Chapter 4

On the third day, the officer returned my phone to Giles.

One corner of the screen was cracked.

That was from the night the pain left me too weak to stand, when I fell down the basement steps.

Giles typed in my birthday. It didn't open.

He typed in his own birthday. That didn't work either.

In the end, he typed in the date we got legally married.

The screen lit up, and he sat frozen for a long time.

He was pinned to the top of my messages.

The last one had been sent the night I died.

【Giles, the pain is really bad. Can you come home soon?】

No reply.

He scrolled up.

【The landlord asked about rent today. I covered it for now.】

【The soles of your shoes were coming apart, so I bought you a new pair. They weren't expensive.】

【My test results weren't great. There's something I want to tell you.】

【Never mind. You're too tired today.】

His fingers were shaking.

He opened the notes app.

Line after line, crammed together, was my ledger.

Rent, eighteen hundred.

Utilities, three hundred twenty.

Giles's birthday cake, eighty-eight.

Giles's stomach medicine, twenty-nine.

Follow-up exam fee, unpaid.

Hospital stay, undetermined.

The last line read:

【Treatment costs too much. Don't do it.】

【Don't be a burden to him.】

That was me, writing to myself.

Giles clapped both hands over his face.

“Sally, why won't you curse at me?”

“Curse at me...”

Another email popped up on the phone.

There were many recipients.

The Delgado Group board, social welfare agencies, and a few media outlets.

The subject line read:

【Please see the truth about how Sally Henson died.】

His fingertip stopped.

Once he saw what was inside, his pupils shrank all at once, and even his breathing stopped.

That was the email I sent to the orphanage director before I swallowed the pills.

I only meant to give Martha, who raised me, a proper goodbye.

I never thought that after I died, she would be the one to speak for me.

The email held scanned copies of my medical records.

Photos of the basement.

Rent transfer records.

And a recording.

In the recording was Teresa's voice.

“Sally, the Delgados don't keep sickly people around.”

“If you really care about Giles, then learn your place.”

My own voice was very faint.

“But the doctor said if we act now, there's still a chance.”

Teresa laughed.

“A chance? You, an orphan girl, what are you going to pay for treatment with?”

“Don't think that a marriage certificate means you get to spend the Delgados' money.”

The recording ended there.

Giles went rigid in the chair.

The next second, another document jumped onto the screen.

It was an agreement waiving all rights to property.

On the signature line were the two words, “Sally Henson.”

Beside it was pressed a red fingerprint.

The date was the night I died, ten forty-seven p.m.

By then, the pain was so bad I couldn't even hold a cup of water steady.

Giles shot to his feet.

“Impossible.”

“There's no way she'd sign this.”

Lillian's message came through right then.

【Giles, the agreement's been taken care of.】

【Sally won't get in the way of you inheriting the Delgado name anymore.】

【Don't blame me. I did all of this for you.】

Giles stared at that line, the red creeping into his eyes.

His hands wouldn't stop shaking, and only now did he understand.

Everything he had thought was a test of feelings had been a death they'd calculated down to the last detail.