I pressed a hand against the gravestone to steady myself. My father had been lucid. Clear. He wasn’t a man who panicked easily. If he told Emma he was scared, he meant it.
“Melissa,” Emma whispered, “he left something for you.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small sealed envelope. My father’s handwriting was on the front.
My fingers shook as I took it.
Before I could open it, headlights swept across the cemetery entrance. A car rolled in—slow, deliberate.
Emma’s eyes widened. “We have to go. Now.”
The car stopped not far from us. The driver’s door opened.
Andrew stepped out.
My grieving, cheating husband.
He didn’t look surprised to see me.
He looked furious.
And in that instant, I understood he wasn’t only selfish—
He was tied to whatever my father had been trying to warn me about.
Andrew strode toward us with that confident, careless gait I used to mistake for strength. Tonight, it felt like a predator’s calm. His jaw was tight as he approached, fists clenched, eyes blazing with a kind of intensity I’d never seen.
“What are you doing here, Melissa?” he demanded.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” I said.
His gaze slid to Emma. “Why is she with you?”
Emma shifted behind me without thinking. Andrew’s eyes narrowed. “You shouldn’t be talking to her.”
My pulse surged. “Why not?”
He paused a beat too long. “Because she’s unstable. The facility fired her—”
“No,” Emma said, voice shaking. “I quit after they tried to silence me.”
Andrew shot her a look cold enough to make the air feel sharper.
And suddenly the pieces lined up:
His sudden “trip.”
The strange tension he’d had before the funeral.
The way he sometimes visited my father alone—unannounced.
And now, him showing up at 3 a.m.
“What did you say to my father?” I asked quietly.
He scoffed, but his eyes flickered—fear, guilt, irritation. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Don’t lie.”
His face hardened. “He didn’t know what he was talking about.”
That sentence chilled me.
My father had told Emma someone threatened him. Andrew dismissed him the same way the director had. The same way abusers always dismiss their victims.
I asked again, firmer. “Andrew… what did you say to him?”
He opened his mouth, shut it, his jaw working like he was grinding his teeth. Then he stepped closer and lowered his voice.
“He thought he could get involved in our marriage.”
My breath caught. “Get involved how?”