I turned to Owen.
“I nearly lost my life because I stopped listening to my brother.”
Owen looked uncomfortable under the attention.
“So I’m correcting that,” I went on. “Effective immediately, Owen Cole is co-chairman of Blackridge Bourbon.”
The courtyard broke into applause.
Owen leaned toward me.
“You could have warned me.”
“You might have said no.”
“I’m still considering it.”
“You showed up uninvited to my funeral. I figured boundaries weren’t your thing.”
For the first time in months, we both laughed.
Epilogue: One Year Later
On the anniversary of the day I nearly died, Owen and I went back to the chapel at Blackridge Manor.
The lilies were gone.
Sunlight streamed through the stained glass.
I stood near where my coffin had once rested.
For months I’d avoided that room entirely.
Some nights I still woke imagining the furnace’s roar.
Sometimes the scent of flowers tightened my chest.
But fear only grows stronger when it’s never confronted.
Owen stood next to me.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I think so.”
We walked out to the family cemetery.
Our parents’ graves sat beneath an old maple tree.
I laid my hand on my father’s headstone.
“I almost joined you early,” I said.
Owen tucked his hands into his jacket pockets.
“Dad would have had a lot to say about the cremation.”
“He would have hated the coffin.”
“He would have hated the flowers.”
“He hated lilies.”
We stood there quietly for a while.
Then Owen pulled something from his pocket.
The broken recorder.
Police had returned it after the trial.
The casing was cracked, one corner melted where Harrison had tried to destroy it.
I stared at the small object that had saved my life.
“Why did you go through the trash?” I asked.
Owen shrugged.
“Victoria told me the funeral was private and I wasn’t welcome at the mansion. That made me suspicious.”
“That’s it?”
“No. You left me a voicemail the night before you died.”
I looked at him.
“I did?”
“You sounded weak. You said you thought something was wrong with the company. Then the message cut off.”
