Chapter 1 - THE FUNERAL
Adrian thought he was burying his wife. Olivia’s return proved the funeral was only the first layer of a much larger deception.
Adrian Vale was crying beside my casket when I walked into the chapel.
He had one hand pressed against the glossy white lid and the other clenched against his chest as if grief were physically tearing him apart. The performance was beautiful. His shoulders shook at exactly the right moments. His voice cracked at exactly the right places.
“Why did you leave me?” he shouted.
Three hundred mourners watched him break.
Then the chapel doors opened.
My father walked in first.
Elias Mercer, sixty-eight, silver-haired, retired federal prosecutor, the kind of man who could silence a room simply by entering it.
I walked beside him.
Black dress.
Long brown hair.
Healing bruise above my eyebrow.
Alive.
The first scream came from somewhere near the third row.
Then someone whispered:
“That’s impossible.”
Adrian turned.
For one second, his grief vanished so completely that everyone saw what had been underneath it.
Fear.
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Then he stumbled backward from the casket.
My name is Olivia Mercer. I was thirty-two years old, and according to the death certificate being circulated through half of Charleston society, I had died four days earlier after a late-night car crash on Riverside Road.
The body in the casket was supposed to be mine.
It was not.
That was the first secret.
I walked slowly down the center aisle.
People moved away from me as if death might be contagious.
Adrian found his voice.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Not:
Olivia?
Not:
How?
Not:
Thank God.
You’re supposed to be dead.
That sentence mattered.
He came toward me fast and grabbed my wrist.
Pain shot up my arm.
Before I could pull away, my father stepped between us and hit Adrian once across the face.
Adrian went down hard on the marble floor.
The chapel gasped.
Dad stood over him.
“You didn’t bury my daughter,” he said. “You buried your own future.”
I wish I could say I felt triumphant.
I did not.
I was terrified.
Because the flash drive in my coat pocket contained only part of the truth.
And because Adrian knew about things I still did not.
I walked toward the casket.
The white flowers smelled too sweet.
The polished lid reflected the chandeliers.
I placed one hand on it.
Then looked at my husband.
“You should’ve checked whether your victim was still breathing.”
Adrian’s face changed.
Not because I had accused him.
Because he understood I remembered.
I reached into my coat and removed the flash drive.
Small.
Black.
Ordinary.
The kind of object that could hold grocery lists or destroy a marriage.
Adrian crawled toward me on one knee.
“Don’t.”
I extended the drive toward my father.
The whole chapel held its breath.
Dad reached for it.
Then Adrian said one name.
“Marianne.”
My hand stopped.
Marianne Mercer was my younger sister.
She had been dead for six years.
At least, that was what I believed.
May you like
Dad’s face went pale.
That was the first moment I realized the flash drive did not contain the biggest secret in the room.
