Chapter 2 - The Dead Woman’s Receipt
After the tow company confirmed they were minutes away, I called Sophie.
She answered on the second ring, cheerful and rushed, talking a mile a minute about Mom’s birthday dinner, the reservations, and the lemon cookies she had just baked. I cut her off, my voice shaking but sharp.
“Do not get in any car,” I told her. “Not yours. Not mine. Lock your door and wait for me.”
She started asking questions, her cheerful tone dropping instantly into confusion and worry. But I had no breath left to explain the sound of my husband laughing over her death. I just told her I loved her and hung up, pacing the pavement.
I watched from the corner as my silver Honda got loaded onto a flatbed like it was a live bomb being removed from a schoolyard. The tow driver frowned when I handed him cash and told him not to start the engine, not even for a second, and to take it directly to an independent mechanic I trusted across town.
For one small moment, watching the truck pull away, I thought maybe I had stopped the nightmare. Then my phone lit up. It was a new email, forwarded from Logan’s account to mine by mistake—a slip of his thumb, an autofill error, a glitch in his perfect plan.
The subject line read: Funeral Home Confirmation — Service Scheduled for S. Bennett.
Sophie Bennett. My sister’s initial, my family name, and my husband’s payment confirmation staring back at me in neat, undeniable black letters. I opened it with shaking hands and saw a private viewing, a cremation package, white lilies, a reception room, and a service date scheduled for the very next day.
Logan had not only planned the crash; he had already paid for the aftermath. He had chosen flowers for my sister before she was dead, and he had done it with the calm confidence of a man arranging living room furniture.
Then I scrolled lower, past the billing information, and saw the line that changed everything I knew about my reality.
Family liaison to confirm arrival time: Aaron Bennett.
May you like
My brother. The man who called Sophie “kiddo,” the brother who hugged me fiercely after my separation hearing, the man who told me we would handle Logan as a family. That was when the horrific realization crashed over me: the voice on the phone with Logan had not belonged to a stranger or a hired thug.
It belonged to someone inside my own bloodline.
