Chapter 27 - Distant Echoes
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Four months after our quiet, peaceful Christmas, a ripple crossed our calm waters.
It arrived in the form of a phone call from Aunt Beatrice—Mom's older sister who lived two states over. I rarely spoke to her, but when her name popped up on my phone on an April afternoon, I felt a familiar, cautious tight knot in my stomach.
"Sarah, dear," Aunt Beatrice said after brief pleasantries. "I'm calling because... well, I thought you should know. Lauren reached out to me last week."
I gripped the edge of the kitchen counter. "Aunt Beatrice, you know I have a strict no-contact order against her."
"I know, honey, I know!" Beatrice said quickly. "I'm not trying to get involved in your drama. But she asked me some strange questions, and it made me uncomfortable."
"What kind of questions?" I asked, my voice instantly hardening.
"She asked if I knew where Emma was going to preschool next year," Beatrice revealed, her tone laced with worry. "She said she was 'building a memory book' for her niece and wanted to know what milestones Emma was reaching. When I told her I wouldn't share that information, she became very angry, Sarah. She sounded... unstable."
A cold wave of dread washed over me.
Lauren hadn't moved on. She hadn't spent her out-of-state relocation building a healthy, independent life. She was still fixated on my daughter.
"Thank you for telling me, Aunt Beatrice," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "Please do not answer any more of her calls."
As soon as I hung up, I called James.
"She's probing," I told him, my hands shaking as I paced the living room floor. "She called Aunt Beatrice asking about Emma's preschool."
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"Okay," James said, his tone dropping into that familiar, deadly calm register he adopted whenever a threat surfaced. "I'm coming home early. We're calling Marcus."
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