Faked His Death to Marry Her

After my husband died a hero’s death in a massive fire, I opened a small grill near his old station. His old crew still came by after their shifts to support the business. The moment they walked in tonight, the new recruit, a kid named Will, stared at me in shock. “Wait… aren’t you the captain’s ex-wife? The one he said died in the fire?” I froze. My husband was the one who had died in that fire. The entire department knew it. But Will was dead serious. “No, our captain isn’t dead. He just showed us a family photo last week.” “He said… he said his current wife is the only woman he’s ever truly loved.”

1 “Will, you’re drunk! Shut your damn mouth!” The air in the private dining room turned to ice. Captain Hines, my husband Leo’s old chief, shot to his feet, his face a thundercloud as he clamped a hand over the young firefighter’s mouth. “He’s just a kid, Lynn, doesn’t know what he’s saying. Don’t take it to heart.” He started dragging Will toward the door. “Captain, I’m not drunk! I’m telling the truth! The chief, he—” Will’s frantic protests faded as Hines shoved him out, the heavy door slamming shut, cutting off the sound. A dead silence fell over the room. Leo’s “brothers,” the regulars who came by so often, were all staring at their plates. None of them dared to meet my eyes. My son, Noah, was looking up at me, his eyes a perfect copy of his father’s, wide with confusion. “Mommy, what’s wrong with the uncles?” I snapped back to reality, forcing a smile as I stroked his hair. “Nothing, sweetie. They’re just playing a game.” I turned my gaze to Hines, who had returned, his own smile plastered on and stiff. “Lynn, Will’s new, doesn’t know the ropes. He got our Leo mixed up with another captain from the next city over. Don’t pay him any mind.” “Yeah, that’s right! Crazy how two people can look so alike.” “Exactly! Our Leo was a hero. The whole city knows it!” They all chimed in, a chorus of clumsy explanations. But the more they talked, the heavier the stone in my stomach grew. I knew Leo for ten years, was married to him for three. Five years ago, the inferno that had devoured half the city’s Westside warehouses had taken him from me. He had charged back into the collapsing structure to save one last trapped child. A selfless act of bravery. They never even found a body. All that was recovered from the smoldering ruins was his wedding ring, melted and twisted by the heat. For five years, I’ve raised our son alone, surviving on the department’s pension and the charity of these “brothers.” I always believed they were helping us out of loyalty, looking after the family of their fallen comrade. But now, a chilling doubt began to creep in. Maybe it wasn’t what I thought at all. I raised my glass to Hines. “Captain, I don’t know what I would’ve done without you all these years.” “Don’t say that, Lynn. It’s the least we could do,” he said, quickly draining his own glass as if trying to wash something away. I lowered my eyes, my voice barely a whisper. “So… that other captain Will mentioned. What was his name?” Hines’s body went rigid. The men beside him turned pale. “Oh, him… hell if I can remember,” he stammered, his eyes darting around the room. “It was just a mix-up, that’s all. A misunderstanding.” The rest of the meal was a blur of tasteless food and forced conversation. They left in a hurry, practically fleeing the restaurant. Later that night, I tucked Noah into bed, watching his small face, so achingly similar to Leo’s, and my heart clenched with a pain so sharp it stole my breath. My husband was dead. So why would that new recruit say those things? He said his current wife is the only woman he’s ever truly loved. Then what was I? And what were the last five years of my mourning? A cold, terrifying idea began to bloom in the darkness of my mind, and I knew, with sickening certainty, that I had to find the truth.

2 The next day, I made a pot of soup and brought it to the fire station, using gratitude as my excuse. The men greeted me with their usual calls of “Hey, Lynn!” but their warmth was a thin veil over a nervous energy, a desperate avoidance in their eyes. I didn’t see Will anywhere. “Hines, where’s Will? He seemed pretty out of it last night. I just wanted to make sure he’s okay,” I asked, trying to sound casual. Hines was polishing the trophies on the honor wall. His hand jerked, nearly dropping one. “Oh… Will. He had a family emergency back home. Took off first thing this morning.” The lie was so flimsy it was almost insulting. A rookie who’d been there less than a month, whose paperwork probably wasn’t even fully processed, had a sudden emergency? My gaze drifted to the honor wall. In the very center was a black-and-white photo of Leo. His smile was brilliant, his eyes full of life. Below it, an inscription: LEO VANCE, FALLEN HERO. I stared at the picture, a suffocating pressure building in my chest. Next to it was a group photo of the rescue squad, taken just a month before the fire. Leo stood in the middle, his arm wrapped around my shoulders. We looked so happy, so blissfully ignorant. But my attention was snagged by a woman standing in the background, almost hidden in the corner. She wore the uniform of a support staff member, but her eyes were glued to Leo, a look of raw, undisguised obsession. I had no memory of her at all. “Hines, who is this?” I asked, pointing to the woman. “I don’t remember her.” Hines’s face went taut again. “Her? Oh, she was just a temp… Chloe something… Only worked here for a couple of weeks and then left. Not important.” He quickly changed the subject, pulling me over to show me their new fire engine. I nodded and smiled, my mind a million miles away, replaying the image of that woman’s possessive stare. Back home, I tore through Leo’s belongings, everything they had given me from his locker. A locked metal box tumbled out from the bottom of a storage container. It was our “time capsule,” something we’d bought together before he joined the academy. We were supposed to fill it with our most precious memories. He kept the key, promising we’d open it together on our golden anniversary. But he was gone. I found a hammer and, without a second of hesitation, smashed the lock open. Inside, there were no love letters, no photos of us. Just a thick stack of pictures and a pink diary. The photos were of Leo and that woman, “Chloe something.” Kissing on a beach, holding each other on a snowy mountain, their smiles a blinding, painful mockery in every shot. My hands trembled as I opened the diary. The elegant script chronicled a woman’s sick, obsessive love for my husband… and her venomous hatred for me. Why did he have to marry her? She’s not good enough for him! He says he loves me, so why does he still sleep in her bed? Leo promised me. After this next big call, he’s going to tell Lynn everything. He said he’s going to give me and our baby a real family. Our baby… My mind went blank, a roaring static filling my ears. Tucked into the last page of the diary was an ultrasound photo. The name on it was “Chloe Summers.” The date was from six years ago. A full year before my Noah was even born.

