He offers a strained smile, like he’s trying to be polite despite his confusion. “Lots of variables in these situations and not nearly enough time to go over them. Besides, I’m afraid I only sell the policies—I don’t underwrite them.”
“How long does someone have to be dead before you can file a claim on their policy?” I ask my next question knowing our time together is dwindling by the second.
“Most people file a claim within thirty days of getting a death certificate,” he says. “Not everyone, but I’d say the majority do. Tends to be paid out fairly quickly. Considered nontaxable income.”
“What’s a policy like this cost?” I ask next.
He frowns. “Again, lots of variables. Depends on the agency, the company paying out, the health of the insured, that sort of thing.”
“What if it’s someone young and healthy?” I point to my name on the page. “Like a twenty-year-old?”
“Those tend to be more affordable,” he says. “Two, maybe three thousand for a policy of this size? At the most? And if we’re talking ten years ago, could be considerably less. Hard to say. Depends on the physical, too.”
“What if there was no physical?”
“That’s rare, but it happens. Those kinds of policies tend to cost a little more than average.”
I was taken in July, a week after Independence Day. By late August, the search efforts were officially called off after authorities declared they’d done all they could. Within four years, Luca had filed a case with the local courts to have me legally declared dead, and it took another year to finalize it after all the formalities. Lots of hoops to jump through, but a clean two million would be enough to motivate the laziest of individuals to stay the course.
Brian’s desk phone rings, and he offers me an apologetic wince before taking the call. When he hangs up, he rises. “I’m so sorry, miss. My next appointment’s here. Did I answer all your questions?”
“You did.” I gather my papers and return them to my envelope, maintaining their pristine condition despite my haste. “Thanks for your time.”
Heading out, I think of the summer Luca took me. Our rusting car with the noisy muffler. Our perpetually stained and faded clothes. The way he’d sometimes spend his lunch breaks looking for loose change in parking lots.
To call us dirt poor would’ve been an understatement—and he wasn’t exactly rolling in dough when he worked at the diner in Greenbrook either. It would have been impossible for him to scrounge up a couple of grand to cover a life insurance policy—unless he’d been saving and planning for years.
I’m halfway to Delphine’s when my phone buzzes with a text . . . from Luca.
Speak of the devil.
It’s a set of coordinates, but seeing how my phone has no internet browser or navigation, I can’t exactly pull it up.
A second message comes through a few seconds later: For your fresh start.
I wait for another message, maybe something with details? But my phone stays silent.
If he bought me someone’s identity, it’s not like he can spell it out. He can’t write, “Go here for your new Social Security Number.” Anyone with half a brain cell would be cryptic about this sort of thing.
But still—I don’t trust him.
I shove my phone into my pocket and keep walking.
It’d be tempting to grab my new name and bag of cash and skip town, heading somewhere this lunatic could never find me, but the declaration pages in my envelope are singing a different tune. If he’s capable of doing that to me, what’s to stop him from doing that to his new family?
I take the long way home and use the extra time to devise a new plan.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
MERRITT
It’s dark when we get to the farmhouse, and in the full moonlight, the wintry oak trees appear more skeletal than ever. But it’s our home away from home, and we’re going to make the most of it. Two hours east of Bent Creek, there’s no way Lydia can bother us here.
The shadow of my husband’s past doesn’t reach this far.
I pull a chilly breath into my lungs when we step out, my sneaker scuffing against the gravel driveway. Luca tosses me the keys and retrieves a sleeping Elsie from the back seat, propping her on his hip before unsnapping the infant carrier from its base.
I never understood what he saw in this place—at least not at first. It was isolating and depressing. An estate sale. Some middle-aged offspring unloading their family farm for a cool seven-hundred-fifty grand split three ways. Just like that, a legacy ended.
We must have toured the place half a dozen times before Luca sold me on it, saying it’d be a great escape from the coast. A place to bring our future children. Sure we had trees and water in Bent Creek, but these were deciduous trees, not evergreens. And we didn’t have a private fishing pond to paddleboat around in. He painted the most captivating picture of how things could be for us out here. Giggling children chasing fireflies. Feeding carrots to the neighbor’s horses. Hitting up the farmer’s market on Saturday. No one to impress with our expensive cars.
We could breathe out here, he said. And he was right. The coast is exciting and fast-paced, but it can be suffocating at times.
The house is an invigorating fifty-eight degrees inside since we keep it just warm enough to prevent the pipes from bursting should there be an unexpected cold snap. I head for the thermostat, nudging it up to seventy-four as if that could heat the place any faster, and Luca carries Elsie to the toddler bed in the spare bedroom.
I flick on the kitchen lights next, scanning the decades-old oaky decor and checking the cabinets to make sure we haven’t acquired any rodent friends since our time here last summer. I check the fridge, a humming Maytag beast with a broken ice maker, next and find a moldy block of Gruyère and a bottle of pinot in the door.
Grabbing a pen and notepad from the junk drawer, I take a seat at the rickety kitchen table and scribble down a grocery list. My incision burns, but only for a second. Last I knew, the local grocery doesn’t offer online ordering, and I don’t think I have the stamina for running errands yet. Maybe I can sweet-talk them into doing a phone order. A little kindness goes a long way, especially in Willow Branch, where it’s practically a second form of currency.
I fasten the list to the fridge with a John Deere magnet and trek to the living room, where Luca has left a sleeping Everett in his car seat. I tuck his downy-soft blanket around him before lowering myself into a nearby recliner. An old grandfather clock in the hall ticks, echoing off the walls as I wait for my husband to return from Elsie’s room.
Enough light spills in from outside to illuminate the wood-burning fireplace on the north wall, as well as the built-in shelves that house an assortment of family-friendly DVDs and timeless board games—all of which were left by the previous owners. A full warmth gushes through my body as I envision a time in our lives when our babies are older and we can sit around making memories. I even go so far as to imagine a decades-from-now era when our grandchildren will visit in the summertime.
Who needs a French chateau or house in the Hamptons when you have all this space? All this peace? All this serenity? And a mere two hours away, if that.
“Found some extra blankets in the hall closet.” Luca appears at the bottom of the stairs. I’d been so lost in thought I hadn’t heard him come down. “Elsie should stay warm until the heat kicks on.”