Then she shifted her weight.

A faint, thin scar sliced through her left eyebrow.

I was there the day she got it. She was ten years old, climbing on the kitchen counter to snag cookies from the top shelf. She slipped, split her head open, and begged me not to tell Mom what really happened.

My younger sister, Sarah.

Sarah had gripped my hand tightly at Derek’s funeral. She slept in my spare room for a week afterward because the quiet terrified me. She brought me takeout, washed my hair, and helped me organize the mountain of paperwork covering the dining table.

She knew exactly where the spare key was hidden. She knew my daily routine. She knew which prescriptions knocked me out for the night.

“She’s still my sister,” Sarah murmured quietly.

Derek didn’t miss a beat.

“She stopped being your sister the day she took the house.”

“Mom left it to her in the will.”

“Because Claire played the role of the devoted, perfect daughter while you were shoved to the side.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

For the last three years of our mother’s life, I drove her to chemo, changed her bandages, managed her finances, and slept in a hard plastic chair beside her hospital bed when she was scared. Sarah visited when she felt up to it, which was rare.

When Mom died, Sarah got half the cash savings, a few investments, and Grandma’s vintage jewelry. I inherited the house because I had quit my lease and cut my work hours to become a full-time caregiver.

Sarah called it blatant favoritism.

Derek had listened to her complain. Clearly, he had been listening with an agenda.

“You promised we would leave together,” Sarah said.

“We are going to.”

“When?”

“The second you find that folder.”

“You’ve been telling me that for months.”

Derek’s tone turned icy. “Check the nightstand.”

Sarah flinched.

That microscopic reaction told me everything I needed to know. She had eagerly betrayed me, but she was just now realizing that Derek’s promises belonged to the same place as his funeral—it was all just another calculated performance.

She pulled the nightstand drawer open.

My cell phone buzzed against my chest.

One short vibration.

Sarah froze in her tracks.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” Derek asked.

“A cell phone buzzing.”

She took a slow step toward the bed.

I shoved the phone under my stomach, but the screen had already illuminated the dust motes in the pale light.

Sarah dropped to a crouch.

First, her palms hit the carpet. Then her dark hair spilled forward. Finally, her face appeared under the edge of the mattress.

We locked eyes. Her jaw dropped.

I lunged before she could make a sound.

I slammed my shoulder into the wooden frame, grabbing her wrist tight. Sarah tumbled backward, and the phone went flying out of her grasp.

“Sarah?” Derek’s voice crackled from the speaker. “What’s going on?”

I scrambled out from under the bed and snatched her phone from the carpet. The screen displayed a blocked caller ID. The line was still live.

I brought it to my ear.

“Derek.”

Dead silence on the other end, save for the sound of breathing. The exact same steady, rhythmic breathing I had listened to in the dark for eleven years.

“Claire,” he finally breathed out.

My knees almost buckled.

I had envisioned this exact scenario in my dreams. Derek would come back because the coroner made a terrible mistake. He would walk through the front door, pull me into his chest, and apologize for every tear I shed.

But in none of those fantasies did he sound annoyed that I was alive and lucid.

“You watched me bury you,” I whispered.