Chapter 1 - The Message From A Ghost
The screen of my phone glowed in the cramped, shadowed floorboard beneath my steering wheel, casting an icy blue hue over my trembling knuckles. The digital clock read 9:43 AM, but the world around me felt untethered from reality. The contact name hovering above the incoming bubble was a name that had been etched into gray granite three years ago: Becca.
Stop following your husband. You weren't supposed to find us yet.
A strangled gasp caught in my throat, choking off the little air remaining in my lungs. My pulse hammered so violently against my temples that my ears rang. Outside, the muffled rumble of traffic seemed miles away. I forced myself to count backward from ten, just like my therapist had taught me during the darkest months following the funeral. One, two, three... It was useless. Therapy was designed for the grief of losing someone forever, not for the horror of watching them resurrect in a sunlit parking lot while kissing your husband's cheek.
Slowly, millimeter by agonizing millimeter, I raised my head just high enough to peek over the dashboard. The red-brick building stood silent and unyielding. The sun caught the glint of empty asphalt where, only moments earlier, Eliam and Rebecca had stood. They were gone. Both of them had vanished back behind the heavy glass double doors.
I looked down at my phone again. The message was still there. It wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't a grief-induced waking nightmare. It was a digital transmission routed through cellular towers, originating from a phone number my mother and I had formally disconnected thirty-six months ago after clearing out Rebecca's apartment.
With shaking fingers, I typed: Who are you? Rebecca is dead.
My finger hovered over the send button for nearly a full minute before I pressed it. The message status flickered to Delivered. Then, three agonizing dots danced across the bottom of the screen. Someone was typing.
Go home, Clara, the reply appeared instantly. If you stay there, you will ruin everything Eliam has sacrificed to protect. Delete these texts. Do not mention this to him tonight. If you love him, and if you ever loved me, go home.
Tears of hot, searing fury welled in my eyes, blurring the text. ""Protect me?"" I whispered out loud to the empty car. ""Protect me from what?""
Three years ago, a state trooper had knocked on our door at two in the morning on a rainy Tuesday. He had held a soaked, muddy handbag containing Rebecca's driver’s license, her college alumni card, and the silver charm bracelet I had given her for her twenty-fourth birthday. He had told us her sedan had plunged off the Blackwood River Bridge during a torrential downpour, bursting into flames upon impact with the rocks below before being swept downstream into the rapids. The dental records, the coroner had claimed, were inconclusive due to the extreme heat, but the vehicle registration, the belongings, and the circumstantial evidence had closed the case. Because the body was unrecognizable, the casket had remained shut, locked tight beneath a blanket of white lilies.
I had cried until I vomited beside that polished mahogany box. Eliam had held my trembling shoulders, whispering that he would take care of me, that he would be my rock forever.
And now, here he was, handing over manila envelopes stuffed with thick stacks of paper or cash to the woman who supposedly occupied that grave.
I gripped the steering wheel so hard my fingernails bit into the leather. Every survival instinct screamed at me to jump out of the car, kick open those double doors, and drag both of them out into the daylight. But the calculated menace in Rebecca’s texts warned me that rash action would only drive the truth further underground. Eliam had spent an entire week rehearsing his lies, coming home with fabricated stories about boardroom drama and difficult clients. He was a professional actor in his own home.
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If I confronted him without proof, he would spin another web. He would gaslight me, tell me I was having a nervous breakdown, or simply pack a bag and disappear with her.
I shifted my car into reverse, backed out of the space without turning my headlights on, and merged into the mid-morning traffic. My hands were steady now, frozen by a cold, calculating resolve. My sister was alive. My husband was funding her existence. And before this week was over, I would tear their secrets apart with my bare hands.
