Two officers entered the house and searched the downstairs rooms. They found no intruder, but one officer discovered that the basement door was slightly open. Margaret insisted she had locked it before going to bed. When they checked the basement, they found an old telephone connected to an extension line. Its receiver was resting beside a dusty wooden cabinet. The dispatcher confirmed that the earlier emergency call had come through that very line. Margaret stared at the telephone, unable to understand who could have used it.

Then one officer noticed an envelope lying on top of the cabinet. Margaret immediately recognized Robert’s handwriting. Inside was an old photograph showing her husband standing beside a young woman she had never seen before. On the back, Robert had written a date from twenty-seven years earlier and a short message: “For the daughter I never got to raise.” Margaret felt her knees weaken. She had believed she knew everything about the man she had married, but apparently she didn’t.