The rain started to fall during the journey. A driving rain streaked across the road, turning the headlights into blurry trails.
The rescue teams were still working when we arrived. Flashlights swept the riverbank. Mud had soaked the hem of my wedding dress.
Claire had taken a different route, a shortcut along the river. Her car went off the road and ended up in the water.
The next day, her body was found, and instead of a honeymoon, there was a funeral. Black dresses. Dishes piled high on the counters. You could hear: “She knew you loved her,” with that terrible, bittersweet certainty you use when you have nothing interesting to say.
And all this time, one thought kept nagging at me.
Claire was trying to tell me something.
A week later, Ryan left for work. Twenty minutes after he left, my phone rang.
“Megan?” I replied, surprised.
Megan was Claire’s best friend at work, a woman I had only met twice but whom I immediately liked because she spoke to Claire without flinching.
Her voice was tense. “Alice, I need you to come to the office immediately.”
“For what?”
“She left you a phone number. And a note. They were on my desk. I just got back from my sick grandfather’s house this morning and found them. Come immediately.”
I didn’t call Ryan. I grabbed my keys and drove seventy-five kilometers to the city, my heart pounding so hard my fingers were shaking on the steering wheel.
Megan was waiting near the reception desk, pale and wringing her hands. She silently led me to her office.
