Your ghost for eternity,
Ben
It was believable because it was true. The investigation would end quickly. Recently lost a child to a horrible accident. Mentally ill wife. Suicide from depression was written all over this. With everything cleaned up and staged as best as I knew how, I headed toward the back door where I would disappear forever. Start over, me and my unborn baby.
Glass crunched beneath my feet. Shoot. The hole in the window – a dead giveaway of a break-in. Where would they have kept the broom? I opened a closet door in the hallway as a car headlight passed over me. Was the car turning up the driveway? I couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter. I had already spent too much time here; I needed to leave before his wife returned. I couldn’t worry about the broken window. I’d let someone else deal with the aftermath.
A wicker box of toys sat against one wall so, careful to keep my hand covered, I lifted the lid and grabbed the first hard toy I found. A metal truck. Perfect. Closing the lid, I set it beneath the broken window. Kids threw toys through windows all the time, didn’t they? It sounded believable enough to me.
On my way out, I bumped a small table next to the back door with a framed picture on it. The picture tipped over, and covering my hand with my shirt, I picked it up. Two adults surrounded by palm trees and white sand, arms around each other, huge hopeful smiles often found on the faces of the rich and entitled.
I recognized Harper with her red hair, standing next to a good-looking shirtless man in swimming trunks. I clucked at his muscled stomach – nice – then felt a familiarity about him. No, it couldn’t be. I held the picture closer to my eyes, examining the man’s facial features. Yes, it was him! It was my savior the day I arrived in Durham, North Carolina. How did Ben’s wife know this man? Was this fate acting on my behalf yet again? The man’s name slipped around in my skull until I caught it.
Lane Flynn. His genuine kindness to me back then gave me hope for a better future. He had been sweet, gentle, and seemed interested in me. Lane Flynn. The one that got away.
I’m coming for you.
Chapter 37
Candace
The morning after Ben’s death, I had expected to find Benjamin Paris’s name in the obituaries, but not in the news. And not like this. After all, suicides didn’t usually make the front page. But murder did.
Durham Police are looking for multiple suspects in an armed robbery and murder investigation, the police department announced earlier today. Benjamin Paris, 39, was fatally stabbed following a home invasion on Hendricks Way late last night. Paramedics arrived on the scene to find Paris already dead, the perpetrators having stolen thousands of dollars in valuables and artwork. The police believe two suspects are involved in the murder, and ask that anyone with any information please come forward.
How the heck had the cops figured it out so quickly that it wasn’t a suicide? What had happened to the note? To the staging? And what’s this about multiple suspects stealing stuff? What was going on?
As the significance of the article sunk in, I knew I was in it deep. A murder meant a lengthy investigation. It meant forensics and DNA and looking into Ben’s extracurriculars and phone call logs and credit card charges. The risk was high that I would end up dragged into this. Someone would recognize me. Or had seen my car parked down the street. Or caught a glimpse of me wandering through their backyard. A new hairstyle and dye job could take care of some of that, but I needed more. With a baby growing inside me, I couldn’t risk going on the run. I needed healthcare and security. I needed to stay just inside the outskirts of the investigation so that I knew how to protect myself and the baby.
It was possible Harper had restaged all my efforts. After all, she had the most to gain from a murder. A suicide meant no insurance payout, and family men like Ben – no matter how much a cheating jerk he was – always provided for their family. Men like Ben were prepared. Men who lived in mini-mansions with six-figure incomes bought the best death benefits. That, at least, could be to my advantage. Harper would be suspect number one. It was only fair that if I didn’t get a dime for my child’s future that Harper didn’t get one either. I refused to be left with nothing while Harper buried her husband and got rich doing it.
My brain rumbled through every step, every touch, every action at the crime scene. What had I missed? I had been so careful, thoughtful. I didn’t know what the investigators had found that would suggest anything but suicide – the window I had broken, most likely – but I would find out. Lane Flynn was my inside source.
I could never forget the day I met Lane, the first day I arrived in Durham, North Carolina, after a grueling bus ride. After leaving Pennsylvania, I had bled the entire trip, until finally arriving in the town described as having the best medical facilities in the South, and being ‘culturally dynamic while holding on to its historical significance’. The town had good medical care and was small and clean and modern and cute. It was the perfect mix of youthful innovation and mature taste. Welcome home!
My first night at the cheapest motel I could find ended with a night in the hospital when the spotting gushed into bleeding. That day I lost Noah’s baby, but gained a friend. The miscarriage made me a wreck, but my attending nurse, Lane Flynn, was kind, compassionate,
