Wanted: One Woman, One Truth, and One Very Bad Idea

When Maggie and her friends bid on a mysterious trunk at an estate auction, they expect old love letters and maybe a creepy doll, not a duffel bag full of cash and a wanted poster of a woman who looks exactly like her. As secrets unravel and danger looms, Maggie must face the truth: Who was her mother before she became her mother?

Twelve hours ago, I thought the biggest mistake of this trip would be letting Lauren bid on a mystery trunk at a wine estate auction.

Now, sitting in a five-star hotel room with a duffel bag full of cash, a revolver I was definitely not qualified to handle, and a decades-old wanted poster of a woman who looked disturbingly like me, I wasn't so sure.

"Oh-kay," Jen said, refilling her wine glass with shaking hands. "So, do we panic now or later?"

I wanted to take her glass away from her.

Suddenly, our girls' trip wasn't looking that great.

"I vote now," Lauren muttered, adjusting her Gucci sunglasses like they'd somehow shield her from reality.

"Let's not panic at all," I said, taking in a deep breath.

That was rich, coming from me. Especially because my hands were shaking, my heart was pounding, and I was starting to sweat on my nose and forehead.

Also, I felt like my life had been an entire lie. Either that, or there was a random woman out there who looked like me.

"Maggie?" Jen called. "What do we do?"

"Ask Lauren! She bought the trunk!" I said.

"Yeah, but that woman's face looks like yours," Jen frowned.

Before I could answer, there was a knock at the door. A slow, deliberate one.

Knock, knock, knock.

A man's voice. Low. Calm. Dangerous, even.

"Excuse me? Ladies? I think you have something in there that belongs to me."

Lauren's eyes widened.

"We're about to be... this isn't good," she said, taking off her sunglasses.

I crept to the peephole. A man stood on the other side of the door. He was in his early fifties or so. He had sharp eyes and an expensive leather jacket on. He looked like the kind of trouble that walked into a room and owned it.

What insane story had we just walked into?

Before

I wasn't always this impulsive.

At 28, I got married to Connell. He was the right guy, it was the right time, and it was the right kind of life.

Or so I thought at the time.

At 30, I got divorced.

There was no dramatic betrayal, no screaming match, just the slow, quiet realization that we had nothing left to give each other.

Loving him had felt like a responsible choice.

Leaving him had felt like a necessary one.

But standing here now, hauling a dusty trunk into a hotel room, I realized that I'd spent the last year trying to play it safe again.

Maybe that's why I let Jen talk me into this trip. Maybe that's why, when Lauren raised the auction paddle, I didn't stop her.

Maybe that's why, when we pried open that trunk, I wasn't ready for what we were about to find.

Girls' Trip

For the past three years, Jen, Lauren, and I had taken to girls' trips. It was supposed to be a time for indulgence. Enough wine, cheese, and bad decisions. And after my divorce, I needed this more than ever.

Although things ended fine with Connell, I wanted to escape and be pampered.

That's when we decided, wine country it was.

So when Jen spotted an estate auction happening at the vineyard next to our hotel, it seemed like a quirky way to spend our day.

"It's going to be like Storage Wars," she'd said. "But like... classier?"

Spoiler: It was not classy. It was mostly old furniture and boxes labeled kitchen junk or miscellaneous. But they did have wine, to Jen's joy. And they did have snack platters.

We were just about to leave when Lot #43 opened, and there it was. A dusty old trunk with heavy brass locks, shoved into the corner of a storage unit.

"Maggie, imagine the treasures," Jen nudged me.

"We need this," Lauren said, already holding up a paddle.

"Do we?" I asked. "Do we even have space in the car for this junk?"

"Shh, we're bidding," Jen said.

And just like that, for $250, we became the proud owners of what we thought was probably someone's old love letters or, at worst, a few haunted dolls.

Instead, we found this.

The trunk was heavier than expected. Rusted brass clasps. No key.

"This is going to be amazing," Jen declared, wedging the hotel room's corkscrew under the latch.

"I'm manifesting vintage jewelry, girls. Or maybe an old diary with love letters. That could be worth something, too."

"Or, more likely, someone's tax records and a dead rat," I exhaled.

"I'm going to need you to perk up, Maggie," Jen said. "Connell is hours away, and now you're with us. More smiles, please."

The latch snapped. The lid creaked open.

At first, all we saw were old papers and dusty scarves. I groaned.

"Great. We bought someone's moth-eaten winter collection," I muttered.

Then Lauren frowned and tapped the bottom of the trunk.

"Wait, does that sound hollow to you?"

Jen grabbed the cockscrew again, wedged it under the wood panel... and snap. The false bottom lifted.

Inside was a duffel bag. Old, worn, and unremarkable.

