Mrs. Thorne Dies Twice

The night I died in the basement, my skin was falling off in sheets. My husband was upstairs in bed with the woman who put me there. In my last life, the orphan my husband took in gave me a necklace. After I put it on, I couldn't stay awake. My body broke down in ways no doctor could explain, and by the end I was rotting from the inside out. I didn't learn the truth until after I died. She was a corporate spy planted by a rival conglomerate. After her side lost, she used her face and her body to get Julian to bring her home. Once she was inside the estate, she used that necklace to destroy me. The pendant contained a trace amount of radium, enough to poison anyone who wore it against their skin day after day. Slow, invisible, impossible to diagnose until it was too late. Julian spent every night in her bed. He let me die in a locked room in the basement, alone, on a bare mattress that smelled like bleach and mold. After I was gone, they rolled me into a body bag and dumped me at a county crematorium. No service. No marker. Nothing. The only person who came for me was Seth, a housekeeper from Beatrice Sterling's household. He pulled strings to get my remains out of that crematorium and buried me himself. All because I'd smiled at him once at a company gala. That was all it took. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment she handed me the necklace. She wanted what I had. I'd make sure she got it.