They Faked Their Deaths, I Faked My Recovery Chapter 01
My husband was a lawyer. My son was five. They were taken from me.
I got there in time to watch the bomb go off. In time to see them burn.
My older sister, Sloane Ellison, was a prosecutor. She’d been helping me track the killer when they got to her too. They tortured her to death.
Everyone said the same thing. I was too ruthless. I’d made too many enemies.
It was my fault they were dead. I was the one who should’ve been in the ground.
Major Crimes cut me loose.
I spent three years hunting the killer on my own.
Then one lead brought me to a restaurant.
And there they were. My husband. My son. My sister. Three years dead, sitting around a table, singing “Happy Birthday” to a little girl.
Everyone we knew was there.
I lunged for them. My best friend caught me from behind, arms locked around my waist.
“Mara, I know this is hard, but they’re married now. If you cause a scene, you’re the homewrecker here.”
“Sloane was already pregnant with Graham’s baby three years ago. Everyone knows what you’re like. Faking their deaths was the only way out.”
My mother watched from across the room, her expression sharp with warning.
“Honestly, it’s better you know. Sloane and Graham have spent years running, dragging those kids from place to place. It’s been hell watching them live like that.”
“They’re finally happy. Just walk away, and no one will hold this against you.”
The taste of blood pooled at the back of my throat, hot and metallic. I looked at every single one of them and laughed until the tears came.
Graham Ellison and Sloane had never been dead. For three years I’d been drowning in grief, and they’d been living their happy little life.
Every single person in this room had known. And every single one of them had helped keep it from me.
…
My phone went off. Colin Mercer, from Graham’s old firm.
I put it on speaker.
“Mara, I’ve got something on the killer. In a few days, he’s making a deal at an underground fight club in North Blackridge.”
“It’s way too dangerous. Mara, don’t go near that place.”
I hung up. Looked around the room at all of them, tears running down my face.
I crouched down slowly and rolled up my sleeves. Pushed up my pant legs. Every inch of skin underneath was scarred.
The brand around my ankle was warped, mangled skin. A masked man on a cargo ship had left it there. He’d held me down and pressed a red-hot iron into my skin.
My best friend gave me that lead.
Her father had tried to force her to marry a man twice her age. I was the one who got her out, got her a ticket and a scholarship out of the country.
The lash marks across my back, dark and raised even now, came from a casino near the Blackridge border. A crew grabbed me and beat me for hours on end.
Graham’s best friend gave me that lead.
When his mother got sick, I gave him $12,000. He always said he could never repay me.
The knife scar across my lower abdomen came from an abandoned slaughterhouse. A man drove a combat knife into me.
The wound went deep. I found a field dressing and packed it myself, or I would’ve bled out on that floor.
Caleb Monroe gave me that lead. A kid I’d been putting through school for twelve years.
Now every single one of them was here.
I wanted to scream the question at them. They knew Graham and Sloane were alive. They knew the killer wasn’t real.
So why did they send me out there to die?
They looked at my scars, every last one of them, and I searched their faces for guilt. There was none. Just the quiet look of people who’d known exactly what they were doing.
Nobody spoke. Then Graham stepped through the crowd and walked toward me.
He traced his fingers over my scars, slow and gentle. Then he tucked my hair behind my ear.
“Mara, you’ve always been too smart for your own good. If we hadn’t kept you chasing leads, you would’ve figured out pretty fast that Sloane and I were alive.”
“The people who hurt you were paid to stage those attacks. Professionals. They knew exactly how far to go. You were never in real danger.”
My best friend yanked me back from Graham.
“They were just playing a part. A few scratches. It’s not like they actually hurt you.”
“Graham is Sloane’s husband now. Do you have any idea what they went through to get away from you? Just respect that.”
Every drop of blood in my body went cold.
My ears were ringing. I pressed my hand against my chest, and I couldn’t tell anymore if what I felt was heartbreak or disgust.
Their deaths weren’t the only thing they’d faked.
Every lead I’d nearly died chasing was a lie.
Every single one of those men had been on their payroll.
The scars I’d worn like proof of something, proof I’d fought, proof I’d survived, were nothing but a sick joke.
As long as Sloane got her happy ending, what did it matter how many scars I carried?