"I guess... we could use this to gym?" Jen said, unzipping it.

"Oh," Lauren and I gasped.

Cash. Stacks and stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills.

"Holy moly," Lauren said.

Jen whipped her head toward me.

"Maggie, Lau," she said. "Did we just buy crime money?"

And then we saw the revolver.

And then we saw the wanted poster.

Yellowed paper. 1986.

A woman's face. Sharp cheekbones, piercing eyes, and a familiar mouth.

Name: Margaret

A chill ran down my spine. My breath hitched.

Firstly, the woman's face was strikingly similar to mine. Secondly, Margaret was my name.

I laughed. Because it had to be a joke, right?

"Did you two do this?" I asked my friends. "Is this part of your distraction tactics?"

They both shook their heads.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Mags," Lauren said.

I looked at the trunk and its contents again. But the harder I stared at the face on the poster, the more uncomfortable I felt. And the laughter inside me died.

I ran my fingers over the paper. It couldn't be my mother.

Could it?

It was a coincidence. It had to be.

But then I thought about the rules I grew up with:

We don't keep old photos.

No one needs to know your business, Maggie. Or mine.

I thought about how my mother never talked about her past. How she deflected every question about her youth, including the ones about my father.

I didn't actually know who my mother was before she became my mother.

So, I called her.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Sweetheart!" she exclaimed. "Are you having fun? I wish I came along with you girls."

"Mom, I have a question..." I said, gripping the phone.

"Were you ever named Margaret?"

Silence.

Then, in a voice I barely recognized, she spoke.

"What on earth are you talking about?" she asked.

"I found a poster with a woman named Margaret that I'm convinced is either you or your long-lost twin sister," I said, trying to keep my tone light. "But I need you to tell me if there's a possibility that it's you."

"The woman looks just like Maggie now, Miranda!" Jen called from the bed.

"Maggie," my mother said. "I need you to leave whatever you're looking at and walk away. If someone sees you, they'll immediately know you're related to me."

"Mom," I said sternly. "I'm not doing anything until you give me more information. None of these cryptic messages."

"I used to be Margaret, Maggie," she said. "Now, I'm Miranda. That's all you need to know."

If there was ever a time when I was frustrated with my mother, this had to be it.

"Mom," I said simply.

"I'll tell you when you get back, Mags," she said. "Now, I just need you to know that the people who knew me as Margaret thought that I did something really bad. But I didn't. So, if you have that bag, you're in danger."

I hadn't mentioned a bag.

"What bag?" I asked.

My mother sighed, like I was being dense or being the problem.

"The duffel bag, Maggie," she said. "I know that's probably what you're looking at. It's the only thing tying me back to my actress days."

Actress days? Did I even know my mother at all?

"Just leave there, and I'll explain when you get home. Tell the girls I send my love. And be careful, Maggie."

She hung up.

The audacity.

Knock, knock, knock.

A man's voice. Low. Calm. Dangerous, even.

"Excuse me? Ladies? I think you have something in there that belongs to me."

I decided to open the door. Nothing in the world could have surprised me more than my mother's quick confession.

"What are you talking about?" I asked the man.

"I'm looking for the trunk," he said. "You outbid me, you know. You girls."

My pulse spiked. So, the entire time we had been having fun and bidding on items, we were being watched.

Or, the trunk was being watched.

"I've been chasing estate auctions for years, searching for anything tied to that film set. Sunset Mirage. The movie that had high expectations only to be burned to the ground. I suppose your mother is Margaret?" he asked, looking at me. "You look identical to her posters."

What was going on? Were we in danger? Was there more to this?

"Okay, you can explain everything," I said. "Starting with your name. But we're not doing it here. We'll speak outside, in public, and if we think that you deserve the trunk, you can have it."

The man looked at me for a moment. I wasn't sure if he was going to laugh at my display of bravery or go with it.

"I'm Daniel," he said. "Let's go."

The Truth

Daniel leaned back in his chair, looking at his whiskey.

"You really don't know, do you?"

I tightened my grip on my glass. Jen and Lauren had opted to stay in the hotel room with the trunk and the duffel bag full of money. And the revolver.

"Know what?" I asked.

"It started with an accident, Maggie," he sighed. "The lead actress on set... she was supposed to be the next big thing. Then one night, she randomly fell down a flight of stairs, landed herself in the hospital. Broken leg. Career over."

A chill crawled up my spine.

"What does my mother have to do with this? Do you know that I only just found out that my mother was an actress? I've never seen her on screen. I've never heard about this."

Daniel's gaze was sharp. I struggled to read him. I couldn't tell if he was dangerous or if he just wanted the trunk.

"Your mother was next in line for the role."

I swallowed hard. There was no way that my mother had anything to do with the other actress. But I was so confused about the whole thing...

