Chapter 28 Pending Counsel
Violet
The morgue sits on the edge of the city like something forgotten.
Low building. Concrete exterior. No windows where you’d expect them. The kind of place people don’t notice until they’re forced to.
Camille parks and kills the engine, but neither of us moves right away.
“This place always feels wrong,” she mutters.
I nod once. Wrong is the word.
Inside, the air is cold in a way that seeps into your bones. Not just temperature—sterile, chemical, too clean for what it holds. Fluorescent lights hum overhead. The floor gleams like it’s been scrubbed raw.
We’re not the only ones here.
A man in a wrinkled suit sits hunched in a plastic chair, staring at his hands. A woman whispers urgently into her phone near the vending machines, pacing like she might crack the tile beneath her feet.
Everyone is waiting for something they don’t want.
At the desk, a woman with tired eyes and practiced neutrality looks up. “Name?”
“Violet Pierce,” I say.
She types. Pauses. Looks at the screen longer than I like.
“I’ll have someone come get you.”
She gestures to the chairs.
We sit.
Time stretches. Seconds feel too loud. I count the ceiling tiles. Camille crosses and uncrosses her legs, then stills, like she’s afraid movement might make this worse.
A man in scrubs finally appears and calls my name.
He leads us down a narrow hallway that smells faintly of disinfectant and something metallic underneath it. We pass closed doors. Labels. Numbers.
He stops at a small room with a table and a metal chair.
“We’ll give you a few minutes,” he says gently. “I’ll bring his belongings.”
When he returns, he places a cardboard box on the table and steps back.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says, then leaves us alone.
The door clicks shut.
The box sits between us like a weight.
I don’t remember sitting down.
One moment I’m standing, the next I’m in the chair, hands shaking as I pull the box closer.
Inside are his things.
Folded clothes. Wallet. Keys. His phone sealed in a plastic bag. Everything reduced to objects, stripped of meaning by procedure.
I touch his jacket first.
The fabric is stiff, cold. Not the way clothes should feel. I press it to my chest anyway, breath hitching before I can stop it.
“Oh, Violet,” Camille whispers.
I shake my head, unable to speak.
I go through the box slowly, methodically—because that’s what I do when things start to fall apart. I catalog. I organize. I survive.
Then I see it.
A thin silver bracelet, tucked beneath his wallet.
My bracelet.
Or rather—its twin.
Matching. Identical. The pair we bought years ago when we were still pretending the world wouldn’t eat us alive.
I pull it out and it’s like something splits open in my chest.
“I—” My voice breaks completely. “Camille, he—”
She leans closer, eyes filling when she sees it. “He kept it.”
I clutch it in my fist and cry harder, the sound ugly and raw and uncontrollable. My brother’s things blur together through tears until Camille presses a hand to my back, grounding but helpless.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers. “Just—just take your time.”
I wipe my face with the back of my hand and force myself to keep going.
Because there’s more.
Under the bracelet is a folded slip of paper.
A receipt.
My fingers still as I unfold it.
Rehabilitation Services
Payment Received — CASH
I skim the details automatically.
Then I see the date.
My breath stops.
The timestamp is clear. Precise.
One week after I reported Drew missing.
One week after the police said he’d vanished.
My heart starts pounding so hard it hurts.
“Camille,” I whisper. “This doesn’t make sense.”
She leans in, reading over my shoulder.
Her face goes very still.
“That’s… after,” she says slowly.
“Yes,” I reply. “He paid them after.”
My hands shake as I stare at the receipt again, willing it to change.
“It means he was alive,” Camille says quietly. “Or someone wanted it to look like he was.”
The room feels suddenly too small.
Too quiet.
“This is evidence,” I say. “Isn’t it?”
Camille doesn’t answer right away.
Instead, she pulls out her phone.
“Camille?” I ask, panic rising. “What are you—”
“I’m calling Rowan,” she says, already dialing.
“What? No—”
She turns away slightly, lowering her voice. “Rowan. We’re at the morgue. Violet found something.”
I clutch the receipt, knuckles white.
Camille listens, nodding once, then twice.
Her voice tightens. “A rehab payment. Timestamped. After Drew was reported missing.”
Pause.
Then: “Okay.”
She ends the call and looks at me, eyes sharp.
“He says don’t touch anything else,” she says. “Not the box. Not the phone. Nothing. Devin is on his way.”
My stomach twists.
“He believes us?” I ask.
“He believes you,” Camille corrects. “And he believes this matters.”
The door opens softly.
The attendant peeks in. “Are you ready?”
I look down at the bracelet in my hand. The receipt.
“No,” I say.
But I stand anyway.
Because ready or not—
Something has shifted.
And I know, deep in my bones, that this isn’t just about my brother anymore.
It never was.
“Actually,” Camille says, steady but firm, stepping slightly in front of me, “our lawyer hasn’t arrived yet.”
The man blinks. “Your… lawyer?”
“Yes,” she repeats. “Devin. From Ashcroft Industries.”
That gets a reaction.
Not dramatic. Just a flicker—confusion tightening into something closer to concern.
“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” he says carefully. “These are standard procedures. We just need—”
“We’re not leaving,” Camille cuts in, voice calm but immovable, “until our legal counsel is present to handle this.”
The room goes very still.
The attendant’s eyes dart briefly to the box on the table. To the receipt in my hand. To the phone sealed in plastic.
“I’ll… I’ll need to check with my supervisor,” he says.
“I’m sure you will,” Camille replies.
He steps back, closing the door halfway behind him instead of all the way. It feels intentional. Like he doesn’t want to leave us alone, but also doesn’t want to be too close.
“Camille,” I whisper, my voice barely there, “something feels wrong.”
She exhales through her nose. “Yeah. I know.”
I clutch the receipt tighter, suddenly aware of how exposed we are. How quickly this went from grief to something else entirely.
“This wasn’t supposed to be complicated,” I murmur. “They just… give you the box. You cry. You leave.”
Camille shakes her head. “Nothing about this is normal.”
The fluorescent lights hum louder now, or maybe I’m just noticing it. My heartbeat sounds wrong in my ears—too fast, too sharp.
“What if they try to take it?” I ask quietly. “The receipt.”
“They won’t,” Camille says immediately. Then, after a beat, “And if they do, Rowan will tear this place apart.”
That should comfort me.
It doesn’t.
Because I don’t want things torn apart. I want answers. I want my brother back. I want the timeline to make sense again.