Ruby Bell

Elise knew the name Ruby Bell.

Not well. Not enough. A claims investigator saw hundreds of names, most attached to grief, lies, or both. But Ruby Bell had crossed Elise's desk nine months earlier in a denied accidental-death policy tied to a nursing aide who vanished before the appeal.

"Ruby was a claimant," Elise said.

Theo drove because Roslyn had gone after a neighbor's doorbell camera and told Elise not to move her car into another crime scene. Elise sat in the passenger seat with Lenora's note photographed on her phone.

"Your mother's firm insured her?" Theo asked.

"Meridian denied her. Different policy."

"What was the claim?"

"Her husband died in a fall at a client home. It looked staged. The policy had been taken out by a trust, not by Ruby."

"HartLine?"

"I do not remember."

That bothered Elise more than she wanted to admit. She remembered suspicious signatures, grief that felt rehearsed, claim numbers from five years back. Ruby should have stuck if Vivian's firm had been near it.

Theo turned toward Meridian's downtown office without asking.

"I may be locked out," Elise said.

"You are not going in under your login."

"Theo."

"I am not hacking your employer. I am using a bank subpoena request Roslyn just sent me."

"That fast?"

"Roslyn dislikes dead bodies leaving buildings."

Meridian Mutual occupied four floors of a beige tower Elise had always found honest in its ugliness. Her ID badge failed at the turnstile. The guard's screen flashed red.

Deceased.

The guard looked at her, looked at the screen, and whispered, "Ma'am?"

Elise's throat tightened. A system could do what grief had not. It could make people look through her.

Theo put his badge on the counter. "Compliance review. Now."

Upstairs, Elise's manager refused to meet her eyes. "Corporate legal says I cannot discuss active claims with a non-employee."

"I worked here yesterday."

"According to HR, your employment ended this morning."

"Because I died?"

Her manager slid a sealed box across the desk. "Your personal effects."

On top sat a file Elise had never put there.

Ruby Bell.