Claire nearly said the police station.

Then she pictured the delay, the questions, the chance that Logan might walk outside and discover what was happening before the car had been moved.

She needed the vehicle somewhere he could not touch it again.

So she gave the driver Carolyn Pierce’s address.

Logan’s mother still lived in the brick colonial five streets over, the house with the perfect shrubs, the polished brass mailbox, and the kind of curtains that looked expensive even from the curb.

Carolyn disliked Claire with a smooth, controlled thoroughness.

But she loved the Pierce family name more than she had ever loved any individual person attached to it.

If there was even a chance her son had tampered with a car, scandal alone might make her listen.

After the tow request, Claire called Megan.

Her sister answered cheerfully enough to make Claire’s throat close.

“Hey, are you on your way?”

“Do not get in any car right now,” Claire said.

A confused silence followed.

“What?”

“Not yours.

Not mine.

Not Mom’s.

Lock your doors and stay inside.”

“Claire, you’re scaring me.”

“I know.” Claire swallowed hard.

“I need ten minutes.

Maybe less.

Please trust me.”

“Why?”

Because my husband may have just turned my car into a coffin.

Instead she said, “Please.”

She ended the call before Megan could hear her panic crack apart.

The tow truck arrived quickly.

Claire watched from across the street as the driver backed toward her sedan.

It looked absurdly harmless sitting in the

driveway, damp from earlier drizzle, one headlight clouded from age, the same car she had driven to work and grocery stores and family dinners.

Except now it was no longer transportation.

It was intent made mechanical.

When the flatbed pulled away, Claire finally inhaled fully for what felt like the first time in minutes.

Then her phone buzzed again.

An email had landed in her inbox, automatically forwarded from Logan’s account because years earlier they had set up shared household notifications and never fully untangled them.

The subject line read: Funeral Home Confirmation—Service Scheduled for S.

Pierce.

Claire stared at it, willing it to become junk mail.

It did not.

She opened it.

The message came from a real funeral home fifteen miles away.

There was an invoice number, a deposit confirmation, and a service note.

Logan had not merely imagined her death.

He had made appointments for it.

Her vision blurred as she scrolled.

The software had shortened the client field to S.

Pierce, and only later would Detective Ruiz explain that it stood for Spouse Pierce, the designation Logan had entered online.

At that moment all Claire saw was proof.

He had chosen flowers.

He had selected transport.

He had picked a service window.

And there, lower down, was the detail that turned terror into certainty.

Companion service option selected.

Double transport requested.

Note: coordinate pickup after single-vehicle incident.

Confirm second adult female identity if applicable.

Claire felt the world narrow.

Megan.

Of course it was Megan.

Megan was hosting dinner.

Megan would be expecting Claire at the door.

Megan had also done the one thing Logan never forgave: she had told Claire to leave him and offered to testify in the divorce about the screaming match she had witnessed in December, the broken lamp, the bruise Claire had hidden under makeup.