Rebirth Into My Second Chance

I couldn't hold it in anymore and yelled after his retreating figure, "Claude, you jerk!"

Gabrielle schemed to drug his drink and lure me into his bed, thinking she owed me and fearing to tell Claude about her cancer diagnosis, confiding in me instead. She worried that with her gone, no one would look after me. But to my shock, Gabrielle tampered with Claude's drink and my soup that night.

When I woke up, I found myself in Claude's bed, and before I could even process what happened, he had thrown me out along with the blankets.

I never thought of guilt-tripping him. He always had the upper hand. Even our marriage certificate was acquired through Gabrielle's manipulations. I got entangled with the Hart family until my last breath. It was their family who drove me to this end. After Claude left, my spirit felt compelled to follow him. As we left the courthouse, Claude's childhood friends greeted Kate with white sages, a traditional gesture to ward off evil spirits.

A few swipes with the sages sent my lightweight spirit flying far, crashing into a nearby stone bench. Thankfully, being a spirit meant no pain.

"I knew it. With Claude around, Kate would be fine," one of them said.

Another suggested, "To celebrate Kate's safety, let's hit the bar and party till dawn."

Claude offered a doting smile, opened the car door, and carefully guided Kate to the passenger seat, protecting her head as she got in.

Once in the car, Kate voiced her concern, "Mrs. Hart had a point. It's been days since we've heard from Claire. I'm worried something might have happened to her. I'd feel guilty for life if we went hiking together and something happened to her."

I scoffed, "Yeah, we went hiking together, but somehow, I'm the one who's dead. Just my bad luck."

snorted impatiently, loosening his tie to reveal his tanned skin. "If she hadn't been obsessed with visiting her parents' grave and dragged you into that hike, leaving you alone in the woods, you wouldn't have encountered those psychopaths. She abandoned you, and

is just headstrong, not a bad person. Besides, her family has been good to you," Kate pretended to

dismissively, "I've repaid whatever I owed them. You don't need to defend her. After going through something so traumatic, let's just

the back, I started laughing, which soon turned into tears. I could almost see

twisted as if I were the one who insisted. Claude was always predisposed to

up the mountain, someone knocked me unconscious from behind. When I woke, I was in a dark, moss-covered room, the air foul with decay

phone ringing snapped me back

Metropolis. We're investigating a murder. What's your

trouble, a

be in trouble. We found her clothes and shoes near the site

frown creased

for me to find her. Leaving her shoes is just part of her act. There's no need

the discovery of a severed finger in

severed finger. The smaller burned body from today's case was missing a finger. We're doing a DNA comparison. You should come." Claude froze. That missing finger had eluded a massive search effort because the smaller body

"I'll be right

the backseat, I looked at