Alive or Dead, I’m Finding Her

In the end, Lucian didn’t touch him.

He stepped back twice, raised his gun toward the sky, and fired three shots.

The reports rang out like harsh cries. Birds scattered from the trees nearby.

“I’m not stopping the search. If Stella’s alive, I’ll find her. If she’s dead, I’ll find her body.”

He turned and walked away.

More than a dozen cars waited in a line behind him.

That was how Lucian Blackwood traveled. Arrogant. Overbearing. Answering to no one.

Once the cars were gone, Julian caught Hayes’s arm.

Still pale, he immediately tried to turn the detective against Lucian.

“You saw him. He’s a lunatic. Everyone knows he and my wife hated each other. What if he’s the reason she’s missing?”

His shamelessness almost made me laugh.

Fortunately, Hayes hadn’t lost all sense.

“We already considered that. Mr. Blackwood was in Switzerland when your wife disappeared. His alibi is solid.”

Julian gave a cold laugh.

“If Lucian Blackwood wanted someone hurt, would he need to do it himself?”

Hayes frowned.

“I understand you’re upset, Mr. Whitmore. But don’t throw accusations around. When we get the DNA results from the ring, or if there are any other developments, I’ll let you know.”

After the detective left, Julian remained alone beside the river.

His brows drew together. He began biting his nails without seeming to notice.

He always did that when he was anxious.

I had known him for nineteen years. I knew his habits too well.

He had to be going over the murder in his head, wondering what he had overlooked. Lucian finding my ring had clearly shaken him.

Ten minutes later, he drove away from the river.

He found a public phone booth and dialed a number. Someone picked up almost immediately.

“How exactly did you dispose of Stella’s things? Why was there evidence left on that ring? And how the hell did Lucian Blackwood get hold of it?”

Julian kept his voice low, firing off questions while watching his surroundings.

An unfamiliar male voice came from the receiver. I couldn’t tell his age. His voice was rough and hoarse, as if fire had burned his throat.

“Relax, Mr. Whitmore. You paid me to do a job. I don’t leave loose ends. And there’s even less reason to worry about Blackwood. Everyone knows he and Stella Whitmore were enemies. He’ll be celebrating if she’s dead.”

His accomplice.

The man who had disposed of my body.

His words doused my fragile hope.

Of course.

How could I have been foolish enough to pin my hopes on Lucian?

His hatred of me wasn’t new.

Perhaps he was working so hard to find me because he was afraid I might still be alive. He simply couldn’t wait to confirm that I was gone.

Julian kept talking, but I stopped listening.

I left the booth and stood beneath a streetlamp.

There was no shadow at my feet.

I crouched down, slowly wrapped my arms around myself, and closed my eyes.

I was cold.

So cold.

Everyone in the world wanted me dead.

Even heaven wouldn’t leave me alone. It had kept my ghost here so I could watch the people who hurt me, the people who hated me, enjoy their happy lives after my death.

Julian finished the call and drove home.

I sat in the passenger seat, turning his words over in my mind.

He had asked how the man disposed of “Stella’s things.”

Not my body.

They had found my coat. My ring.

But where was my body?

I had already lost my life. There was nothing left to lose.

I only wanted to know what Julian had done with the body he had drained of blood and robbed of its heart.

He drove back to the villa we had shared.

I didn’t follow him inside.

Outside, the garden was full of yellow roses. My favorite.

Julian had planted every one himself.

Their season was over now. Beneath the cold moonlight, the blossoms trembled on their stems, petals falling one by one into the dirt.

I bent to catch one.

My hand closed on nothing.

A month ago, he had proposed to me here.

I looked up at the moon and remembered that the moonlight had been just as beautiful that night.

He had knelt before me on one knee, so gentle. So loving.

“Stella, will you marry me?”

Tears slipped from my eyes.

Julian, when you asked me that, was even a moment of it real?

Then I caught a faint sound behind me.

I followed it to a corner of the garden.

A stooped woman knelt there, a black scarf covering most of her face. A strange design resembling a six-pointed star had been drawn on the ground in front of her.

And in its center lay a photograph.

Mine.