Ben let the snide remark pass. He looked down at the floor where his father’s body waited, snug inside the casket, his chest aching with guilt and grief.

Am I doing the right thing? He wondered. More than once on their short journey to the cemetery, Ben caught himself second-guessing his motives. If they were discovered, there would be serious consequences. Disturbing a grave was unforgivable. Yet, it was the only way he could get the answers he needed.

Much more desperate men have done worse, he assured himself.

“Let’s get moving.”

On a three-count, they hoisted the casket upward. They waded through the darkness with no light to show them where they were going or what they might bump into.

“How much farther?” Jacques complained.

An answer came in the form of the carriage colliding with Ben’s shoulder. He winced at the sharp pain, nearly dropping his father from the force.

“You drop it,” Jacques snapped in a hushed voice, “and you’re carrying him into the cellar by yourself.”

Ben believed him.

With great effort, they managed to maneuver the casket into the carriage. Part of it hung from the side, the door unable to close. Ben climbed inside and held it in place as Jacques led the carriage back to the manor.

“I think you would be ashamed of me,” he whispered in the dark.

His shame would have to wait, as would the many years of anger and disappointment he’d endured. This would all be worth it in the end if he was right about his father’s death.

“It’s been sixteen years,” Ben breathed, wishing his father could hear him, “and after all that time has passed, this is how I’m welcomed home. Is that what you wanted? To leave before I could say my piece?”

There was nothing but the rumbling gravel underfoot.

“If you had called me home sooner, I would have forgiven everything. For Soleil, for sending me away, for marrying Remi…I would have forgiven it all. But here we are. One Leone left alive, and the other a stiff corpse wrapped up in an old sheet.”

His father did not respond.

The carriage came to a stop.

“Let’s get him inside,” Jacques said as he hoisted one end of the coffin.

Carrying the casket into the wine cellar was an easier feat than carrying it in the cemetery. Once concealed behind the wine racks, they opened the casket. Both of them turned their noses up at the smell, hardly able to contain their disgust. But they persevered, carefully lifting the body onto an empty table.

Ben tried not to stare at what had once been his father’s face. It was easier to imagine he was another of the cadavers he’d worked on in school. Nothing he couldn’t stomach.

Jacques, however, looked ill. “I’m going to put the horse away. Then I’ll be turning in for the rest of the night.”

“Thank you,” Ben said.

Jacques didn’t reply. He carried on to the next task, as was his nature.

Ben, on the other hand, was in no rush to begin his examination. Instead, he found a bottle of wine from his mother’s collection and downed it in a few long gulps. It was dry and tart, just the way he liked it. After one bottle, and halfway through the next, he stopped to laugh at himself; the key to the mausoleum was still tucked in his pocket.

“I forgot to lock up.”

He fell into a fit of silent laughter, beside himself with the notion that no one would bother robbing a grave that was already empty.

REMI

When Remi finally woke, the morning had come.

She groaned and rolled to her side, her body heavy with the aftereffects of the sedative she’d taken. At first, she thought it was a trick of the light, but then she saw a solid outline. Someone was in the bed with her. The duvet covered their head, and they did not appear to be breathing. For one panicked moment, she thought it was the person leaving her the notes.

The person beside her twitched.

Remi bit her lip to suppress a scream and, without thinking of the consequences, snapped her hand out to grab the duvet, revealing a mop of curly golden hair. Remi stilled, her body tethered to the spot.

No, no…

The body itself shifted slowly, the bones in its neck snapping as it twisted around to face her.

“Leith,” she gasped.

Remi had seen him in the garden—a phantom, a hallucination. But he was there again, closer than ever. She felt her blood run cold.

“Oh, Leith…”

His blue lips fell open, swinging downward on an unhinged jaw.

“No, no…no…”

Milky white eyes held her gaze, unblinking. His hands shot out and clamped around her throat, squeezing until black spots floated across her vision. Remi kicked and scratched, trying to pull herself from Leith’s unrelenting grasp. His mouth yawned wide, the ocean spilling from his throat. A guttural cry followed, like that of a dying animal. Remi pushed against the pain and struggled until his hold loosened.

Finally, she broke away, kicking at the sheets in her rush to escape.

Leith’s inhuman groan chased her from the room and down the hallway. She nearly slipped and toppled down the stairs, catching herself against the railing as she collided with Ben’s chest.

“Remi! What the hell⁠—”

“Leith!” she screamed. “Leith! I saw him—he was there…in the bed.”

Ben snapped to. “What? How?”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I don’t know!”

“I believe you,” he said, steadying her to stand on her own feet. “Are you alright?”

She nodded, wiping at her cheeks.

“Now then,” he stepped in front of her, offering his hand, “let’s go back and see if he’s still there.”

Feeling like a child, she let him lead her to his room. The bed was empty where Leith had been, the bedsheets were strewn across the mattress from her hasty escape.

“You put up quite a fight.” He chuckled.