Christmas parties.
Weller had been best man at our wedding.
Deborah leaned toward me.
“If Preston paid a doctor to certify you dead, we do not know how far this reaches.”
“But everyone thinks I’m buried.”
“Yes.”
The word hung between us.
A strange possibility.
Terrifying.
Powerful.
My mother looked at me.
“For once, that may work in your favor.”
I understood what she meant.
Dead women cannot be watched.
I whispered, “Did they bury the coffin?”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
“What was in it?”
“Mr.
Harlan replaced your weight with sandbags before sealing it.”
My mother’s mouth twisted bitterly.
“Preston threw dirt over it himself.”
I began shaking.
Not crying.
Something deeper.
My own husband had stood over an empty coffin believing my body was inside and watched men cover it with earth.
The doctor asked my mother to step outside.
Deborah refused until I nodded.
Then Dr.
Benson sat beside me.
“There’s something else.”
I looked at her.
“Your bloodwork showed evidence of repeated exposure.”
“To what?”
“Sedatives.”
I frowned.
“Repeated?”
“Not just last night.”
The room seemed to tilt again.
“I don’t take sleeping pills.”
“I know.”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“Based on what I’m seeing, someone may have been giving you smaller doses for weeks.”
I remembered the headaches.
The mornings I woke exhausted.
The coffee Preston brought me.
The herbal tea Sabine insisted helped stress.
I had blamed work.
Stress.
Turning thirty-seven.
My failing marriage.
They had been practicing on me.
By evening, I could walk.
Barely.
My mother brought clothes that belonged to Dr.
Benson’s sister.
Jeans.
A sweatshirt.
A baseball cap.
My hair went under the cap.
My wedding ring went into my pocket.
I could not bear wearing it.
Mr.
Harlan arranged for me to stay in a cottage outside town that had belonged to his parents.
No neighbors.
No public records tying it to our family.
Before we left the clinic, Dr.
Benson grabbed my arm.
“Renee.”
I turned.
“If you start feeling weak, confused, short of breath—anything—you come back immediately.”
“I will.”
She hesitated.
“And understand something.”
“What?”
“You didn’t almost die from natural causes.”
Her voice softened.
“Someone rehearsed your murder.”
2. A GHOST READS HER OWN OBITUARY
That night, I sat at a kitchen table twenty miles from my grave and read the internet’s version of my death.
LOCAL BUSINESSWOMAN DIES SUDDENLY AT 37.
COMMUNITY MOURNS ASHPORT NATIVE.
BELOVED WIFE REMEMBERED FOR KINDNESS.
Preston had posted a photograph from our wedding.
His caption read:
My heart left this world with yours.
I laughed.
I could not help it.
The sound frightened my mother.
“What?”
I turned the screen toward her.
She read the caption.
Her face changed.
“He always was theatrical.”
On Sabine’s social page was a photograph of my gold necklace resting against her black dress.
She had written:
