Chapter 3

I didn't scream. Sixteen husbands teach you that much.

I stepped back from the bed and made myself think like a doctor instead of a wife.

No heartbeat. Warm skin. A house full of money had certified this man dead — Crane family physicians don't gamble with death certificates. So either every doctor in this house was blind, or—

I went over him again, slowly. And found it at his collar: a thin cord, and on the cord, a small silver charm.

I turned it over. The maker's mark on the back was one I'd known my whole life.

Gran's work.

My grandmother has made charms for old money for fifty years. Sleep charms, luck charms, charms to keep husbands honest — small, polite magic. But there was one she talked about the way other women talk about a first love. The one she never made twice. A charm against a killing blow. It catches the wearer on the way down and drops him into a sleep deep enough to fool death itself. No heartbeat. No breath. Just waiting.

I'd always assumed it was a bedtime story to keep me practicing.

Apparently not.

Which meant my husband wasn't dead. Yet. The sleep was built to hold for hours, not for a day — and under my palm, he was losing warmth by the minute.

"Oh no you don't," I said.

I'd told them to keep this room warm. I cranked the thermostat as high as it would go and dragged the blanket up to his chin. Still cooling.

A living Crane heir was worth ten of my fee. And more to the point, Gran's charms do not fail. I was not going to stand there and watch her masterpiece become her first refund.

I climbed onto the bed and into his arms, pressing my warmth into him, one hand keeping a slow rhythm over his heart.

The dead answer their wives. I figured the almost-dead might too.

"Adrian Crane," I said, over and over, like a prayer with an invoice attached. "Don't you dare die on me. A living heir pays ten times better, do you hear me? I don't do refunds—"

It took a long time. Long enough for the rain to go from ticking to drumming. Long enough that I'd stopped feeling foolish.

Then, against my ear, a thread of a voice.

"...No refunds." A breath. "Good. You're stuck with me... wife."

I shot off that bed so fast the veil came loose. Relief, joy, and deep professional embarrassment, roughly in that order.

"Don't worry," I said, smoothing my dress. "I'll have them call an ambulance."

Inside, I was already counting. Eight million, and I'd had to talk myself hoarse for it. A living Crane heir, delivered breathing? Start at a hundred.

I made it two steps before something caught my skirt.

His fingers. Weak, and not letting go.

"Don't." His eyes were open, just barely. "It was them."

I stopped. "Them?"

"They did this to me."

The floor dropped out from under the conversation. I came back and leaned down, because his voice was barely making it out of him.

"My brother," he said. "He's believed for years that I'm the reason he can't walk. This morning he asked me down to the pool. To talk."

"Your brother. The one in the wheelchair." I looked at the rest of my husband, which was, frankly, a lot of wasted muscle. "And you lost?"

"I didn't fight him."

"Why not?"

"He's my brother." He said it like that settled something. "Whatever he wants, he can have."

"He wanted you dead."

"...He can have anything. Even—"

"Even that? You should be canonized. Saint Adrian of the Doormats."

A weak almost-laugh. Then it went out.

"You're right. But mostly — I didn't believe he'd really do it. And I never thought my father would let him."

I went very still. "Your father knew?"

"My father gave the order."

The rain filled the pause.

"My father married into this family. He took my mother's name for the money — people called it romantic. Twenty years ago there was a fire, and the money became his. Last month I found out the fire had been bought and paid for." His voice stayed flat, which was worse than shaking. "I told him to turn himself in. He said he would. He asked for a week to settle his affairs."

"And then?"

"Then he settled me."

I had a hundred questions. I asked the stupidest one first. "How do you know all this?"

A sound that wanted to be a laugh. "People get honest around the dead. My father held my hand and cried for three hours. Told me everything. My brother apologized." A pause. "Twice."

I thought of Marcus weeping beautifully at the front door. Of Victor's wet eyes at the bedside.

The tears had been real. That was the worst part.

In my business, you hear families say ugly things over a body. This was the first time the body could confirm them. I did some quiet math on how much I now knew — and how little this family could afford for me to know it.

"So," I said. "Your brother drowned you, and your father signed off on it."

"There's one more." His fingers found my wrist. "While they cried over me, they kept mentioning a woman. No name. Just 'she.' 'She'll keep the staff away.' 'She knows what to do.'" His grip tightened as far as it could, which wasn't far. "Whoever they bring to my funeral — don't trust her."

Someone knocked on the door.