Chapter 2: The Photograph at the Bottom of His Pocket
They stayed in that little tea shop for almost an hour.
Arthur talked.
Natalie listened.
And somewhere between his third story about a stubborn student and the last of the cookies, she realized she hadn't thought about her own problems once.
Then his cup clinked down, and his voice went quiet.
"I had a granddaughter, you know."
Natalie looked up.
"Had?"
"She stopped coming.
After her mother remarried." He folded his hands on the table.
"I don't blame the child.
She was only seven.
Children go where they're taken."
Natalie didn't know what to say.
So she said nothing.
Sometimes that's the right answer.
Arthur reached into his jacket — not for the passbook this time, but for something smaller.
A photograph, worn soft at the edges.
He placed it on the table and slid it toward her.
A little girl with dark curls and a gap-toothed smile.
Standing in front of a garden gate.
Laughing at something outside the frame.
"That was taken the last summer she visited," Arthur said.
"Fourteen years ago."
Natalie picked up the photo carefully.
And then she froze.
Because she recognized that gate.
It was the gate of the house she had grown up in.
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What Natalie discovered next turned her entire world upside down.
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Click the link below to read the full story — the truth is more shocking than anyone expected.
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