✓✓✓✓✓✓✓ CHAPTER SIX ✓✓✓✓✓✓✓

GRAYSON VALE

She left!

"Did you kill her?"

Janelle asked the question with her whole chest, like she'd been holding it in for far too long.

“How long have you been standing there?,” I asked, trying to flip the coin.

“Does it matter, Mr. Vale?,” she asked, eyes fixed on me like I was some some high-level criminal standing before jury.

“It doesn't, I guess,” I muttered, trying to regain my composure.

“Did you kill Eden?,” she asked again.

The air shifted.

There was no drama in her voice. No trembling. Just… quiet accusation, cloaked in curiosity. But it hit like a punch to the gut. I felt it in my ribs. My jaw clenched. My throat felt dry, like I’d just swallowed a handful of sand.

And for a second too long, I didn’t say anything.

That was my mistake…

Because silence, especially in moments like that, never sounds like innocence.

“Don't believe everything you read or hear,” I finally said.

Janelle blinked slowly. “You hesitated.”

“I didn’t kill Eden,” I said. My voice was rough, barely above a whisper. “But I get why you’re asking.”

She crossed the room with careful, deliberate steps, like she didn’t quite trust the floor between us. Her arms were folded across her chest, and her face was unreadable. A wall. One I’d built myself.

“Then what happened to her?” she asked.

I took a deep breath and turned away. I needed to say it out loud. All of it. Maybe for her, maybe for me.

“She was married to Elijah,” I began. “My best friend since college. You know how some people become family without blood? That was us.”

Janelle nodded once, cautiously, eyes never leaving mine.

“We were in Capri,” I continued. “The three of us. I had to leave early for a Doxent board meeting, so I flew out the night before. They were supposed to follow the next morning.”

My hands balled into fists.

“But the plane never landed. No distress call. No emergency beacon. Just… radio silence. We waited hours, then days. Search teams found some debris in the Atlantic. Nothing that could prove a crash… no bodies, no black box, just oil slicks and torn metal.”

She was silent, listening… letting the weight of my words land.

“There was never a funeral,” I said. “Not really. Just a private service. Two empty caskets. Two names on a marble wall.”

“And you believed she was still alive,” Janelle said.

“Part of me did,” I admitted. “There were rumors. A blurry security cam photo in Barcelona. A woman spotted at a clinic in Lisbon. They always led nowhere. But I followed each one.”

“Why?”

That one word held more weight than anything else she’d said so far. Why?

“Because I couldn’t shake the feeling,” I said. “That something was wrong. That they weren’t just dead. That they were… taken. Or hidden.”

“And then you saw me,” she said.

And God, I wish I hadn’t. Not because I regretted it. But because the moment I saw her, every wall I’d tried to build came crashing down.

“You walked into that rooftop event like you belonged in my memory,” I said. “Same face. Same eyes. Same way of standing like the world was both exhausting and beneath you.”

She scoffed. “Thanks.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

She stepped closer, her expression hard now. “Let me guess. You had me investigated.”

I didn’t lie. “Yes.”

Her jaw tightened. “What did you find?”

I hesitated.

“Say it,” she demanded.

“Adopted at six. Before that, nothing. Hospital fire wiped out records. No photos, no birth certificate. Nothing to prove you were anyone before that age.”

Her lips parted slightly, but no sound came out.

“You think I’m Eden,” she said finally.

I shook my head. “No. I think you look like her. But I also think… you’re not just Janelle Cross. Not in the way you’ve been told.”

She blinked fast, and for a second, I saw it…the uncertainty… the crack in her armor.

But she pulled herself together fast. “And instead of telling me the truth, you offered me money to play your girlfriend?”

“I had to keep you close,” I said. “I couldn’t risk losing you again.”

She flinched. “I’m not her.”

“I know,” I said, gently this time. “I know you’re not. You cook when you’re anxious. She chewed ice. You hate red wine. She drank it like water. You curse like a sailor. She barely raised her voice.”

“Wow,” Janelle said. “You really paid attention to the woman who married your best friend.”

I looked away. “I did.”

“And what did she think of that?”

“Elijah knew,” I said quietly. “He didn’t care. Said I was the safe one. Said she’d never look at me that way.”

Janelle stared at me for a long time. “Is this why you’re doing all this? Because you never got to love her out loud?”

I didn’t answer.

She picked up her bag from where she’d dropped it earlier. Her hands trembled, just a little.

“This isn’t my story, Grayson,” she said. “I didn’t sign up to play ghost dress-up.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t ask to be haunted.”

“I didn’t ask to be haunted either,” I said. “But here we are.”

She stopped by the door.

“You know what’s crazy?” she asked.

“What?”

“I almost believed it. That maybe I wasn’t just Janelle Cross. That maybe there was something else buried in me. But even if there was… even if I was her, Eden, or whoever… I’d still choose to walk away from you right now.”

She opened the door.

“I need to be alone,” she said.

“Janelle—”

“Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t come after me. Don’t text. Don’t send your people. I need air.”

And then she walked out.

I stood there long after the door shut, staring at the space she’d just left.

Eden had vanished once.

Now, Janelle was vanishing too.

And I couldn’t tell which loss hurt more.