The call came at 3:17 a.m.

  Elise remembered because she'd checked the glowing numbers on her bedside clock, already knowing that calls at this hour were never good news. She remembered the way her hand trembled as she reached for her phone, the screen painfully bright in the darkness of her bedroom.

  "Hello?" Her voice was thick with sleep, but the dread was already coiling in her stomach.

  "Mrs. Carter?" A man's voice, official and detached. "This is Officer Daniels with the Portland Police Department."

  Beside her, Aaron stirred, his arm instinctively tightening around her waist. "What is it?" he whispered, but Elise couldn't answer him. Couldn't speak at all as the officer's words washed over her.

  "There's been an incident involving your sister, Lena Moore."

  *Incident*. Such a sanitized word for what would come next.

  "She was found in her apartment approximately two hours ago by a neighbor. I'm very sorry to inform you that she's deceased."

  The phone nearly slipped from Elise's grasp. "That's not possible," she whispered, the denial immediate and visceral. "I just spoke to her yesterday."

  But the officer continued, his voice a distant drone through the rushing in her ears. Words like *apparent suicide* and *investigation ongoing* and *next of kin* floated around her, disconnected from meaning.

  "No," Elise said more firmly, as if conviction alone could change reality. "Lena wouldn't do that. She wouldn't—"

  Aaron took the phone gently from her hand. "This is Aaron Carter, Elise's husband," he said, his voice steady where hers had cracked. "Yes. Thank you, Officer. We'll be there as soon as possible."

  He hung up and gathered Elise into his arms as the first sob tore through her chest. "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry."

  "It's wrong," she insisted against his shoulder. "They made a mistake."

  "Shh," he soothed, stroking her hair. "We'll go down there right now. We'll sort everything out."

  But even as Aaron helped her dress, as he guided her to the car with careful hands, Elise felt the wrongness settling into her bones. Not just the wrongness of Lena being gone—though that was an incomprehensible horror—but something deeper. Something she couldn't name.

  ---

  Lena's apartment was a crime scene now, marked with yellow tape and crawling with officers. They wouldn't let Elise inside, no matter how much she pleaded. Aaron kept his arm around her shoulders, steadying her, speaking to the detective in charge while Elise stared at her sister's front door.

  "Can you tell us what happened?" Aaron asked.

  Detective Monroe was a compact woman with tired eyes and a notebook permanently open in her hand. "Ms. Moore appears to have taken her own life sometime between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. Pills and alcohol."

  "She wouldn't do that," Elise said automatically, the words feeling worn already from repetition. "Lena was happy. She had plans. We were supposed to have brunch on Sunday."

  Monroe's expression softened slightly. "I understand this is difficult to process, Mrs. Carter. But we found a note."

  "A note?" Elise felt the world tilt dangerously.

  "Yes. It was addressed to you, actually." Monroe hesitated. "We'll need to keep the original for now, but I can show you a copy."

  Elise nodded numbly, and the detective handed her a photograph of a sheet of paper. The handwriting was unmistakably Lena's—looping and artistic, with little flourishes on the capital letters—but the words were all wrong.

  *Elise,*

  *I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore. The weight is too much, and I'm so tired of pretending I'm okay. Please don't blame yourself. This was my choice.*

  *Love always,*

  *Lena*

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  "This isn't right," Elise whispered, her fingers tracing the words as if she could feel the truth beneath them. "She wasn't depressed. She would have told me if something was wrong."

  "Sometimes people hide their pain very well," Monroe said gently. "Especially from those they love most."

  Elise shook her head, unable to articulate the certainty she felt. Lena and she had been more than sisters—they were confidantes, best friends. After their father died and their mother retreated into a haze of grief and eventual resentment, they'd only had each other. Lena wouldn't have left her like this. She wouldn't have left without saying goodbye.

  "When can we see her?" Aaron asked, his voice breaking through Elise's spiraling thoughts.

  "They've taken her to the county morgue. You can go there to make a formal identification, though it's not necessary if it's too difficult. Her identity has been established."

  "I need to see her," Elise said firmly. It was the only clear thought in her head.

  Aaron squeezed her shoulders. "Are you sure, love? I could go alone—"

  "No. I need to see her."

  ---

  The morgue was cold and antiseptic, with harsh fluorescent lighting that made everyone look half-dead. Elise felt like she was moving through water, every step requiring monumental effort. Aaron never left her side, his presence the only real thing in this nightmare.

  They were led to a viewing room, clinical and sparse. A technician in scrubs pulled back a sheet, revealing Lena's face.

  She looked peaceful. That was the first awful thought that struck Elise—her wild, vibrant sister looked peaceful in death, her expression serene in a way it rarely was in life. Her dark hair was arranged neatly around her shoulders, her skin pale but unmarked.

  "That's her," Elise confirmed, her voice hollow. "That's Lena."

  But even as she spoke the words, a small, insistent voice in the back of her mind whispered that something was wrong. Lena's fingernails, usually painted in bright, mismatched colors, were bare and neatly trimmed. There was no silver ring on her right hand—the one their father had given her for her sixteenth birthday, the one she never took off.

  Small details that felt enormous.

  "Mrs. Carter?" the technician asked. "Do you need to sit down?"

  Elise realized she was swaying. "Her ring," she said. "Where's her ring?"

  The technician glanced down at a clipboard. "I don't have any record of a ring in her personal effects."

  "She always wore it. Always."

  Aaron's arm tightened around her. "Sweetheart, let's get some air. We can ask about the ring later."

  As he led her from the room, Elise looked back one last time at her sister's still form. The peaceful expression seemed wrong now, like a mask placed over the real Lena. The real Lena, who would never have taken off their father's ring. Who would never have left without saying goodbye.

  Who would never have taken her own life.

  "She didn't do this," Elise whispered, the words meant only for herself. "Someone did this to her."

  But Aaron was already guiding her toward the exit, his hand warm against the small of her back, his voice soothing in her ear. "I've got you, love. I'm here. I'll take care of everything."

  And in her grief-stricken state, Elise didn't notice how his eyes never quite matched the sympathy in his voice, or how carefully he watched her face when she mentioned the missing ring.

  She didn't notice because she trusted him completely.

  It would be weeks before she began to question that trust, months before she understood just how misplaced it was.

  But by then, Lena would not be the only one dead.