“Grandma said I could say goodbye.”

Christopher answered from somewhere behind him.

“Just for a minute, buddy.”

Mason stepped onto something beside the coffin.

His face appeared above the narrow opening.

He stared down at me.

I stared back.

His eyebrows pulled together.

I tried to blink deliberately.

Once.

Then again.

Mason leaned closer.

“Aunt Maddie?”

I blinked.

His mouth opened.

He jumped down so quickly that whatever he had been standing on scraped across the floor.

“Mommy.”

Chloe sounded irritated.

“What?”

“Aunt Madelyn is looking at me.”

Silence.

Then Chloe laughed.

Too quickly.

“No, honey. She isn’t.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Mason—”

He raised his voice.

“Mommy, Aunt Madelyn is looking right at me!”

A glass hit the floor.

My mother came running.

“What did he say?”

Christopher moved toward her.

“Helen, don’t. He’s a kid. He’s confused.”

“Move.”

“You’re going to upset yourself.”

My mother shoved his arm away.

I heard the coffin lid move.

Then light flooded my face.

My mother screamed.

Not because I looked dead.

Because I didn’t.

My eyes were open.

“Madelyn?”

I tried to speak.

A low sound came from my throat.

My mother grabbed my hand.

“Call 911!”

Christopher stepped forward.

“Everybody calm down.”

Nobody listened.

“There are rare medical conditions where—”

My mother turned on him.

“My daughter is breathing!”

Chloe stood several feet away.

The gold heart necklace was still around her neck.

She had one hand pressed over it.

Our eyes met.

She backed away from the coffin.

That was the first time I saw fear on her face.

Not shock.

Fear.

And lying there unable to lift my own head, I knew exactly why.

I Asked the Doctor One Question

I woke again at Aurora Sinai Medical Center.

This time there was no wood above me.

A heart monitor beeped beside the bed.

My mother was sitting in a chair with both hands wrapped around a paper coffee cup.

When she noticed my eyes opening, she stood so quickly the coffee spilled onto the floor.

“Don’t try to talk.”

I tried anyway.

“Mason?”

She started crying.

“He’s okay.”

A doctor came in less than ten minutes later.

She asked what medications I took.

I gave her the short list.

None were sedatives.

She looked at the chart.

“Have you ever been prescribed clonazepam?”

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

She pulled a chair closer.

“Your bloodwork showed a very high concentration of a prescription sedative.”

My mother stopped crying.

I looked at her.

Then at the doctor.

The memory of Christopher’s voice beside my coffin came back.

After what you gave her?

She drank the whole thing.

I reached for the call button but my hand still shook too badly.

My mother took it for me.

“What do you need?”

I looked at the doctor.

“Police.”

Christopher had spent hours deciding what would happen to my property after I died.

Chloe had already put my grandmother’s necklace around her neck.

But I was alive.

And for the first time since I opened my eyes inside that coffin, they were no longer the only people who knew the truth.

Chloe Didn’t Make It Out of Milwaukee

The detectives arrived that evening.

I told them everything I remembered.

The forty-two-thousand-dollar transfer.

The cinnamon milk.

Christopher and Chloe talking beside the coffin.

The insurance.

The building.

The pills.

The laugh.

By then Christopher was gone.

So was Chloe.

My mother called Chloe three times.

No answer.

Around nine that night, one of the detectives returned to my room.

He held his phone in his hand.

“We found your sister.”

“Where?”

“Intercity bus terminal.”

She had been trying to leave for Minneapolis.

The detective hesitated.

“There’s something else.”

He showed me a photograph of the contents of Chloe’s handbag spread across a metal table.

Two one-way bus tickets.

A wallet.

A phone charger.

Several folded documents.

And my necklace.

I touched my bare throat.

“That’s mine.”

“We know.”

The papers were copies of the deed and tax records for the commercial building I had inherited.

I stared at them for a long time.

“Where is Christopher?”

“We’re looking.”

He didn’t have to look for long.

Christopher wasn’t trying to escape Milwaukee.

He was trying to sell my building.

The following morning, he walked into a small notary office downtown carrying a power-of-attorney document with my signature on it.

Except I had never signed it.

The notary had already seen the police bulletin.

She didn’t confront him.

She looked over the pages and said:

“Give me a few minutes. I need to verify one thing before I stamp this.”

Then she went into the back office and called police.

Christopher was still sitting in the waiting room when officers arrived.

The detective told me he kept insisting there had been a misunderstanding.

“Did he ask about me?” I said.

The detective looked down at his notebook.

“No.”

I nodded.

Somehow that answer didn’t surprise me.

My Sister Had Been Sleeping With My Husband for Almost Two Years

The investigation took apart the story Christopher had prepared for everyone else.

His computer contained scans of my driver’s license, tax records, property documents and insurance information.

There were searches about life insurance payouts.

Selling property after an owner’s death.

Power of attorney.

What happened to separately owned real estate when a spouse died.

The forty-two thousand dollars hadn’t paid for renovations.

Some had gone toward Christopher’s personal debts.

The rest had been moved through an account Chloe could access.

But I still wanted one answer from her.

Why?

The prosecutor arranged a meeting.

Chloe entered the conference room wearing county jail clothes.