Serena practically fled the house in her heels, so she never heard Mrs. Wallace's final words. My spirit trailed after her like it was tethered to an invisible string, unable to do anything but follow.

The taxi tore through the streets and finally pulled up beneath Declan's riverfront apartment building. The moment Serena walked through the door, Declan was right there waiting, an eager smile plastered across his face.

"Sere, how'd it go? Did Fletcher agree?"

Serena paused mid-step as she was changing her shoes, avoiding his eyes. "He wasn't home."

The smile slid off Declan's face, quickly replaced by a wounded expression. "Is Fletcher still holding a grudge? About me asking him to take the fall? I know that was a lot to put on him."

He dropped his head, and his voice went quiet, his eyes slowly reddening at the rims. "Maybe we should just forget the whole thing. It was my fault in the first place. I can't drag him into this again.

"It's just that if I really do end up behind bars, I don't know what you'd do on your own..."

Serena couldn't stand seeing him like that. She pulled him into her arms with a frown and held him close.

"Stop that. He has no right to be upset. I gave him a huge payout to keep quiet last time, and the victim's family was taken care of.

"All he had to do was sit in a cell for a couple of years. It's not like anyone asked him to die. So, what's the problem?"

She gripped his shoulders, and her voice went dead serious. "Don't worry. I'll find him. And this time, he's going to handle it for you whether he likes it or not."

I hovered near the living room ceiling, and I caught the flash of triumph that crossed Declan's lips for just a split second. My entire soul went cold.

I never saw a single cent of that money. And those "family members" she claimed had been taken care of ended up being the ones who killed me.

Declan buried his face in the crook of Serena's neck. From the angle she couldn't see, his mouth curved into a smug little smile. I reached out to wrap my hands around his throat, but my fingers passed straight through him.

"Don't worry," Serena murmured, stroking his back. "I'll track him down. He's going to see this through to the end."

She wasted no time. The very next morning, Serena drove back to the courtyard of my old house.

Sunlight filtered through the cracked window frames into the abandoned rooms. Serena stood in the yard, her frown deepening with every passing second.

"These flowers..."

She crouched down and brushed her fingers over the withered rose bushes. She knew how much I loved tending to plants, and that I'd never let them wilt like this unless something was truly wrong.

I followed behind her as she pulled out her phone and snapped photos of the cobweb-covered windowsills. Her thumb hovered over the screen for a long time before she finally dialed her assistant, Kieran Pratt.

"Look into Fletcher Whitmore's whereabouts. I want every detail you can find."

After she hung up, she kept walking deeper into the house. My heart started pounding.

Just around the corner, there was still a dried pool of blood stained into the concrete slab from three years ago. Two more steps and she'd see it.

Then a shrill ringtone cut through the silence. It was Declan's custom tone.

His voice came through the phone in a panic. "Sere! I just heard that the victim's side has gotten hold of new evidence. If we don't deal with this fast, we're done for!"

"What?" The color drained from Serena's face.

"I'm coming back right now!"

She turned and ran, not sparing another thought for anything else in the house.

I let out a bitter laugh. Some things never changed. No matter what, Declan always came first.

I was dragged along behind Serena's car as it tore through the streets, the scenery outside the windows blurring into nothing. She kept tapping the steering wheel, muttering under her breath.

"There's still time. There has to be..."

The car's speakerphone clicked on, and Kieran's voice filled the cabin. "Ms. Collier, we still haven't found any trace of Mr. Whitmore. It really looks like he might be—"

"Useless!" Serena slammed her palm against the steering wheel.

"Keep looking! Pull every security camera in the city if you have to!"

After she hung up, her breathing grew faster and more ragged. Then her eyes lit up with that look I knew all too well, the one she got when she thought she had the winning hand.

She dialed Declan's number so fast her fingers nearly slipped, her voice trembling with excitement. "Declan, I just figured it out! That old woman is still in the psychiatric ward. She's the one person Fletcher cares about more than anything."

Something deep inside me lurched. The image of my mother's frail, wasted body flashed before my eyes. After all these years, Serena still wanted to use my mother as leverage against me.

I screamed at her to stop, but she couldn't hear me. She was too caught up in the thrill of closing in on her lead, and she floored the gas pedal toward the hospital.

Serena's heels clicked sharply against the stained concrete floor. The hallway stank of disinfectant and urine, the two smells mixing into something sharp and nauseating. She pressed her hand over her nose and mouth and called out.

"Someone get over here! Where's Fletcher Whitmore's mother? Bring her out to see me!"

A middle-aged man in wire-rimmed glasses came hurrying down the corridor. "Ms. Collier, what brings you all the way—"

"Save it!" Serena cut him off. "Which room is Fletcher's mother in? I'm taking her with me."

