Epilogue - The Husband I Buried
By Maryann Webb
Daisy
The guard stopped outside the room and checked her clipboard.
‘Daisy,’ she said, glancing up at me. ‘You ready?’
I rose smoothly from my chair.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
The guard gestured toward the door. ‘Transfer intake. New facility.’
I smiled faintly as I stepped forward, wrists already extended.
Cold metal circled my skin. For some reason, the cuffs were always like ice, as if they’d cooled them, just to make them as uncomfortable as possible.
‘Can you please confirm your full name?’
‘Daisy Clarissa Lyon,’ I said. She asked for my date of birth, and I gave it.
I had worn many names before.
Rebecca.
Elena.
Aimee.
Et cetera.
Each one chosen carefully. Each one shaped to fit the story I needed to tell.
I would wear many more.
But this one: this one had always been mine.
‘They shut it down, you know,’ the guard told me. ‘That place. The Institute.’
I didn’t respond. Everybody knew about it now. It was all over the news.
‘Big investigation. Funding pulled. People scattered.’
A pause.
‘They say some lawyer brought it all down.’
Mackenzie.
It had to be her. She had done exactly what I expected.
Burned it. Exposed it. She’d made it small enough to understand.
That was her strength.
We reached the exit. Light spilled in. For a moment, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to feel it.
Did Mackenzie really think she’d ended the Institute?
People like her always needed closure. Something to measure.
*
The doors to the transport vehicle opened.
The world was exactly as it had always been.
They guided me inside, and I got in willingly.
I sat and waited. I listened.
‘Not long now,’ one of the guards called from the front. ‘New place, new start.’
A new start. I almost laughed. Like a location changed anything.
You couldn’t contain a movement, an idea. They wouldn’t contain the Institute by shutting the doors. They needed to punish each and every person who was a part of it for their crimes.
The vehicle doors opened again. Another brief splash of sunlight as they walked me inside. At least it was nicer than the correctional facility.
I walked in with the guard. A woman with over-waxed eyebrows and a cheap home dye job greeted us. I smiled politely as she led us to a room with a table.
‘The doctor will be with you shortly,’ she said, leaving us there.
We waited in silence until a woman I recognized, wearing a tailored suit, opened the door. She blanched when she saw me, but pulled it together quickly.
She officially introduced herself as Jessica Stetson, but I wasn’t listening. I was politely waiting for my turn to talk.
‘I would like to speak with Mackenzie Morgan,’ I said. ‘And I think you can make that happen.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘Just ask her,’ I said. I’d left Mackenzie enough information to get her case started. I was sure she’d want more. ‘Let her decide. I can help with the case she’s working on.’
There was still a lot to do if she wanted to stop the Institute.
Jessica thought about it.
This time, I wouldn’t have to find Mackenzie.
She’d come to me.
And we would bury the Institute together.
If you lost sleep staying up reading The Husband I Buried, make sure you don't miss out on Maryann Webb's next addictive, devilishly twisty thriller Her Perfect Marriage.
From the outside, Sienna and her new husband's glittering life looks perfect. But now someone is hell bent on making them pay.