**Diary Entry**
I stood by the window, clutching my tea, watching the drizzle mist the glass. Another Sunday, another empty day stretching ahead. I could’ve stayed in bed, but what was the point? A year ago, I would’ve burrowed under the covers, waiting for James to drag me out for a walk. Now, there was only silence.
I forced myself outside, tossing the rubbish into the bin. The air was crisp, the kind of cold that bites at your cheeks. A far cry from the warmth of the flat, where I’d spent weeks wrapped in grief like a shroud. Two months since the accident. Two months of pretending the world hadn’t ended.
The call had come mid-morning. James had just left—urgent business, he’d said. A client dispute. If I’d known it was the last time I’d see him, I’d have held on tighter. But there’d been no warning, no gut feeling. Just the stark words from the police: *There’s been an accident. You need to come to the hospital.*
I still see his face in my dreams.
Work was the only thing left. The business he’d built with Richard—our livelihood. My inheritance. I owed it to him to keep it alive. So I dressed in a pale blue frock, something soft and hopeful, and stepped into the office.
The whispers followed me. Eyes lingered a second too long. I signed papers until my hand cramped, barely registering the words. If James were here, he’d have known exactly what to do.
On my way home, an old woman called out to me from a park bench.
*”Fancy dress won’t bring him back, love. Shame about that poor little boy starving while you swan about in new clothes.”*
Her voice was sharp, cutting through the fog in my mind.
*”What boy?”* I shouldn’t have stopped. Shouldn’t have listened. But the words wrapped around me like barbed wire.
James had a child. A boy named Alfie. With some girl named Daisy.
*”He’d have wanted you to know,”* the woman said, pressing a crumpled note into my hand. *”Think on it—how’ll you live with yourself if that innocent babe ends up in care?”*
I called my best friend, Charlotte. She arrived within the hour, all righteous fury and quick thinking.
*”This stinks of blackmail,”* she hissed. *”Richard’s behind this—I’d stake my life on it.”*
She brought in an investigator, a burly man named Paul with a sharp tongue and sharper instincts. He didn’t mince words.
*”Richard’s playing you. Wants you to sell your half. A child? Please. If James had a son, he’d have told you.”*
But doubt had already taken root.
Paul dug deeper. Footage of Richard with Daisy in the park, cradling the boy like his own. Voicemails arranging secret meetings. And then—the smoking gun. A paternity test.
Alfie wasn’t James’s son.
He was Richard’s.
The pieces fell into place. The late-night calls. The urgency that final morning. Richard had lured James out—for what? A confrontation? An ambush?
I confronted him in the office, Paul at my back. Richard’s face turned grey when I slapped the test results on his desk.
*”You killed him,”* I said.
His hand twitched toward his pocket. If not for Paul’s quick thinking—if not for the officers waiting outside—I might’ve ended up like James.
Greed ruins people. Richard rots in a cell now. The business thrives under new management. And Daisy? Gone.
Some nights, I still wonder about the boy. If he’ll ever know the truth. If James would’ve wanted me to find him.
But that’s a ghost I can’t chase. Not yet.