Chapter 12
Ava and Lily were gone by morning.
Watching the drama unfold, I felt no satisfaction. Only a deep, unsettling sense of the absurd. At this point, I almost wished Julian
had just loved Ava all along. This belated, tragic epiphany just made my death feel like a punchline to a very cruel joke.
Love that only arrives after death is no love at all.
When the house was finally silent, Julian collapsed onto the sofa. His gaze was vacant, staring into nothing. After a long time,
the crushing quiet, I heard a sound. A choked, ragged sob.
had never seen him cry.
I was beginning to drift into a state of ghostly slumber when he suddenly shot to his feet and ran outside, into the storm. He was
acting like a madman.
He ran to the large trash bins at the end of the driveway. He was digging through them.
The rain plastered his hair to his forehead and soaked his expensive suit. He was a complete wreck. Thankfully, I was a ghost. I
couldn’t feel the cold.
“Where is it?” he muttered, his voice frantic as he tossed bags aside. “I’m sorry. I never should have thrown it away
Oh. He was looking for the package I sent him.
He searched all night. He found nothing
As dawn broke, he sat on the wet curb, a picture of utter desolation. This s was a gated community; there was no one around to see
the powerful Julian Vance brought so low.
When Mrs. Gable arrived for work, she gasped. “Sir! What on earth…?”
A flicker of light returned to Julian’s eyes. He looked up at her. “The package the sent,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You’re the one
who threw it out. I can’t find it.”
Mrs. Gable’s expression shifted. “LI didn’t actually throw it away, sir.”
Julian’s head snapped up, his eyes suddenly bright with a desperate hope. “Where is it?”
She led him to her small room off the kitchen, and he followed her like a child.
Mrs. Gable sighed. “Ms. Chloe was a good girl, sir. Not a mean bone in her body. Going off to a new place all by herself… I worried
for her.”
Julian faltered, his throat working. “She’s not coming back.”
The housekeeper didn’t understand his meaning. She just shook her head sadly. “A shame. She was always asking me what your favorite foods were, so she could learn to cook them. She told me once she didn’t really like all that heavy makeup, but she wore it
because you did.”
She paused, remembering. “She asked me if I thought she looked like Ms. Monroe, if she was just as pretty. She was smiling when she asked, so bright. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. I told her she was prettier. You should have seen how happy that
made her.”
Chapter 2
Julian turned his head away, his body trembling so violently I thought he might fall
