They stopped us for speeding, but the policeman looked at my wife and then quietly asked me to get out of the car — his face went pale

At the moment when the policeman looked at my wife’s driver’s license, his face changed, and I realized that this was no longer an ordinary stop.

Red and blue flashes ran across the windshield. Rebecca stopped our car at the side of Highway Thirty-Five and grasped the steering wheel with both hands as if the car were trying to escape her.

“Excellent,” she whispered. “Your mother will remind us of this until the end of our lives.”

Usually, I would laugh at such a moment too. But that morning Rebecca was not smiling. The thin silver bracelet on her wrist had dug into her skin because she was gripping the wheel so tightly.

The officer knocked at her window.

“Driver’s license and registration, ma’am.”

Rebecca handed him the documents.

“The speed really was not that high,” she told him.

“We will determine that later.”

The officer returned to the patrol car. I watched him in the mirror. He looked at the screen, then at our car, then at the screen again and once more at Rebecca.

Rebecca sat frozen.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I’m just waiting for them to fine us.”

There was calmness in her voice, but her fingers were trembling. After thirteen years of marriage, I knew when she was lying.

A few minutes later the officer returned. Instead of Rebecca’s window, he knocked on mine.

“Sir, could you get out of the car?”

My stomach tightened.

Rebecca looked toward me, and I saw such fear in her eyes that disappeared immediately.

“Why?” I asked.

“I just have a few questions.”

He led me to the back of the car. By the roadside, dry grass brushed against the wind, while the rumble of trucks could be heard in the distance.

“Are you Nathan Brooks?”

“Yes.”

The officer tightened his jaw.

“This is not an official conversation. I may be mistaken.”

“What are you talking about?”

He glanced at Rebecca.

“Does your wife have family in Ohio?”

“As far as I know, no. Her mother lives here, but… why are you asking me?”

“I grew up in Ohio. Fifteen years ago, a girl disappeared there. Her photographs were everywhere.”

“What does that have to do with my wife?”

“It may have nothing to do with her at all.”

He took a small card from his pocket. On the back, the detective’s name and telephone number were written by hand.

“If you were in my place, you would call him.”

“Now explain it to me.”

The officer told me quietly:

“Sometimes a person leaves the past behind. Sometimes the past finds the person itself.”

Then he stepped back. A minute later he gave Rebecca only a warning and let us go.

All the way I turned the card over in my hand. Rebecca checked the mirrors. Twice she looked behind us, as if someone were following us.

That evening we had dinner at my mother Margaret Ellis’s house. There was roasted chicken on the table, and the smell of cinnamon filled the kitchen. Everything was too ordinary.

Margaret talked about the garden. Rebecca laughed and arranged the plates. But when the conversation turned to old photographs, her hand stopped beside the glass.

“Are you staying home today?” Rebecca asked my mother.

“If you help me, we can sort the photographs.”

At nine o’clock Rebecca suddenly said:

“I’ll stay here. I’ll help Mother arrange the old albums.”

“I’ll go home. I have to be at work early in the morning.”

Rebecca looked at me for a long time.

“Drive carefully.”

There was no warmth in her smile.

An hour later I was standing in the motel parking lot. The windows of Margaret’s house could be seen in the distance, while the detective’s card was covered with sweat in my hand.

I dialed the number.

“Detective Thomas Mercer speaking.”

“This is Nathan Brooks.”

The line fell silent for several seconds.

“I knew you would call.”

“What’s happening?”

“I can’t tell you over the phone. Come to Ohio in the morning.”

“Why?”

The detective exhaled heavily.

“Because if my assumption is correct, returning to your home will be the most dangerous decision you have ever made.”

The next morning I drove for three hours. Mercer was waiting for me at a small police station. He had sunken shadows under his eyes and was tapping an old, folded file on the desk with his fingers.

“Sit down, Mr. Brooks.”

“First tell me who my wife is.”

Mercer placed the file in front of me, but did not try to open it.

“Before you see this, you need to know one thing. Last night your wife called our station twice.”

“What did she say?”

The detective locked the door and drew the curtains.

“She knew you would come here. And she said that if I opened the file, you would never return home.”

His hand reached toward the file’s clasp…

Mercer’s fingers touched the clasp, but at that same moment heavy footsteps sounded in the corridor.

“Is someone else here?” I asked.

“The door is locked,” he replied.

