Chapter 2

The door clicked shut behind the family. I turned the lock.

Too fresh, I'd thought. Well — money buys good embalmers. The rich keep their dead the way they keep their cars. I filed it away and got to work.

First, the room.

My business doesn't survive witnesses. Every client comes from an old client, and in sixteen jobs, not one word has ever leaked. That's not magic. That's me being careful.

I drew the curtains and ran my detector along the walls, the lamps, the bookshelves. It stayed quiet until I reached a glass case by the window — some limited-edition figurine inside, the kind collectors pay more for than I paid for my car.

The little light blinked red.

No cameras, Mr. Crane?

Grieving families. So curious.

I kept my face blank, dug a bottle of hand cream out of my bag, and set it down in front of the case. Just a tired widow, unpacking.

No microphones, at least.

To be safe, I lit my working candles anyway — fat ones, more smoke than light. If I'd missed a lens somewhere, it would be filming fog. Then I switched on the jammer and put on the veil.

Black lace. The only uniform this job requires: a grieving bride.

Then I turned to my groom.

Adrian Crane lay there without a breath in him. The water had swollen him a little. It hadn't managed to ruin his face.

Sixteen husbands in, a body is just a body. Nothing about the dead scares me. So I took my time and looked.

They were twins, but there was no contest. The younger brother was the handsome one.

I drew one finger along his jaw. Smooth-shaven. Somebody had combed his hair.

Crane money. Even their dead came in excellent condition.

I run an honest business. Whatever is left of a person gets my respect — and besides, this one was about to be my husband.

The wedding took ten minutes.

Two candles for witnesses. The certificate on the nightstand, and I signed my name next to his. Mara Voss. Adrian Crane. Side by side, the ink still wet.

Then I took his hand and wound the cord around both of ours, wrist to wrist, the old way.

"I, Mara, take you, Adrian—"

His fingers twitched against mine.

Muscles do that, hours after. Every doctor knows it. I kept going.

"—to have and to hold, from this day, until the grave."

I do. Seventeenth time I'd said it. It came out smoother than most women manage on their first.

Done. Married.

Now the part they pay for.

I leaned down to his ear, my hand still bound to his.

"Adrian Crane. Your wife is listening."

The dead don't make you wait. The words come the way water comes from an open tap — all at once, eager. Sixteen weddings, sixteen voices.

Silence.

I checked the cord. Checked the certificate. Said it again, slower.

"Adrian. It's your wife. Say what you need to say."

Nothing.

The candles burned down a knuckle. Rain ticked against the window. My knees went stiff from kneeling.

Sixteen husbands, sixteen voices. I had a perfect record and a reputation worth five million dollars, and husband number seventeen had nothing to say to me.

I got my stethoscope and pressed it to his chest.

No heartbeat.

I let out a long breath. Dead. Of course he was dead. A house full of money had said so fourteen hours ago.

So why wouldn't he speak?

I laid my palm flat on his chest, the way I do at the hospital when the monitor and my gut disagree.

Warm.

Fourteen hours dead, and the skin gave under my hand like a sleeping man's.

That was when I let myself remember the part I'd been ignoring. When I tied the cord around our hands, his fingers hadn't twitched.

They had curled. Around mine.

Dead men don't hold hands.