Chapter Forty One

* Jana *

I know Dianne must have recalled me, or recognized the resemblance between me and my mother. My hands were still trembling as I drove my car back to the apartment, hoping that Lawrence would not listen to what Dianne has been whispering behind my back.

To him I am Jana Salazar, not Jana Kramer. I don't owe anything to Dianne, not when my mother is still missing for many years. While her father is declared dead, my mother's fate remains unknown. For years I convinced myself that they ran away together, that maybe they had loved each other enough to abandon everything. But the silence that followed...the absence... it gnawed at me.

I reached my apartment, the dim light of the hallway flickering above me. My chest felt tight as I locked the door behind me, leaned against it, and finally allowed my knees to buckle. My breaths came shallow, broken.

"Why now? Why does the past have to chase me now?"

The shadows of my small living room wrapped around me. I didn't turn on the lights.