Eve Of A Thousand Wakes

005 Ashes To Ashes

"Why did you do it?!" Ashley demanded furiously. "What did killing your own father over his company achieve? I've already been reinstated as Chairperson!"

Scarlet laughed, high and hysterical, jabbing a finger at her stepsister. "Are you seriously asking me why? Seriously?"

"Dad always loved his firstborn, trueborn daughter more! I had to live under your shadow! All my life, I got hand-me-downs. Always second priority! Arthur always favored his precious princess, Ashley! I was ignored and forgotten!"

Scarlet's voice climbed, frantic, unraveling. "You never deserved the happy life you had! So I decided to take it all away—every last piece of it!"

Scarlet's eyes blazed, wild and unblinking, like something other than her was looking out through them. "Your handsome, loving husband. The Chair of Palmer Industries."

"Your beauty and comfort—I destroyed it all! As for your reinstatement, we'll overturn the verdict. Then Jake will marry me. Don't count your chickens until they hatch, sister."

"You need a psychiatrist," Ashley said, deeply disturbed by her stepsister's unhinged outburst. "Dad gave you a new, stable, privileged life with forty-nine percent of the company shares, even though you weren't his blood. And you paid him back by killing him? You'll hang for this!"

Scarlet gnashed her teeth, looking ready to charge at her stepsister.

"What's going on here?" a voice asked from the doorway. Ashley turned to see Mary surveying the scene, hands on her hips.

Mary was Arthur's second wife and Scarlet's biological mother. She was in her forties but looked much younger.

Dressed in a red satin robe, she looked every inch the billionaire's wife—warm, composed, utterly believable. "Ashley, my dear, what happened?" she asked, her voice soft with concern that would later prove to be a lie. "Why are you fighting with your sister?"

Ashley took a deep breath. "I'm sorry to break it to you so bluntly, but you'll be shocked to know that your husband didn't die in a car accident!"

"What?" Mary exclaimed, her eyes widening. "Then what happened to him?"

Ashley was high on adrenaline and didn't bother to soften the blow to her stepmother. "Dad was killed by a cold-blooded murderer!"

"Who did it? Did the cops contact you with information?"

Ashley pointed straight at her stepsister. "Your daughter, Scarlet! She killed Dad! She ruined my life! All to steal the Palmer company! Now she's taken my husband!"

Mary shook her head in denial. "It must be a misunderstanding! You're clearly mistaken!"

Ashley scoffed at her stepmother. "I wish that were the case. I wish it were all in my imagination."

She opened her email and played Doyle's video.

Mary watched without flinching once—too composed, in hindsight, for a woman about to learn her husband was murdered. When it ended, she turned to Scarlet, her face arranged into perfect horror.

"My flesh and blood! My own daughter killed my husband?! How could you do this?! Didn't it bother you to make your mother a widow?!"

Scarlet stayed silent, her eyes downcast.

Mary's hand closed around Ashley's arm—gently, but with a grip that didn't quite let go. 

"Come, dear. Thank you for opening my eyes. We'll call the police and get Scarlet arrested. I hope you've secured all the evidence. We'll need it for the trial."

Ashley nodded. "I have the only copy in my email. I already told Jake, and he's on his way."

"Okay, let me keep it safe for you," her stepmother said, taking her phone. "This news shouldn't be released to the media before we inform the police. Let's get you fed and rested first."

Ashley sighed, leaning into Mary like a woman finally allowed to put down something heavy. The day had gutted her—a divorce, then a psychopathic stepsister, then a murder confession. She was starved for someone, anyone, to actually care.

She didn't stop to wonder why Mary's comfort felt a little too perfectly timed.

Mary led her down the third-floor corridor, toward the master bedroom. Doors lined the right side; an old wooden handrail ran along the left, the only thing standing between the hallway and the open drop below.

Mary stopped, turning to face her stepdaughter.

"Don't worry, dear. I'll take care of everything. Scarlet will face judgment, and you'll be reinstated as Chairperson. I know things haven't been easy, but you can trust me unconditionally. You're the daughter I never had."

Ashley nodded, throat tight with gratitude, and leaned in to hug her. It felt like such a relief—finally, someone on her side.

Even though Scarlet was Mary's own flesh and blood, Mary wanted justice for Arthur. Or so Ashley believed, right up until the moment it mattered.

Then Mary's hands suddenly closed on her shoulders—not gentle this time—and violently shoved.

Ashley slammed into the handrail; the old wood screamed and gave way beneath her. For one weightless second, there was nothing beneath her feet at all. Then she was falling.

Ashley's thoughts scattered into static. Floors blurred past in streaks of color and light. 'What just happened?' Her mind was wiped clean, blank as a canvas, blank as nothing at all.

Above her, Mary's face appeared at the broken railing, smiling. Smiling. Had she really done that on purpose? Was she protecting Scarlet—or had she been part of this from the very beginning?

There was no time to find an answer. The ground met her first. Pain detonated through her body, white and total, and then there was only the wet, dark spread of blood beneath her cheek.

She tried to move. Nothing answered. Not her arms, not her legs—the fall had shattered her spine, and her body simply wasn't hers to command anymore. She tried to call out. Even her lips refused her.

Several hours passed. Or were they minutes? Seconds? Her sense of time no longer worked.

Scarlet and Mary's faces swam into view. "Anytime now…" Scarlet said, grinning ear to ear. Levi the butler appeared too, his expression cold.

"Die already," Mary said, almost bored, like she was waiting for a kettle to boil.

A single tear slid down Ashley's cheek. All of them. Every single one of them had been in on it. And now they meant to kill her too, just to bury the truth a little deeper. Where was Jake?

Why wasn't anyone coming? No. She already knew the answer. Her mistake had never been signing those papers or trusting the wrong man. It had been trusting anyone at all.

Levi left for a few seconds and returned with a baseball bat. "Let's finish this quickly," he said to the grinning women.

"Bash her face in!" Scarlet urged him with a devilish cackle.

Something tugged at Ashley from somewhere far away, gentle, patient, asking her to let go. And underneath the pain, underneath the terror, she could hear singing—faint, familiar, a lullaby her mother used to hum to her in the dark when she was small enough to believe nothing could ever hurt her.

"Mom?" Ashley murmured weakly.

"It's alright, sweetie… Let go…" her mother's voice said reassuringly. "This isn't the end… Trust me…"

"Mom, please, don't let me die! Someone! Anyone! Please, God, please!"

But it was no use. Her consciousness was already slipping, the cold closing over her like water over a stone, pulling her under.

For one last moment, Ashley hung there, suspended between worlds, her eyes still open. Then Levi smiled—cold, almost bored—and brought the bat down.

The world turned black. Ashley Palmer was gone.