When they thought he was dead, they threw him into his own car, poured gasoline inside, and pushed it off the road. The crash jolted him awake just as the fire started. Somehow he got the door open and crawled out before the car exploded. He hid until dark, then walked for hours to get to me.
I held him and cried, but after the crying came something harder. “If Laura thinks you’re dead,” I told him, “we’ll let her keep thinking that. We’ll let her feel safe. And when she least expects it, we’ll bring everything down on her.”
The next morning Laura called again, pretending to be the grieving widow. I played my part too. I went to the funeral in black, hid my eyes behind sunglasses, and watched the whole disgusting performance. The chapel was full.
A sealed coffin stood at the front beneath Daniel’s smiling picture. Laura wore black, cried at the right moments, accepted hugs, and acted like the perfect widow.
But I watched closely. When she thought nobody saw her, I caught the relief in her face.
Then I saw Ryan slip in through the side and sit in the back.
After the service I stayed outside instead of following the coffin. From a bench near the trees, I watched people leave.
When the lot was nearly empty, Ryan approached Laura. She handed him a thick envelope.
Then he pulled her close and kissed her right there in the cemetery parking lot, only minutes after everyone had mourned her “dead” husband.
When I got home, Daniel was waiting. I told him everything. We knew then we needed proof. H
e reminded me about the messages on Laura’s phone, and I realized she had invited me to her house the next day to collect some of Daniel’s belongings. That was our chance.
At her house, she played sweet and polite, offered me coffee, and showed me boxes of Daniel’s old clothes and papers.
Then she started talking again about the will and how Daniel had wanted her and Owen provided for. I pretended to get dizzy and asked to use the bathroom.
While she was distracted by a phone call outside, I grabbed her phone from the table.
It was unlocked.
I opened her messages with Ryan and found everything. Their affair. The plan. The fake accident. The forged documents. The insurance payout.
There was even a recent message where Ryan asked, “Are you sure he’s dead?” and Laura replied, “I saw the car burn. Nobody survives that. But keep checking hospitals just in case.”
They were still looking for him.