He Blocked My Number the Night I Died Chapter 11

I didn’t sleep.

Jude didn’t either. He sat outside the NICU doors in a plastic chair all night, still in uniform, like a guard dog with a badge. Tessa moved Hope to an isolette deeper in the unit and flagged her file. Hospital security doubled.

The police traced the number to a burner. Untraceable.

“She’s spiraling,” Ingrid said the next morning. “The footage is with the DA, but they’re taking their time on the warrant. Her lawyer is arguing she was ‘clearing brush’ with that gas can.”

“Clearing brush,” Jude repeated, deadpan. “In my professional opinion as a firefighter, that’s bull.”

“They need a confession,” Ingrid said. “Or something that shows intent.”

I looked down at the threatening text again.

I know where the NICU is, big sister.

Sienna had always needed an audience. She’d never been able to win quietly. If she’d just burned my house and stayed calm, she might have gotten away with everything. But she had to post. She had to sing at my funeral. She had to wear the ring.

She had to gloat.

“Then let’s give her one,” I said.

Ingrid raised an eyebrow.

“She wants to see me lose. More than she wants anything.” I put my phone down. “So let me lose. In front of her. Privately.”

It took two days to arrange. The detectives were reluctant. Jude was furious.

“She tried to kill you,” he said, pacing the tiny family room. “And you want to sit across a table from her?”

“With three cops in the next room and a wire under my shirt,”

“And if she has a weapon?”

“She won’t. She never gets her own hands dirty in public,” I caught his wrist as he passed. “Jude. I spent nineteen years being afraid of her. Let me stop.”

He looked down at my hand on his arm. Then he sat beside me, very close, and let out a long breath.

“I hate this plan,” he said.

“I know.”

“If anything happens, I’m coming through that door.”

“I know that too.”

I texted the burner number from a new phone.

You win. I’m signing custody over to Mom and Dad. I can’t fight anymore. Can we talk? Just us. No

lawyers.

The reply came in ninety seconds.

Ashford Vineyard. Tomorrow. 8pm. Come alone.

The vineyard. Where I’d married Caleb. Where they held my funeral.

Of course.

The tasting room was empty when I arrived. The memorial easel was gone, but someone had left one

white rose on the bar.

Sienna was sitting at the far end, swirling a glass of my father’s best cabernet. She wore my cream

cashmere coat.

“You look terrible,” she said pleasantly.

“I had a baby in a fire.”

She smiled. “Yeah. Didn’t see that coming.”

I sat down across from her. My heart was slamming so hard I was sure the wire could hear it.

“Why?” I asked. “Just tell me why. You already had everything.”

The smile slid off her face.

“I had borrowed things,” she said. “Your room. Your parents. Your husband’s attention. Everything I had was yours first. Do you know what that’s like? To be the charity project? Every gala, Mom says, ‘This is our adopted daughter, like I’m a rescue dog.” She leaned forward. “And on Saturday, you were going to own everything. The company. The money. Caleb would’ve finally picked you, because you’d have been the one with power. I’d have been nothing again.”

“So you set the fire.”

She laughed. “You were supposed to be at the doctor’s at four. You always went to the doctor at four on Tuesdays. The house was supposed to be empty. Just the house, and the trust documents in the safe, and maybe-” she shrugged “-maybe you’d get so stressed you’d lose the baby. Then Caleb would have pitied you to death.”

“I rescheduled that appointment,” I whispered. “Because Caleb took my car.”

Her eyes flickered. Then she smiled again. Slowly.

“And when you called,” she said, “screaming about the fire? I could’ve told him to go. One word. I didn’t.”

She lifted her wine glass in a toast.

“I watched your house burn on the news while I held his hand. Best night of my life.”

Behind the tasting room door, a chair scraped.

Sienna’s head snapped toward the sound.

And for the first time in nineteen years, I watched my sister realize she was the one who’d been set up.