The Death Certificate

1998 Incident. The words sit in the folder path like a bruise.

I double-click, my breath hitching as the system processes the request. My laptop fan whirs into a frantic, high-pitched scream, struggling to parse the decades-old encryption. On the other side of the office door, the house is silent, but it feels like the walls are leanings in, listening for the sound of the truth breaking surface.

The directory populates with a dozen scanned image files. They aren't the polished, high-resolution PDFs of the modern Vance archive. These are raw, grainy, and gray—photocopies of photocopies, the edges curled and blackened by time.

I click the first file. It’s a newspaper clipping from the *Lexington Gazette*, dated November 14, 1998. The headline is a jagged line of black ink: *TRAGIC FIRE AT VANCE ESTATE CLAIMS HEIR.* My vision tunnels. Heir. Singular.

I scroll past photos of a blackened stone facade, the skeletal remains of a grand carriage house. The text describes a fast-moving blaze, an accidental ignition in a private workshop. I can almost smell the soot through the screen.

The next file is a coroner's report. It’s clinical, cold, and devastating. It details the dental records and the height of the victim. Everything matches the man I’ve shared a bed with for fifteen years. Everything except the status of the heart.

I reach the final document in the folder. A Certificate of Death.

I lean so close to the monitor that the pixels burn my eyes. The name is typed in a clear, authoritative font: *David Arthur Vance.* Cause of death: *Inhalation of toxic fumes and thermal trauma.* Date of death: *November 13, 1998.*

The room begins to tilt. I grab the edge of the desk, my knuckles white against the dark wood. I look at the time stamp on the file's metadata. It was scanned into the system in 2002—the same year Caleb "became" David.

This isn't just a name change. This is a resurrection.

Eleanor didn't just save a troubled boy; she scavenged the identity of her dead son and draped it over a stranger like a shroud. She needed a golden boy to inherit the throne, so she manufactured one out of thin air and a foster kid's desperation.

My kids. My children are named after a boy who turned to ash before they were even conceived. Their entire legacy, their bloodline, their very names are a monument to a corpse.

I hear a soft click behind me. The office door handle is turning.

I don't have time to close the window. I don't have time to hide the shadow drive. I just stare at the screen, at the official seal of the state of New York, confirming that the man I married is a ghost.

The real David Vance died in a fire in 1998. The man she married had stolen a dead boy's ghost.