“Then who is walking outside?”

Mercer did not answer me. He hid the file in a drawer and turned on a small recorder.

“Record this. Rebecca is preparing something against you.”

“Against me?”

“Several weeks ago the insurance company received a new policy on your life. The beneficiary is your wife.”

I jumped up from the chair.

“That’s impossible. I signed nothing.”

“That is exactly why I need to talk to you. The signature is forged.”

Someone knocked on the door three times.

Mercer put a finger to his lips. Then he opened a metal cabinet and hid me inside. The smell of dust and old paper tightened my throat.

The door opened.

“Detective,” a woman’s voice sounded. “Is Nathan already here?”

Rebecca.

Mercer answered calmly:

“No one has come here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Completely.”

Her footsteps entered the room. Through the cabinet’s small hole I saw her place a black bag on the desk.

“If you show him the file, my mother will lose everything,” Rebecca said. “You will too.”

Mercer asked quietly:

“That sounds like a threat.”

“A warning.”

Rebecca left. Only then did Mercer take me out.

“Now you have no choice,” he told me. “Today you will learn everything.”

He opened the file, but at the sight of the very first page, the telephone rang. My home number appeared on the screen.

Mercer answered.

My wife’s voice sounded from the other side:

“Nathan, if you want to see your mother alive, return home alone…”

Rebecca’s breathing could be heard from the other side. Then Margaret’s hoarse voice sounded.

“Nathan, please, don’t come…”

Rebecca immediately muffled her voice.

“Mother, be quiet.”

Mercer put the phone on speaker.

“Rebecca, where is Margaret?” I asked.

“At home. And now you have to decide whom you want to lose.”

“What did you do?”

“You always asked too many questions.”

Mercer motioned with one hand for me to be quiet. With the other, he opened the file. On the first page was an old photograph of a child. A fifteen-year-old girl stood in the photograph, with a small copper elephant-shaped pendant hanging around her neck.

The girl’s face was Rebecca’s face.

“Who is this?” I whispered.

“Emily Hart,” Mercer said. “She disappeared from Ohio fifteen years ago. Age, eye color, the shape of the jaw… everything matches.”

He took another sheet from the file.

“This is her DNA comparison. The sample was taken from an old toothbrush that your wife gave to the police several months ago, when there was a burglary at Margaret’s house.”

“The result?”

Mercer looked straight at me.

“Rebecca Brooks does not exist. Your wife is Emily Hart.”

The sound of blood came to my ears. Thirteen years of memories turned in one second into foreign scenes: her refusal to talk about childhood photographs, the locked drawer, the same day every year when she disappeared from the house.

Rebecca’s voice came from the telephone.

“Nathan, can you still hear me?”

“Why did you lie to me?”

“Because no one needed the truth.”

Mercer took a small memory card from the file and inserted it into the computer. An old audio recording began playing on the screen.

Rebecca’s voice was clearly audible:

“The policy will take effect on Friday. When he dies, everything will be over.”

Then Margaret asked:

“What if he suspects?”

“We will drive the car off the road. They will say he was driving tired.”

I sat down on the chair. Mercer’s face hardened.

“When was this recording made?”

“Three days ago. Margaret secretly gave it to us.”

Rebecca was silent on the telephone. Then her voice changed.

“You were setting a trap for me.”

“You wanted to kill me,” I said.

“I wanted freedom.”

“Freedom through murder?”

“You will never understand what it means to live under someone else’s name.”

Mercer told me quietly:

“Stay on the line. The team is already on its way.”

But Rebecca heard his words.

“Nathan, I left an explosive device in the house.”

“You’re lying to me.”

“In the kitchen wall, beside the gas pipe. If you bring the police, the timer will start.”

Mercer stood up.

“I will call the city service.”

Rebecca laughed.

“You forgot, detective? The device is not only in the house.”

The line went dead.

At that moment a message arrived on Mercer’s telephone. He looked at the screen and the color drained from his face.

“What happened?” I asked.

He turned the screen toward me. The message contained only one sentence: “If you come to my house, the first explosion will be in Margaret’s room.”

Mercer called a soldier, but before he left the room another message arrived. This time it was a photograph.

The photograph showed my empty house. By the window stood Rebecca, turning the same copper pendant in her hand.

Mercer said in a low voice:

“She is not acting alone. And now we know where the second person is hiding…”