Chapter 5

"Arthur, please," I begged, my voice breaking. "She's my grandmother. She's all I have left here."

He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw no anger, no irritation. Just a cold, dead emptiness. It was the look you give a stranger, an inconvenience.

"That's not my problem," he said.

He turned his back on me, taking Diana's hand. "Come on, my love. Let's get you out of this place. I'll take you home."

He started to lead her away, the team of doctors parting for them like the Red Sea.

"Don't you walk away from me!" I shrieked, trying to grab his arm.

A doctor, a man who had once praised my devotion to Arthur during his illness, held me back. "Miss Farmer, please calm down."

"Calm down? My grandmother is dying!"

They just shook their heads, their faces impassive. They followed Arthur out of the suite, leaving me alone in the hallway. Their footsteps were a death march.

I scrambled back to the ER, desperately searching for anyone who could help. I found a young intern, his face pale with stress. He agreed to look at my grandmother. But it was too late.

As he was examining her, her eyes fluttered closed. The heart monitor beside her bed flatlined.

A nurse's voice, gentle and full of pity, cut through the fog of my disbelief. "Time of death, 2:17 PM."

I didn't scream. I didn't cry. A profound, crushing silence fell over me. My grandmother was gone. And Arthur had killed her as surely as if he'd been driving the car that hit her.

I sat by her body for hours, holding her cold hand, until the world outside the hospital window turned from grey to black.

They appeared after the cremation. Arthur and Diana. He had the audacity to bring her to the funeral home.

Diana, dressed in black, her face a mask of sorrow, came to me first. "Ella, I am so, so sorry," she whispered. "If I had known she was your grandmother... but you were so frantic, so angry. You scared me. That's why I fainted."

She was blaming me. For her fake illness. For my grandmother's death.

Arthur put his arm around Diana, pulling her close. "It's not your fault, my love. You were unwell." He looked at me, his eyes full of reproach. "This wouldn't have happened if Ella had controlled her emotions."

Something inside me snapped. "Get out," I hissed, my voice a low, dangerous tremor. "Both of you. Get out!"

He shielded Diana as if I were a physical threat. "Your grief is making you hysterical, Ella." He pulled a checkbook from his jacket. "I'll take care of all the arrangements. The best coffin, the best plot. It's the least I can do."

He scribbled a check and placed it on the table, then led Diana away, leaving me alone with the ashes of the woman he had murdered.

I stood there, watching them go, my body numb, my soul hollowed out.

I don't want the best plot, I thought. I just want my grandma back.

I wished I had never met him. I wished he had died from his disease.

He sent a team to handle the funeral. It was efficient, expensive, and utterly soulless. I stood at the graveside in a black dress that hung off my skeletal frame, a solitary mourner in a sea of paid-for arrangements.

I watched them lower the urn into the ground. The finality of it was a physical blow. The grief I had been holding back erupted, a raw, silent scream that tore through me. I cried until my tears ran dry, until my body was wracked with dry, heaving sobs. Then, I collapsed onto the cold earth, the world fading to black.

A phone rang, shrill and insistent, pulling me from the darkness. I was on the floor of my guest room, the funeral long over. My head throbbed.

I fumbled for my phone. It was the cemetery director.

"Miss Farmer," he said, his voice tight with urgency. "You need to come down here. There's a problem with your grandmother's grave."