When my daughter-in-law, Emily, forgot her phone at my house, I didn’t think much of it—she often rushed out after dropping off my grandson. I was washing dishes when the phone buzzed on the counter. I glanced at the screen, ready to ignore it, until I saw the contact photo.
My blood froze.
It was a photo of my husband, Mark, smiling at the camera—taken just a year before he died. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. My fingers shook as I picked up the phone. The message preview glowed at me like a threat.
“Don’t tell her I’m here. Please.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “What…?” I whispered to no one. My first thought was irrational—that somehow Mark wasn’t dead. That he was alive, hiding, and Emily knew something I didn’t. But logic clawed its way back. Someone must’ve been using his old number. But who? And why send a message like that?
Still, something didn’t add up. Mark’s number had been disconnected years ago. I watched the phone buzz again, and another message appeared.
“She can’t know yet.”
Yet?
I swallowed hard. Memories of arguments Mark and I had before his accident came rushing back—financial strain, stress, secrets he brushed off. Had he been hiding something? And why would Emily… my sweet, polite daughter-in-law… be involved?
Against my better judgment, I opened the messages. My breath trembled as I scrolled. There were dozens—late-night texts from this contact. Some short.
“I miss you.”
“Meet tomorrow?”
Some longer—conversations. Arguments. Plans. My stomach turned as realization hit me: whoever this was had been communicating with Emily for months.
But the worst part wasn’t the messages. It was the timestamps.
Many were from before Mark died… but several were from after.
I gripped the counter to steady myself. My world spun. What had Emily been hiding from me? And who was pretending to be my husband?
The phone buzzed again, a new message arriving as if on cue.
“I saw her car. Did she tell you anything?”
My pulse thundered. Someone out there thought Mark was still alive—
Or wanted Emily to believe it.
And I suddenly feared the truth was far darker than either of those possibilities.
I forced myself to breathe as I scrolled upward through the older messages, trying to piece together the timeline. The earliest ones—dated nearly seven years ago—could’ve been from Mark. They were simple, ordinary things husbands text their family: reminders, grocery lists, affectionate little notes. But it quickly became clear these weren’t between him and me.
They were between him and Emily.
A chill crept down my spine. At first, they looked innocently friendly—Emily had known us long before she married my son, Tyler. But the tone shifted subtly over the months. More personal. More intimate.
And then, two months before Mark’s death, a message from him:
“We need to end this before someone gets hurt.”
My mouth went dry. I sank into a chair, gripping the phone.
“Dear God…” I whispered.
Was Mark having an affair with Emily? With his own son’s fiancée?
My mind rejected the thought, but the evidence glared back at me. And then, another line from Emily:
“I won’t let you walk away. Not after everything.”
I clenched my jaw. It felt like a betrayal layered over another betrayal.
But I kept reading.
The messages after Mark’s death—those were different. Desperate. Fearful. Emily kept messaging him even though he was gone.
“They’re asking questions.”
“I didn’t mean for it to go that far.”
“Please tell me what to do.”
She had been texting a dead man.
And someone had been replying.
I pushed my hands into my lap to stop them from shaking. Whoever used Mark’s contact had picked up right after the funeral. Pretending to be him. Manipulating her. And Emily—whether out of guilt, fear, or something darker—responded.
A knot tightened in my stomach. Was someone blackmailing her? Was she involved in Mark’s accident?
The front door opened suddenly, making me jump. Emily stepped inside, smiling faintly. “Hi, Linda. I realized I left my phone—”
Her eyes locked onto it in my hand.
Her face drained of color.
“Where… where did you find that?” she whispered.
I swallowed. “On the counter. It started ringing.”
For a moment, neither of us breathed.
Then the phone buzzed again.
We both looked down.
Another message.
“Did you tell her? If you did, we’re done.”
Emily stumbled backward, gripping the doorframe. “Linda… I can explain.”
But the look in her eyes told me she wasn’t sure she could.
Emily sank onto the couch, burying her face in her hands. “I didn’t want you to find out like this,” she murmured. “Not this way.”
A thousand questions screamed inside me, but only one managed to escape.
“Were you having an affair with Mark?”
Her head snapped up, horrified. “What? No! God, no. I loved Mark, yes, but like a father. I would never—”
I held up the phone. “Then explain the messages.”
She swallowed, then began slowly.
“Before Mark died… I was in a bad place.” Her voice trembled. “Your son and I were fighting a lot. I didn’t want to worry you or Mark, but he noticed. He reached out to me. Checked on me. Encouraged me to stay strong. I leaned on him more than I should have, and Tyler misunderstood once. Mark shut it down, firmly. He told me to focus on healing my marriage.”
I studied her face. She looked genuinely ashamed, but not guilty of something illicit.
“And the messages after his death?”
“That’s… that’s the part I can’t explain.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “Right after the funeral, I got a text from his number. I thought it was some glitch. Then more came. They said things only Mark knew. I panicked. I thought someone hacked it, or worse, someone knew what I confided in him.”
“So you kept replying,” I said quietly.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she whispered. “Whoever it is… they know things.”
The phone buzzed again.
Both of us stared at it.
“She doesn’t know the truth. Meet me in 30 minutes. Same place.”
I locked eyes with Emily. “Do you know the place?”
Her face went pale. “Yes.”
“Then we’re going,” I said, grabbing my coat.
Her eyes widened. “Linda—”
“I need to know who’s pretending to be my dead husband. And why they’re manipulating you.”
Thirty minutes later, we pulled into the dark, empty parking lot behind an old hardware store. A single car idled in the back corner. A figure stepped out.
When he turned toward us, my breath left my lungs.
“Tyler?” I whispered.
My son looked haunted. “Mom… Emily… I can explain everything.”
Emily gasped. “It was you? All this time?”
Tyler nodded, tears in his eyes. “I had to. I thought Mark was covering for her. I thought she was hiding something about his death.”
The truth hit me like a blow.
My own son had been impersonating his dead father.
And he believed Emily might’ve been involved in the accident.
Before Tyler could say another word, headlights swung into the lot, blinding us all.
Someone else had arrived.
And they didn’t want the truth coming out.