3 In that single moment, my world didn’t just crack. It disintegrated. The epic love story I thought I was living was nothing but a one-woman show. The hero I had mourned for five years hadn’t just been cheating on me with another woman; he’d had a child with her, a child older than my own son. A wave of nausea washed over me, so violent and overwhelming I barely made it to the bathroom before I was retching into the toilet. I collapsed onto the cold tile, silent tears carving paths down my face. Chloe Summers… I searched the cluttered archives of my memory. And then I found it. A passing comment from Leo before we got married. He’d mentioned a girl from his hometown, a neighbor who’d always had a crush on him. I’d laughed it off at the time. It wasn’t a joke. It was a time bomb buried beneath the foundations of my life. I wiped my tears and forced myself back to the box. Beneath the diary and photos, I found an unstamped letter. It was in Leo’s handwriting. Chloe, my love, it’s all set. The fire at the Westside warehouses will be our new beginning. I’ve found a way to lure Lynn there. After the fire, she’ll be declared an ‘accidental casualty.’ I’ll be declared ‘killed in the line of duty,’ and I’ll take on a new identity. Once things cool down, I’ll come for you and our boy. Wait for me, Chloe. Soon, nothing will ever keep us apart. At the bottom of the letter, he had drawn a crude smiley face. I stared at the words, each one a poisoned blade carving my heart into ribbons. He wasn’t going to save someone. He was going to murder me. He had orchestrated a massive fire, planning to burn me into an unidentifiable corpse so he could run off with his mistress. So what went wrong five years ago? Why did he “die” instead of me? I forced my mind back, dredging up every detail from the day of the fire. I was a photographer back then. I did have a shoot scheduled at the Westside warehouses that day. But just before I left, Leo had called me. His voice was softer, more tender than I’d ever heard it. He said he had a bad feeling, a premonition that something terrible was going to happen. He begged me to cancel the job, to take Noah and go stay with my parents for a few days. He even said he’d bought us train tickets, and they were on the nightstand. At the time, I was touched by his concern, thinking he was just worried about me. Now I knew the horrifying truth. He wasn’t worried; he was getting me out of the way! He needed evidence that I was “at the scene,” but he couldn’t have me actually die, because he needed me alive to go to the city clerk’s office and sign his death certificate! My press pass! In my rush that day, I’d left my work bag in my car. The bag with my press credentials and shooting permit. And my car was parked in the warehouse lot! The official report mentioned they found a female body, burned beyond recognition, with my press pass scattered nearby. Everyone assumed it was me until the DNA test came back negative. The police treated it as a loose end, a mystery. And I was too lost in my grief to pay any attention. He found a replacement. An innocent woman to die in my place. How could this man be so cruel? My body shook uncontrollably, not from fear, but from a rage so profound it felt like it would burn me alive from the inside out. Leo. Chloe. And Captain Hines and the rest of them… Everyone who had a hand in this deserved to go to hell.

4 I thought I had married a hero. It turned out he was a monster. I thought their support was a gesture of brotherhood. It was a surveillance operation. They weren’t taking care of a hero’s widow. They were guarding a witness who could shatter their web of lies at any moment. For five years, I’d been a fool, dancing on the strings of their meticulously crafted puppet show. My grief, my loyalty, my widowhood—all of it was a cosmic joke. But the grief had now curdled into a cold, hard rage. Tears wouldn’t solve anything. I wanted revenge. I was going to make Leo and his pack of hyenas pay a price so steep it would cost them everything. I looked at the woman in the mirror—pale, her eyes swollen and red—and a slow, chilling smile spread across my lips. It felt alien on my own face. Lynn, you’ve already ‘died’ for Leo once. From now on, you live for yourself. Taking a deep breath, I dialed a number I hadn’t called in years. A cynical, world-weary voice answered on the other end. “Well, well. If it isn’t the great Lynn Hayes. What’s a world-class photographer doing calling a bottom-feeder like me?” “Jack, I need your help.” He paused, his tone shifting from playful to serious. “What’s wrong?” Jack was my senior in college. Now, he was one of the country’s top investigative journalists, running a team that struck fear into the hearts of celebrities and politicians alike. We used to be partners until Leo’s disapproval of my career pushed me away. “My husband,” I said, each word precise and cold. “I don’t think he’s dead.” Jack sucked in a sharp breath. “Holy shit. Your hero husband? Lynn, that’s not a story. That’s a goddamn earthquake.” “I need you to find someone for me. A young firefighter named Will. And… I need you to find Leo.” “Consider it done. If he’s on this planet, my guys will find him,” Jack said, the excitement palpable in his voice. “One more thing. Pull every file you can on the Westside warehouse fire from five years ago. I want everything on the unidentified female victim. The more detailed, the better.” “Lynn… what are you planning?” I gazed out the window as the sky began to lighten. “Nothing,” I whispered. “I’m just going to make a dead man talk.” After the call, I took all of Leo’s “mementos” and set them ablaze in my fireplace. In the dancing flames, I saw the ghost of an innocent woman and the reflection of my own stolen years. Leo. Did you think a new name meant a new life? Did you think I’d play the grieving widow forever? You were wrong. Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. And I’m the one who clawed her way back to drag you down with me.