Chap­ter 38 — Chap­ter 38 marks a strange kind of calm after the chaos, the kind that set­tles in when wounds begin to close but every­thing still aches. At Emily’s house, I get the guest room with the flo­ral sheets and a stack of crime nov­els by the bed. She spoils me at first—smoothies with fresh pineap­ple, ice cream that soothes my throat, take­out con­tain­ers I don’t have to clean up after. Even Adele seems to under­stand this is a safe place. She sleeps at my feet each night, her weight ground­ing me to the moment. For a few days, I let myself believe that things are going to be okay.

But it doesn’t stay like that for long. Just five days in, the errands begin—innocent at first. A quick trip into the vil­lage for pas­tries, then a detour to Whole Foods for a list Emily’s made. By the third week, I’m walk­ing Major, her shih tzu, like I’ve always lived in this neigh­bor­hood. As I stroll past neat lawns and well-trimmed hedges, I start to won­der if I invent­ed the last six months. Maybe none of it happened—no fire, no Eddie, no house in the woods where I believed dreams might come true. But then we pass the emp­ty lot where the man­sion once stood, and real­i­ty hits like cold water.

All that’s left now is scorched earth, a shell of crime tape, and my own swirling grief. Still, I go there, like some­one vis­it­ing a grave, hop­ing for a whis­per from the past. I imag­ine Bea step­ping out of the smoke, still com­posed, telling me there was mean­ing in every­thing we went through. But there’s no sign, just the silence of a ruined place. I feel like a girl caught in some­one else’s night­mare, let loose just before the end­ing. The sad­ness creeps in more than the fear—mourning not just the peo­ple I lost, but the ver­sion of myself that had once believed in some­thing new.

Just as I turn to leave, with Major hap­pi­ly tug­ging the leash, my phone buzzes. The num­ber is unfa­mil­iar but local—Birmingham. A man’s slow, molasses-thick voice greets me: “Is this Jane Bell?” I con­firm, cau­tious. He intro­duces him­self as Richard Lloyd, Eddie’s lawyer, and the name hits like a hard echo. I remem­ber Eddie hand­ing his busi­ness card to John, and sud­den­ly the past doesn’t feel so far away. Richard asks to see me—soon. I want to decline, but I look at the scorched place behind me and won­der, fool­ish­ly, if this is the sign I’ve been wait­ing for.

The law office is exact­ly what you’d expect from some­one like Richard. Heavy fur­ni­ture, leather chairs, hunt­ing mag­a­zines, and enough taxi­dermy pho­tos to give any ani­mal lover chills. He appears in a suit that’s seen bet­ter days, look­ing like he drinks at lunch and flirts inap­pro­pri­ate­ly by two. Still, I paste on the polite smile Eddie once said he liked, shake Richard’s hand, and intro­duce myself with a prac­ticed ease. “Call me Jane,” I say, try­ing not to show how unset­tled I feel. He leads me to his office, where deer heads and shot­gun tro­phies greet me at every cor­ner.

What comes next shouldn’t be sur­pris­ing, but it is. Richard says Eddie changed his will not long after our engage­ment. He admits he tried to talk him out of it, and I hear that famil­iar ring of dis­be­lief behind his words. But my mind is buzzing too loud­ly to take offense. Eddie left me some­thing. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was strat­e­gy. Or maybe he thought Bea would return, and this was his ver­sion of dam­age con­trol. What­ev­er the rea­son, I’ve been named in the paper­work.

Richard slides a thick leather fold­er across the desk—inside, my name now appears beside what once belonged to Bea. Her shares, her com­pa­ny, every­thing under Eddie’s con­trol after she vanished—now, legal­ly mine. I hold it on my lap, the weight not just legal, but emo­tion­al. My fin­gers don’t trem­ble, but they feel heavy, like I’m car­ry­ing more than paper. I stare down at the fold­er, won­der­ing if own­er­ship is the same as clo­sure.

I’m told the com­pa­ny is now under my name. Richard makes a few notes, as if this is rou­tine, as if lives and lega­cies are swapped every day. But for me, this moment isn’t about wealth. It’s about the bur­den of a sto­ry I didn’t write, but some­how became the end­ing of. A part of me wants to walk out of there and leave it all behind. Anoth­er part needs to see this through—to under­stand what it means to inher­it some­one else’s bro­ken empire.

Pow­er, like fire, leaves ash­es. What mat­ters is what you rebuild from them.