""Start talking,"" Andrew commanded, his voice trembling with an equal measure of fury and agonizing hope.

Claire stood by the crackling fireplace, her maid’s apron stained with salt from the boys' tears. ""Seven years ago, when the twins were barely three months old, I was admitted to the St. Moritz sanatorium for postpartum recovery. You were in Tokyo negotiating the shipping merger.""

""You suffered a psychotic break,"" Evelyn interrupted, pacing near the bookshelf, her cobalt dress whispering against the Persian rug. ""You walked away into the mountains! The coroner found your burnt remains when the annex caught fire!""

""The fire was lit from the outside,"" Claire said, looking directly into Evelyn’s panic-widened eyes. ""I was heavily sedated and locked in the basement cellar. It was your father, Dr. Richard Vance, who falsified the medical chart and declared me criminally insane so Andrew could be pressured into a consortium merger with your family’s pharmaceutical firm.""

""That’s insane! She’s an imposter after your wealth, Andrew!"" Evelyn turned to him. ""Call the police!""

Andrew ignored Evelyn. He walked around the desk, stopping two feet from Claire. He stared into her hazel eyes—eyes that held a familiar constellation of flecks near the iris.

He slowly reached out a hand, his fingers stopping just shy of her right wrist. ""Show me your wrist.""

Claire pulled back the starched white cuff of the uniform sleeve. On her inner right forearm was a faint, jagged scar in the shape of a crescent moon—the result of a childhood fall on the shores of Lake Como, where they had first fallen in love.