UNTIL MY DYING CALL UNCOVERED A DEADLY CONSPIRACY THAT WOULD COST THEM EVERYTHING.

Ethan froze.

Diane stopped mid-breath, her hand still raised in Jennifer’s face.

For three terrifying seconds, none of them moved. The silence in the chapel was so absolute that the sound of the rain outside sounded like falling gravel.

Slowly, almost mechanically, Ethan turned his head toward the altar.

I lifted the black mourning veil from my face and stepped into the warm glow of the altar candles.

Ethan’s skin turned the color of wet chalk. His jaw dropped. The linen handkerchief slipped from his fingers, fluttering uselessly to the marble floor.

"C... Claire?" he stammered, his voice climbing an entire octave into a choked squeak.

Diane shrieked—a piercing, animal sound of pure terror. She stumbled backward, tripping over her own high heels, and crashed violently into the first pew, clutching her mink coat around her throat as if trying to shield herself from an apparition.

"No," Diane whimpered, her eyes bulging. "No, no, no! Sterling signed it! She's in the morgue! She's dead!"

Jennifer didn't scream. She staggered backward, her hand flying to the bandage on her face. Her knees buckled, and she slammed against the locked double doors at the back of the chapel, her breath coming in ragged, hyperventilating gasps.

"You're... you're dead," Ethan whispered, his hands trembling as he held them up in front of his chest. "I saw the paperwork. You died in the hospital."

"I was never in that casket, Ethan," I said, walking slowly down the altar steps toward him. Each click of my heels on the marble floor sounded like the countdown of a bomb. "And I never had liver disease."

Ethan backed away from me until his spine hit the mahogany casket. "Claire, wait... wait, listen to me..."

"Listen to what?" I stopped four feet from him. Up close, I could see the sweat breaking out along his hairline, the panic dilating his pupils. "Listen to you discuss how you were going to split my three-point-two-million-dollar life insurance policy? Or how Diane was going to burn my mother's rugs and replace the floor with white marble?"

Diane began to weep hysterically from the floor. "Ethan, call someone! Call the police! It's a trick!"

"Call the police, Diane?" I looked over at her, letting a cold, merciless smile touch my lips. "The police are already here."

Right on cue, Marcus stepped out from the shadows beside the pipe organ, holding a tactical radio to his lips. "Arthur. Roll them."

A heavy thump echoed against the locked front doors.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation!" a booming voice shouted through the heavy oak. "Open the doors immediately!"

Jennifer let out a muffled scream and tried to pull the brass handles, but the doors were deadbolted from the outside.

Ethan looked frantically between Marcus, me, and the rattling doors. The polished, charismatic sociopath was gone. In his place was a cornered, sniveling rat.

"Claire... please," Ethan begged, tears of genuine terror finally spilling down his cheeks. "It wasn't me! It was Jennifer! She seduced me! She brought the poison! She told me you were already sick! Diane and I were just trying to protect the family assets! Claire, baby, I love you! You know I love you!"

I looked at the man I had slept beside for four years. I felt no sorrow. I felt no heartbreak. I felt only a profound, liberating disgust.

"You don't love me, Ethan," I whispered softly, leaning in so only he could hear. "You loved my trust fund. But there’s one small detail you forgot to check before you tried to murder me."

Ethan blinked through his tears. "What?"

"My mother's survivorship clause," I said. "Even if I had died... you were never getting a single cent."