Chapter 1: The Woman Behind the Mask
I was holding Vanessa’s hand when I saw my dead wife across the ballroom.
And the most terrifying part wasn't that she was alive.
It was the expression on her face when she saw the woman standing beside me.
Vanessa.
The woman I had been dating for eighteen months.
The woman who had helped me survive the funeral.
The woman who had cried harder than anyone when we lowered Nia's coffin into the ground.
Now she was standing beside me in a red devil costume, smiling at guests, while my supposedly dead wife watched us from behind a silver mask.
The Halloween party at the Carter estate was in full swing. A string quartet played near the staircase, champagne glasses clinked, and hundreds of guests moved beneath chandeliers decorated with black roses and artificial cobwebs.
My mother, Eleanor, had organized the entire event.
She called it a charity fundraiser.
I called it another excuse for her to remind everyone how wealthy and respectable our family was.
"Marcus," Vanessa whispered, squeezing my fingers.
"You're not listening.""
I stared at the woman across the room.
"Sorry. What?""
"I said your mother wants us at the family table.""
"Give me a minute.""
Vanessa followed my gaze.
"What are you looking at?""
"Nothing.""
But it wasn't nothing.
The woman wore a long black dress, white gloves, and a silver mask covering the upper half of her face. Her dark hair fell over one shoulder.
She stood with her weight slightly shifted to the left.
Nia used to stand that way because of an old injury to her right ankle.
My throat tightened.
Three years earlier, Nia had supposedly died in a car accident on Highway 41.
It had been raining that night. Her car had caught fire after crashing into a guardrail.
The police had identified her through personal belongings and dental records.
There had been a closed coffin.
A funeral.
A grave.
I remembered standing beside it while rain soaked through my black suit.
My mother had held my arm.
Vanessa had stood behind me, whispering that everything would eventually become easier.
But now the woman across the ballroom had turned her head.
And I had seen her eyes.
Nia's eyes.
"Marcus?""
I released Vanessa's hand.
"Stay here.""
"Where are you going?""
I didn't answer.
I pushed through the crowd, knocking a champagne glass from someone's tray.
The woman noticed me.
Her shoulders stiffened.
Then she turned toward the terrace.
"Wait!""
She quickened her pace.
I reached the doors just before she stepped outside and blocked her path.
"Please," I whispered.
"Look at me.""
She remained silent.
Up close, I noticed something beneath the edge of her mask.
A thin scar near her jaw.
Nia had gotten that scar when she was sixteen. She had fallen from her bicycle outside her parents' house, and I had taken her to the hospital.
I had kissed the scar every morning after we married.
My hands began trembling.
"Who are you?""
The woman swallowed.
"Move.""
That voice.
I would have recognized it in a crowded stadium.
"Nia?""
Her eyes filled with tears.
Then Vanessa appeared behind me.
"What is happening?""
The masked woman looked at her.
Something changed in her expression.
Fear.
Not surprise.
Fear.
Vanessa stepped closer.
"Marcus, come back inside. You're embarrassing yourself.""
I ignored her.
Slowly, I reached for the woman's mask.
"Please tell me I'm not imagining this.""
She closed her eyes.
I removed it.
The world seemed to stop.
Nia.
My wife.
Alive.
Her face was thinner, her skin pale, and a long scar ran from her cheek toward her ear.
But it was her.
"Nia," I breathed.
She began crying.
"You believed them.""
I grabbed her shoulders.
"Where have you been? What happened? Why didn't you come home?""
She looked over my shoulder.
At Vanessa.
Then she reached into her sleeve and produced a small photograph.
It was burned along one edge.
The picture showed the three of us standing in my mother's garden years earlier.
Me.
Nia.
And Eleanor.
On the back, four words were written in my mother's unmistakable handwriting.
*SHE CAN NEVER COME BACK.*
I stared at the photograph.
"Where did you get this?""
Nia shook her head.
"Your mother kept it in the room where she—"
A glass shattered behind us.
Vanessa had dropped hers.
"Marcus," she said sharply.
"We need to leave. Now.""
Nia grabbed my wrist.
"Don't trust her.""
Vanessa's face hardened.
"She's mentally unstable. Security!""
Two men in black suits immediately approached.
I stepped between them and Nia.
"Nobody touches my wife.""
Vanessa stared at me.
Then she leaned closer and whispered something that made my blood run cold.
"Marcus, if she's alive, then your mother knows we've failed.""
I turned slowly.
"What did you just say?""
Vanessa realized her mistake.
Her lips parted.
But before she could answer, every light in the ballroom went out.
Someone screamed.
A gunshot cracked through the darkness.
And when the emergency lights flickered back on, Nia was gone.
So was the photograph.
But something else remained.
A small white envelope on the terrace floor.
My name was written across it.
May you like
And inside was a photograph of my mother standing beside a freshly dug grave.
The date on the photograph was three days after Nia's funeral.
