I read the name again.
*Aria Sterling.*
Memory returned in pieces: smoke, a beam falling, and a woman's body covering mine as she dragged me toward the loading doors.
At the hospital, I had woken with soot in my mouth and bandages on my arms. The woman who brought me in had already been taken for surgery, and I never asked to see her chart.
Mia had cried when she claimed she was that woman and shown me marks she called burns. I never compared them with the scar across Aria's back or checked the hospital record.
The emergency report placed the impact wound exactly where Aria was scarred. I had once told her it made her look damaged.
David remained in the doorway. He held out a small digital recorder.
"We recovered this from Mia's deleted cloud files," he said. "Listen."
Static hisse
