I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Money again.
Always money.
“How much?”
“I heard eighteen million.”
I opened my eyes.
Sabine shook her head.
“That’s not the bad part.”
“Then what is?”
“He left most of it to you.”
My world went very still.
“And if I died?”
Sabine whispered:
“To your legal next of kin.”
Preston.
My husband.
But why would my mother help him?
Unless—
“Mom made a deal.”
Sabine nodded.
“Half.”
I felt nothing for several seconds.
No grief.
No fear.
No rage.
Just emptiness.
Preston would receive the inheritance.
My mother would control my grandmother’s reverted trust share.
Between them, my death was worth more than twenty-five million dollars.
The five-hundred-thousand-dollar life-insurance policy had been theater.
A small obvious motive.
Something investigators could find if questions were ever asked.
Something that pointed directly at Preston and Sabine.
My mother had built layers.
If the murder was questioned, Preston and Sabine would take the fall.
Deborah would remain the grieving mother.
I whispered, “The recording.”
Sabine frowned.
“What recording?”
“Mom recorded you and Preston beside the coffin.”
Sabine’s face went blank.
Then understanding hit.
“She set us up.”
Yes.
My mother had not merely been involved.
She had created evidence against her own accomplices.
Insurance.
Drug conversation.
Necklace.
Everything.
If anyone ever questioned my death, police would find Preston and Sabine’s fingerprints all over it.
Deborah would become the devastated mother who helped bring them to justice.
And she would keep eight million dollars.
Maybe more.
Sabine started shaking.
“She planned to kill us too.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
Sabine grabbed my hand.
“Preston said something last night.
He said once the estate cleared, there couldn’t be loose ends.”
A voice came from behind us.
“That’s because there can’t.”
Preston stepped from the shadows.
He had a gun.
8. THE MAN I MARRIED
Sabine screamed.
Quade, stationed one level above, was too far away.
Preston pointed the gun at me.
His face looked worse than I expected.
Unshaven.
Red-eyed.
Desperate.
He stared at me as though I were something unnatural.
“You should be dead.”
I laughed.
It came out soft.
“I’m hearing that a lot.”
“Get in the car.”
Sabine stood.
“Preston—”
“Shut up.”
“You followed me?”
He smiled.
“You’ve never been difficult to follow.”
I thought of the tracker.
My mother’s tracker.
Had Preston added another?
Or had Deborah told him?