"Matthew—my brother—was the producer," Daniel continued. "But honestly, he was a bit shady. Another actress wanted that part badly enough to pay him off. She wanted it more than your mother. So, it was a quiet bribe. That's the money in the duffel bag. Don't bother hiding it— saw it over your shoulder earlier."

"So my mother wasn't involved?" I exhaled, relieved.

"No. She wasn't. But she overheard everything, and she refused to work with Matthew after that. Maybe she wasn't going to stay quiet. But when the money came to light? She did. I'm sure that she thought if she was walking away, she might as well take the money and make it worth her while."

The pieces clicked into place.

"And Matthew framed her?"

Daniel nodded, breaking a piece of the breadstick in front of him.

"He told everyone she had something to do with the accident. Said she stole the money to cover it up—because now that he knew about her involvement, she had to leave. It was the perfect story.

I watched him chew and I felt sick.

"And the gun?" I whispered.

Daniel's lips curved into something grim.

"That's Matthew's. That's why I've been looking for the trunk. I need that gun. My brother needs it. Your mother took it when she tried to run. I guess she thought she'd need protection."

"And then what?" I asked, my pulse pounding in my ears.

"Before your mother could leave, there was a fire on the set. It was arson, of course. No clue who did it. I like to think that it was the actress that bribed my brother. But your mother panicked and ran, along with everyone else. Left everything behind."

"And then?" I pushed. I needed to know more. I needed to know everything.

"Everything was put away in evidence. It's been so many years since that fire that I think the police just gave up. I heard that the storage unit was liquidated and items from that set were ending up at estate auctions. That's what I've been doing."

"What? You have a Google alert set up?" I asked sarcastically.

"Yes," he said. "That's exactly it. Sure, the trunk was seized as evidence but I always assumed that the police didn't find the money or the gun. If not, it would have been reported in the newspapers. The stash was hidden, wasn't it? That's what I always thought..."

I nodded.

"There was a false bottom. My friend thought it sounded strange when she tapped it. That's how we figured out that there was more to it. I can't believe the police missed it."

"It was the 80s, kid," he said. "I don't think they cared much about an old trunk. Anyway, since you and your friends bought the trunk, it's yours."

I exhaled shakily. Not anymore.

"Take it," I said. "This wasn't my mess. It never was. But somehow, I'd been dragged into it anyway. Leave the poster and take everything else."

Daniel shrugged.

"The cops gave up years ago. My brother doesn't care. He just wants the revolver because it ties up loose ends. Matthew hates loose ends. The poster's just a relic now. Do what you want with it."

"And the money? You're just going to walk away with it?" I asked.

"You can take my number if you change your mind, Maggie. But my brother promised me that I could have it if I found the gun."

Later

Hours later, I stood on the balcony, gripping my phone. Jen and Lauren weren't too pleased that I had given everything away to Daniel. But honestly, what choice did I have?

The man was looking for the gun... and I had no idea what it was tied to.

I wanted nothing to do with any of it.

"I'll pay you the $250, Lauren," I said. "Just let it go."

"Fine, we're going to get something to eat. Meet us downstairs."

My mother answered on the first ring.

"You named me Margaret," I said. "After yourself."

Silence.

"I couldn't keep my name," she said. "But I wanted you to have a piece of me..."

"What do I do, Mom?" I asked, not even sure what I was asking. "I feel... confused. Like I don't know you anymore."

"Maggie, I need you to know that I didn't do anything wrong. Okay, I tried to steal the money, so that's wrong. But I had nothing to do with anything else. I just wanted to escape that world. It was getting messy, like my mother had warned me. I wanted the money to get out."

I nodded, believing her.

"We'll talk when I get home," I said. "And you better have stories to tell me."

"Oh honey," she said. "There's more than enough stories for you. Now, go adventure with your girls. Get out of your head. And figure out who you are, away from Connell."

"Okay, Mom," I said, smiling into the night.

I couldn't believe how a simple girl's trip had ended in a quest to discover my mother's past.

It was insane but it was just the adventure I had needed.

I checked my lipstick in the mirror and then went to join Jen and Lauren for dinner.

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When Jennifer's fiancé, Chris, postpones their wedding for a last-minute business trip, she's heartbroken. But on her birthday, the day they were meant to marry, Jennifer spots him in town. Suspecting betrayal, she confronts him, only to uncover a life-altering secret that Chris has spent years keeping quiet.

This work is inspired by real events and people, but it has been fictionalized for creative purposes. Names, characters, and details have been changed to protect privacy and enhance the narrative. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

The author and publisher make no claims to the accuracy of events or the portrayal of characters and are not liable for any misinterpretation. This story is provided “as is,” and any opinions expressed are those of the characters and do not reflect the views of the author or publisher.