My face appeared—pale, tired, filmed a few days earlier in the safe apartment, where I had leaned heavily on the back of a chair to make the fatigue look real.

“Vanessa,” the recorded version of me said, my voice low and slow. “My dear wife. And Colby, my brother. If you’re seeing this, it means my sadness finally finished what you helped along.”

Vanessa shot to her feet.

“What is this?” she snapped, the polished softness gone from her tone. “This is inappropriate. Marcus wasn’t thinking straight. He—”

“Oh, he was very clear,” a new voice said.

Richard had not spoken.

I stepped out from behind the sliding shelves and walked into the library.

The Girl They Tried to Erase

It is a strange feeling, walking into a room full of people who believe they will never see you again.

For a moment, silence crashed down so hard it buzzed in my ears. A few people gasped. Someone’s pen dropped and rolled across the table.

Vanessa’s face lost all its color. She didn’t scream. She just made a small, strangled sound and gripped the edge of her chair.

Colby stood so fast his chair tipped backward and hit the floor. He stared at me like I was something that had crawled out of his worst dream.

“This isn’t real,” he said, his voice breaking. “This is some kind of trick. Marcus is gone. We saw—”

“What you saw,” I cut in, “was exactly what you planned for everyone else to see. A man who had been pushed just far enough that his body finally gave out.”

I stepped closer.

“You counted on my sadness,” I said quietly. “You thought you could turn it into a tool. You thought if you kept me weak enough, confused enough, nobody would question anything you signed in my name.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Vanessa said, finding her voice again. “You’ve been in pieces since the tragedy. You’ve been seeing Chloe everywhere. You insisted on making a recording when you weren’t thinking clearly. This is proof of your condition, not ours.”

“Is it?” I asked.

I lifted my hand.

Frank opened the double doors at the far end of the library.

Chloe walked in.

She was no longer wrapped in a dirty blanket. Her hair was clean, pulled back in a simple braid. She wore a plain white dress and flat shoes. She looked small in the big room, but she held herself straight.

Every eye turned to her.

Someone at the back of the room whispered her name.