The Day I Died Twice Chapter 04

The Day I Died Twice Chapter 04

Nathaniel lunged for my phone—but he was three seconds too slow.

I’d already hit record the instant Mabel spoke. And I’d already screenshotted the texts I’d pulled from his cloud account at 6 a.m. that morning, while he slept, using the password I’d memorized in a life he had no idea I remembered.

Texts that spelled out everything. The lake. The witnesses. The insurance policy on my life. The plan to turn a dead wife into a martyred husband’s tragedy.

“Give me the phone, now,” Nathaniel snarled, the perfect-father mask gone entirely.

I stood, hoisting Mabel onto my hip, and backed toward the car. “Marissa,” I called pleasantly, “nice bracelet. Where’d you get it?”

Her face had gone the color of the lake fog.

“Nathaniel said—he said your wife gave it to me—”

“I gave you a four-thousand-dollar bracelet I reported missing to our insurance company?” I laughed, and the sound was sharp enough to draw blood. “Sweetie, do you have the faintest idea what he’s planning to do to you once he’s done with me?”

She froze. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re a witness, Marissa. The only one who knows the truth. Do you really think a man who’d drown his own

—

daughter is going to leave a loose end breathing?”

It was a guess.

But the way Nathaniel’s eyes snapped to Marissa told me I’d guessed right.

She saw it too.

I watched the precise moment the woman who’d helped frame me realized she was next.

“Nathaniel,” she whispered, edging back. “Nathaniel, what is she talking about?”

“Don’t listen to her,” he said, too fast. “She’s insane. She’s been off her medication—”

“I’m not on any medication,” I said calmly. “But I’d bet that’s in your story too, isn’t it? The unstable wife. The poor husband who tried so hard. You’ve been drafting my obituary for months.”

I set Mabel down behind me and pressed the car keys into her tiny hand. “Baby, go sit in the car and lock the doors. Mommy’s coming. Don’t open them for anyone but me.”

She ran. The locks clicked. Safe.

Then I turned back to the man I’d married, the man I’d loved, the man who had killed me once.

“You want my phone?” I held it up. “I’ve already sent everything to three email addresses, a lawyer, and a

—

journalist. The texts. The insurance policy. The recording of your call this morning where you said—and I quote—’by tonight it’ll be done, she won’t see it coming.”

The color drained from his face.

“You’re bluffing,” he breathed.

“Am I?” I smiled. “Check your phone. The cloud sync notification. The one that says your account was accessed at 6:04 this morning from a device that isn’t yours.”

He fumbled for his phone. I watched him read the alert.

I watched him understand that he’d lost.

And then—because Nathaniel had never once underestimated his own importance and had always underestimated mine—he did the stupidest thing a guilty man can do.

He charged at me.

But I was no longer the woman who’d walked into the lake like a lamb a lifetime ago.

I sidestepped, and Marissa—dear, terrified, freshly-betrayed Marissa—shot out her foot.

Nathaniel went face-first into the gravel.

And that was when the first police car turned down the driveway.

Because the journalist I’d emailed? She’d called the cops on her way over.