Three days later, he buried us both.

At least that was what everyone thought.

The coffin was closed because Derek told people the recovery conditions had made viewing impossible.

There was no body inside.

Law enforcement knew that.

The funeral director knew that.

A very small number of people knew I was alive.

Everyone else filled a church outside Denver and mourned me.

I watched the service from a television in a safe house.

William slept against my chest in a gray blanket.

My father sat in the front pew.

Derek stood beside the coffin.

He looked exhausted.

His tie was crooked. His eyes were red.

People hugged him.

He accepted every hug.

Then Paige walked into the church.

My hand tightened around William’s blanket.

“There she is.”

Maria looked up from the dining table.

Paige sat alone near the back.

She wasn’t watching Derek.

She was watching the coffin.

And she looked terrified.

Not guilty.

Terrified.

After the service, Derek approached her.

The camera angle was bad, but I saw Paige step backward when he touched her arm.

Then she left.

I pointed at the screen.

“Something’s wrong.”

Maria watched her disappear through the church doors.

“Maybe.”

“She was on the mountain.”

“That doesn’t mean she knew why she was there.”

I stared at her.

“I heard her.”

“You heard your husband mention fifty million dollars. What did she say?”

I opened my mouth.

Then stopped.

I couldn’t remember.

Not clearly.

That bothered me.

For three days I had pictured Paige standing beside Derek as an equal partner.

But on the mountain she had asked if they should call someone.

At the funeral she looked like she wanted to run.

The next morning, Maria came into the safe house holding her phone.

“Paige Lawson walked into our office at seven twelve this morning.”

I stood up.

“Why?”

Maria looked at William asleep in his bassinet.

Then back at me.

“She brought documents.”

For the first time since the mountain, Derek wasn’t the only person deciding what the rest of us were allowed to know.

Paige Had Been Lied To, Too

I didn’t forgive Paige.

I want to be clear about that.

She had been sleeping with my husband.

She knew he was married.

She knew I was pregnant.

But what she admitted was different from what I had imagined on that ledge.

Derek had told her our marriage was ending.

He told her the insurance was ordinary estate planning.

He told her the trip was supposed to force me into a conversation about separating.

Paige said she followed them onto a secondary trail because Derek had asked her to bring a folder he claimed I needed to sign.

She never saw him push me.

She heard me scream.

Then Derek told her I had fallen.

“Why didn’t she call for help?” I asked Maria.

“She says Derek told her he already had.”

That part made me put down my coffee.

Derek hadn’t called for forty minutes.

Paige hadn’t known that.

What changed her mind was what happened after my funeral.

Derek asked her to retrieve files from his office.

Inside one folder she found a draft agreement for the sale of a controlling interest in Mercer Glass.

The agreement depended on Derek exercising my voting rights.

There was another signature beside his.

Richard Bennett.

I knew Richard before I knew Derek.

He had been my father’s business partner and closest friend for almost thirty years.

Richard had been at my college graduation.

He came to my mother’s funeral.

He had introduced Derek to me at a company Christmas dinner when I was twenty-seven.

I called my father.

“Did Richard know about the trust amendment?”

Dad didn’t answer immediately.

“Yes.”

“Did he know about Northstar?”

Another pause.

That was enough.

“Dad.”

“I’m checking.”

“No. Tell me what you know.”

He exhaled.

“Richard has wanted a larger ownership position for years.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Northstar has financial ties to one of his investment groups.”

I put the phone on the table.

William made a small noise from his bassinet.

I picked him up before he started crying.

For most of my adult life, Mercer Glass had been described to me as a family responsibility.

My father said I had inherited more than shares.

I had inherited a duty.

Richard apparently thought I had inherited something else.

Something that should have been his.

Maria later showed me two emails Paige had provided.

In one, Paige had told Derek:

“Whatever is happening between you and Allison, fix it before you involve me any further.”

In another:

“She deserves to know the truth.”

They didn’t make Paige innocent.

They did make her useful.

Then Maria showed me a message from Richard to Derek asking whether I had signed the latest documents.

Derek’s response was six words.

“Allison signs whatever I put down.”

I read it twice.

I thought about the kitchen island.

The coffee.

The yellow tabs.

Then I handed the phone back.

“I want to stop hiding.”

Maria frowned.

“We’re not ready to arrest him yet.”

“I’m not asking you to arrest him.”

“What are you asking?”

I looked at William.

“I want my life back.”

The Woman From the Coffin

My father invited twelve people to his house the following Sunday.

Family.

Two longtime board members.

Richard Bennett.

All of them had attended my funeral.

Derek wasn’t invited.

Maria didn’t love the idea, but she agreed as long as we followed her conditions.

I waited upstairs with William until I heard everyone settle in the living room.

Then my father said:

“There’s someone you need to see.”

I walked downstairs.

Nobody screamed.

Real life is quieter than that.

My aunt dropped her coffee cup onto its saucer.

One board member stood up so quickly his knee hit the table.

Richard went completely still.

My father’s sister whispered:

“Allison?”

I kept walking.

William was awake against my shoulder.

My aunt reached me first.

She touched my arm like she wasn’t sure I was solid.