"She's pulled this exact routine on so many people. I just never imagined you'd fall for it too."
Something clenched hard around my heart, and I couldn't get a single word out.
The image rose in my mind: that blind girl standing in front of me, a line of bloody tears running from her eyes, knocking her forehead to the ground, desperately trying to explain.
Writing it over and over again on that piece of paper:
"Mom, I'm your real daughter, Emma Sullivan! Please believe me!"
Could she really have been nothing but a con artist?
Emma's voice kept going beside me.
"Mom, I'm a university professor. I deal with cases like this all the time."
"That blind girl? This kind of thing is never one person working alone. It's a whole ring behind her."
"Think about it. If what she told you were true—if she really was the daughter you lost ten years ago—blind, mute, crippled—how exactly would she have kept herself alive all this time?"
It hit me like a slap I deserved.
Emma was right.
That woman had found someone to copy the handwriting, and used the fact that she was roughly the same height and weight as my daughter to put herself in front of me on purpose.