Dr. James Langford's expression froze. A thin sheen of sweat broke out across his forehead. "Well, you see, you may not have heard, but Mrs. Whitmore Senior—"

"She what? Declan paid a hundred thousand in medical fees just last month! Take me to her right now!"

The thought made me sick. That hundred thousand had probably gone straight into Declan and Dr. Langford's pockets.

Dr. Langford fumbled with his computer, pulling up the records with shaking hands. The death certificate on the screen was impossible to miss.

"Date of death: March 15th, 2023. Cause: Severe malnutrition."

"M-Ms. Collier, Mrs. Whitmore Senior died two years ago."

"Bullshit!"

Serena snatched the mouse from him and stared at the screen. Her eyes went wide, and I could see her hands starting to tremble.

But a second later, she let out a cold, humorless laugh. "Very clever, Dr. Langford. How much did Fletcher pay you to fake these records?"

She leaned in close and dropped her voice to barely above a whisper. "Do you have any idea how many years you'd get for forging medical documents?"

Dr. Langford's knees nearly buckled. "Ms. Collier, I swear this was auto-generated by the system! You can look up the death certificate number yourself. It's all on file."

"Shut up!" Serena slammed the laptop shut and headed straight for the door.

"I'll get to the bottom of this myself. And if I find out you people have been conspiring against me..."

She didn't finish the sentence, but Dr. Langford already looked like he'd seen a ghost. I knew exactly what he was afraid of. He was the one who had injected my mother with an overdose of sedatives all those years ago.

When Serena started the car again, her hands were shaking so badly she could barely grip the wheel. She called Declan, but her voice came out impossibly soft.

"Sweetheart, don't worry. I'll find that old woman. Fletcher always did whatever she told him to."

I hovered in the passenger seat, watching the tenderness in her eyes as she spoke to him, and hatred surged through every part of me like a rising tide.

If the dead could cry, I would have.

Alas, Serena's tenderness was reserved for Declan alone.

The moment she hung up, her foot pressed the gas pedal to the floor. She tore through the streets, blowing through three red lights without even flinching. She screamed at Kieran through the speakerphone, her knuckles white against the steering wheel.

"Dig into it! I want answers! That hospital is hiding something. Fletcher must have paid them off!"

I glanced at her from the side, watching her face twist with rage, and I couldn't help but laugh. It was ironic, really.

The hospital had lied, she was right about that. But the money hadn't come from me, and the cover-up wasn't for my benefit. It was all for the man she loved and trusted more than anyone in the world.

I turned toward the window and watched the streets blur past, and my mind drifted back to a rainy night three years ago.

Declan had his arm draped around Serena's shoulder, speaking in that casual tone of his. "That old woman is becoming a problem. She keeps showing up at the police station and making a scene. If she doesn't stop, she's going to blow this whole thing wide open."

Serena hadn't even looked up from her phone. "Deal with it however you want."

After that night, Declan had Mom committed to the psychiatric ward under a false diagnosis. She lost every last shred of her freedom.

The screech of brakes snapped me back to the present. Serena had pulled up in front of the county courthouse, but she didn't get out. She sat staring at a message from Declan on her phone.

"Sere, the hearing is tomorrow. How have you still not found Fletcher?"

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel for a moment, then called him back. "Declan, at this point, the only way to buy time is if something comes up that forces them to delay the hearing."

"An emergency?" Declan sounded confused.

"Something like a sudden illness, or a natural disaster. Some kind of unavoidable circumstance."

Declan went quiet on the other end.

A few seconds later, a sharp, agonized scream tore through the phone, followed by the heavy thud of something falling. The color drained from Serena's face instantly.

"Declan? Declan!"

After a burst of static, a caretaker's panicked voice came through. "M-Ms. Collier, Mr. Merritt fell down the stairs!"

I trailed behind Serena as she rushed into the hospital emergency room. Declan was lying on a stretcher with his right leg in a cast, his face completely drained of color. Serena threw herself at his bedside, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Are you out of your mind? I said we'd figure something out! Why would you do this to yourself?"

Declan managed a weak, pitiful smile. "I just didn't want you running around and stressing yourself out over me anymore. I owe you too much already."

Serena let out a long breath and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "You idiot."

She paused, and her voice steadied. "The doctor says you fractured your right tibia. You'll need two weeks of bed rest, which means the hearing gets pushed back by at least half a month.

"Just focus on getting better. Leave the rest to me."

By the time she walked out of the hospital, every trace of softness had vanished from her face. She dialed Kieran's number as she crossed the parking lot.

"What have you found so far? Good. And while you're at it, look into where Fletcher might be hiding. His old house, friends' places, anywhere he could have gone."

I drifted behind her, watching her slide into the car. My spirit hid in the shadow she cast against the pavement. She would never know that the person she was searching for had been right beside her this entire time.