Sara Shepard - Stunning

Shaking out her umbrella and pushing back the hood of her raincoat, Emily stepped into the foyer of the house she’d obsessed over for the past seven months. It was empty, and only a few hints of the Bakers remained. The air smelled like a peppermint candle and Windex. The walls were painted a cheerful blue, and in the open closet was a blue plastic wrapper for the Philadelphia Sentinel . There were tiny scratches in the golden wooden floor from dog toenails, and someone had left a God’s-eye string ornament hanging over the door.

Emily stared at the brass strip that separated the tiled foyer from the wooden living room floor, afraid to step any further into the house. Was she really ready to see this place?

Aria turned to Emily, as if sensing her apprehension. “Are you okay?”

“Uh huh,” Emily said woozily. “Thanks for meeting me here.”

“No problem.” An uneasy look swept over Aria’s face, but when she noticed Emily looking at her, she quickly smiled again.

“Are you okay?” Emily asked.

Aria’s jaw trembled. “I don’t want to bother you with it. You’ve got enough going on.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Come on. What?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Aria leaned in closer, her feather earrings brushing against Emily’s cheek. “Well, okay. I got a note from A about an hour ago.”

Emily’s mouth dropped open. “What did it say?”

Aria pressed her glossy lips together. “It doesn’t matter. Just some stupid stuff. But I was at Noel’s house, and A took a picture of something at the end of Noel’s driveway. A was so close , and I missed seeing who it was.”

A shiver snaked up Emily’s spine. “Remember the note I got on my car at the covered bridge? The one with the picture of me and Tabitha? A was close then, too.”

Aria skirted out of the way of two more people who had come through the front door. “How is it that we keep missing A? And how does A always know where we are?”

“Ali would always know where we were,” Emily said quietly.

Aria’s shoulders lowered. “Em, A isn’t Ali. There’s no way.”

Emily shut her eyes. She was so sick of having the same argument over and over. But she couldn’t explain why she was convinced Ali wasn’t dead—she’d have to confess that she’d left open the door in the burning house in the Poconos.

Aria stepped into the living room. The blue carpet had deep indentations from where the furniture had stood. “A is definitely Gayle, Em. Remember how weird she was that day at the café? She’s totally capable of stalking us.”

“But it makes no sense.” Emily glanced over her shoulder to make sure an elderly couple in matching argyle sweaters wasn’t listening. “Gayle has no connection to Jamaica. How could she know what we did?”

“Are you sure you didn’t say anything to anyone?” Aria asked. “What about that friend of yours, Derrick? He worked for Gayle, right? Are you sure you didn’t slip and tell him anything about Tabitha?”

Emily whirled around and glared at Aria. “Of course not! How could you even think that?”

Aria held up her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to cover all the bases.”

Sandra’s voice rang out in the other room, telling a potential buyer about the square footage and the kitchen upgrades. Emily tried to swallow her annoyance, knowing Aria wasn’t trying to accuse her of anything. She wandered out of the living room and up the stairs to the second floor. The master bedroom was the first room on the right.

The room was painted a dusty gray and had wooden blinds on the windows. Emily could picture a bed on one wall, a dresser on another. But she couldn’t picture the Bakers living within these walls. Were they late sleepers or early risers? Did they snack on cookies and potato chips in bed, leaving crumbs in the sheets? How many tears had they shed over not being able to have a child?

It was one of the first things the Bakers had told Emily when she’d met them—they’d been trying for over four years to no avail. “We both work with kids all day, and we’d love to have some of our own,” Mrs. Baker had said earnestly. “We’ve always wanted to be parents.” Mr. Baker’s fingers gripped his wife’s hand hard.

Now, Emily walked the perimeter of the room, touching the light switch, tracing a tiny crack in the wall, and poking her head into an empty closet. She could only imagine how overjoyed the Bakers had been when they’d found out she had chosen them as her baby’s adoptive parents. They’d probably lain in bed at night, dreaming of their child, fantasizing about swimming lessons, vacations, and the first day of school. Then she imagined the Bakers’ shock when they found out Emily had changed her mind. She’d asked Rebecca, the adoption coordinator, to pass on the message—she’d been too chicken to tell the Bakers herself.

Rebecca had been confused. “So . . . you’re keeping the baby?” she’d sounded out.

“Uh, I’ve just come up with another option,” Emily said evasively, not wanting to admit that she’d found another adoptive parent— or that Gayle had offered her a lot of money.

The coordinator called back a little later and told Emily that the Bakers had been very gracious with her decision. “They want your baby to have the best home possible, and if you think that’s somewhere else, they understand,” Rebecca said. In some ways, it disappointed Emily: She would have rather they’d been furious at her. It was what she deserved.

Emily had thought about the Bakers a lot after she made the decision to give the baby to Gayle, especially after Gayle started calling Emily nonstop. Every time Emily’s phone rang, it was Gayle, checking in. At first, Emily indulged her, rationalizing Gayle’s rapid speech, her shaky laugh, her nervous questions. She was just excited, right? She tried to justify why she hadn’t met Gayle’s husband, the potential father, yet—Gayle said he was really busy, but he was one hundred percent on board. When her phone started ringing every hour, Emily let the calls go to voicemail, the uneasiness growing sharper and more acrid inside her. Something wasn’t right. She began looking for ways to get out of the deal. She dreaded the day she’d have to give the baby up.

The final straw came two weeks before Emily’s scheduled C-section. Derrick had asked Emily to pick him up at Gayle’s house after work one Saturday; they were going to go to the Camden Aquarium. Emily hadn’t told Gayle she was coming; she was too tired to deal with her. After parking the car in the long driveway, she’d walked up to the front door and looked through the window. Gayle was standing in the foyer with her back to Emily, talking on the phone. “Yes, it’s true,” she was saying into the receiver. “I’m having a baby. I know, I know, I’ve barely gained any weight, but I guess I’m one of those lucky pregnant people.”

Emily had nearly tumbled off the porch. What kind of crazy person pretended they were pregnant when they really weren’t? Was she going to try and pass off Emily’s baby as her own? It left a horrible taste in her mouth. The Bakers had told Emily that the child would know she’d been adopted. They’d even tell her about Emily. What else would Gayle lie to the baby about?

She’d fled back to her car, revved the engine fast, and driven away, too upset to even leave a message for Derrick. Everything was so clear in that moment. There was no way Gayle was getting her baby. The money didn’t matter. The privileged life the child might lead in Gayle’s care didn’t matter. And so, the next day, she called Gayle and told her that the doctor had rescheduled her C-section for two days later than originally planned. Then she’d called Aria, Hanna, and Spencer, asking for their help.