The elevator doors closed.
I leaned against the wall. Both phones in my hands. The live stream still going. I looked at the screen. Twenty-three thousand viewers. Comments:
"she took the phones"
"this is the craziest live ever"
"is she gonna say something"
"WHERE IS SLOANE"
I held up the phone. Looked into the camera.
"My name is Mara Cross. Six hours ago, I was declared dead at Cedars-Sinai. Carbon monoxide poisoning. My husband filmed me unconscious and posted it on TikTok. It has fifteen million views."
The comments exploded. I couldn't read them. Too fast.
"I'm not dead. I'm not dramatic. I'm not anything except a woman who woke up on a steel slab with a toe tag."
I paused.
"Sloane Parrish knew my husband was married. She knew. The video of me dying? She liked it. Commented 'lol' under her burner account. I checked."
More comments. Faster.
"I'm going to end this live now. But I want you to remember something. When you watch content, when you like and comment and share, you're part of the machine. You're the reason people film dying wives instead of calling 911."
I ended the live.
The elevator doors opened. Lobby. Marble. Flowers. The same guy in the suit, still on his phone. Didn't look up.
I walked out into the Los Angeles dawn.
The sky was pink. The air was cold. I was barefoot in a hospital gown holding two phones.
I sat on a bench outside the hotel. Looked at Sloane's personal phone. The video was still recording. Still pointing at the bed. Still capturing empty sheets.
I stopped it. Saved the file. Sent it to myself.
Then I scrolled through her photos.
The algorithm is good at this. Show me the last twenty-four hours. There they were. Dorian at dinner. Dorian in the elevator. Dorian in bed. Selfies together. Captions drafted but not posted: "with my person" "date night" "when you find the one."
I kept scrolling.
Three months back. A screenshot of Dorian's TikTok. The one with me on the bathroom floor. Caption she'd typed but not posted: "lol this is my man."
She knew.
She knew from the beginning.
My phone buzzed. Willa.
I answered.
"You're alive."
"I'm alive."
"I saw the live. Someone clipped it. It's already everywhere."
"How everywhere?"
"Trending on everything. Mara, you have to come home. My apartment. Now. Before they find you."
"Who's they?"
"Every journalist, blogger, podcaster, and true crime amateur in Los Angeles. You're the story. The dead woman who walked out of the morgue."
I looked up. Across the street, a guy with a camera was pointing it at me.
"Too late," I said.
"Run."
I ran.
Down the street. Around the corner. Into an alley. Over a fence. Landed in someone's backyard. Dog started barking. Climbed another fence. Found a street. Kept running.
I ended up at a gas station. Bathroom. Locked the door. Looked in the mirror.
Hospital gown. Dirt on my face. Bare feet. Crazy eyes.
I washed my face with pink soap from the dispenser. Dried it with brown paper towels.
My phone buzzed. Willa again. Sent an address. Venice. An apartment building with a blue door.
I found an Uber driver willing to take a barefoot woman in a hospital gown. He didn't ask questions. Just looked at me in the rearview and drove.
Willa was waiting at the blue door. Three cats visible behind her. Children's book illustrations on the walls.
Her first words:
"I told you he was going to kill you. I just thought it would be with a golf club, not a faulty exhaust pipe."