Chapter 5
Michelle POV
By the next morning, the police were demanding a secondary sweep of the warehouse. They needed to locate the detonator to confirm it was a homicide, not a tragic accident.
Kevin was summoned. As the lead Medical Examiner, he had to sign off on the site clearance personally.
I was tethered to him, an unwilling passenger in the wake of his life.
The warehouse looked even worse in the unforgiving daylight. It was a skeleton of twisted steel and ash. Yellow police tape fluttered violently in the wind.
Kevin walked through the debris, his face grim. The arrogance that usually defined his stride was gone. He looked like he hadn't slept in days.
"Find anything?" he asked a detective near the entrance.
"Just scraps," the detective replied, shaking his head. "Whoever did this knew what they were doing. The accelerant burned hot."
Kevin kicked a piece of blackened wood, sending a cloud of soot swirling into the air.
I drifted away from him, pulled toward a corner of the room that the police had overlooked. It was a pile of rubble near where the chair had been.
I remembered.
Before the bomb detonated, I had struggled. I had twisted my hands against the zip ties until my skin bled. My ring—my wedding band—was loose. I had lost so much weight in the last few months from stress.
It had slipped off.
I floated over the pile of ash. *It's here,* I willed silently. *It's right here.*
I focused all my energy, all my remaining spirit, on that singular spot. I didn't know if ghosts could move objects, but I could look. I could stare. I could scream without a voice.
Kevin turned abruptly. He looked toward the corner, as if he had heard a whisper caught in the draft.
"What's over there?" he muttered.
He walked toward me. He walked toward the spot I was hovering over.
"This area wasn't sifted," he called out to the detective, his voice sharp.
He knelt down. He used a small trowel to gently move the ash.
My heart—or what was left of my spirit—pounded.
He scraped away a layer of gray dust.
Something glinted.
It wasn't much. Just a dull sparkle in the wreckage.
Kevin stopped. His hand froze. He reached out with his gloved fingers and pinched the object.
It was a ring. A simple platinum band with a small diamond. It was soot-stained and scratched, but unmistakable.
He held it up to the light.
His breath hitched audibly.
He wiped the inside of the band with his thumb, smearing the soot against the latex of his glove.
He squinted at the inscription.
*K & M. Forever.*
The world stopped. The wind died. The police chatter faded into a meaningless buzz.
Kevin fell to his knees. It wasn't a graceful motion. His legs just gave out, collapsing under the weight of the truth.
He stared at the ring. Then he looked at the empty space where the chair had been. Then back at the ring.
His hands started to shake. A violent, uncontrollable tremor that rattled his entire frame.
"No," he whispered. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated horror. "No, no, no."
He fumbled for his phone. His fingers were shaking so hard he dropped it twice into the ash. He finally dialed.
"William," he gasped. He sounded like he was drowning on dry land. "William, the body. The Jane Doe."
"Yeah, boss?"
"Check the left hand. The ring finger."
"Hold on... Okay, looking at the photos. Yeah, there's a tan line. A distinct indentation where a ring used to be."
Kevin made a sound that wasn't human. It was a strangled sob, ripped from the bottom of his lungs.
He curled forward, his forehead touching the dirty, ash-covered floor, clutching the ring to his chest.
"Michelle," he screamed into the ashes.
And this time, he knew I wasn't acting.
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