Page 41 of You'll Be the Death of Me

Cole found her at the shelf behind her desk, yanking out binders until she found the one she wanted and slammed it down on the desk. “Angry again?” Cole said, acknowledging her ability to touch things from the physical world.

She shot a glance at him and saidyeswith her eyes. “There’s got to be something in here...” she muttered.

Cole gazed around the room while she flipped pages. “You also have a nice office,” he said with an approving nod.

“I don’t know how they treat you in the Underworld of Afterlife Affairs or whatever it’s called, but you seem easily impressed.”

“Well, this is impressive,” he said, and waved his hand at the fresh lily sprouting from the vase on her desk. The square room was shades of seafoam and cream with built-in shelves housing cookbooks, succulents, notebooks detailing her experimental recipes, a few framed photos of Dell posing with famous chefs she’d met, and—what she came for—binders neatly organizing every element of what was going to be her wedding.

“Might I ask what you are looking for?” Cole said over the sound of pages being violently turned.

“Evidence,” Dell hissed. “Tommy said he’d take care of the honeymoon planning since I was handling the whole wedding. Thankful for the help, I left it to him but insisted he put everything in a binder. I haven’t actually looked at it yet, but there’s got to be something in here.” She flipped past an itinerary, the rental agreement for the yacht, their on-board chef’s menu, lists of ports they were going to stop in.

“The Maldives?” Cole said, looking across the desk and upside down.

“Yes. We chartered a boat. Easy place to stage anaccident, don’t you think? Lovers out in the middle of the ocean for weeks on end. Drinking, eating, getting a little carried away...” She flipped another page and found contact information for the hotel they would stay in upon arrival and before departure. It was booked for a night on either end of the trip.

“A drunken slip and fall overboard, sure, I can see it,” Cole said. “But I don’t think you’re going to find that penciled into an itinerary.”

“No, but there’s got to be something else,” Dell said, and kept flipping. To his credit, Tommy had done a thorough job. They would have been well-pampered, had the trip actually happened.Too bad it wasn’t going to. She got to the last page in the binder, feeling hopeless, and forced herself to slow down and think. She was not an easy target. Unless...

She flipped back to the page with their on-board menus and scanned. When her eyes found it, she gasped again. “Ha! See?” she said, and lifted it with her finger pointing at the incriminating evidence. “Karithopita.That’s Greek walnut cake. I am allergic to walnuts, and Tommy knows it.” She tapped her finger on the menu, only partly feeling the truth sink in. “I was never going to come back from the honeymoon.” Anger still flowed through her like a river. Her chest was heaving even though she didn’t need the air.

Cole gave her a pained, knowing look.

Her anger deflated into something softer, something sadder, as she realized what she had just said. “Oh my God, I was never going to come back from the honeymoon.” She flipped the binder back around and scanned the page again. It would have been a beautiful meal, minus the ingredient that would have killed her. Her knees gave out, and she sunk back into her chair. This somehow felt more real than what they’d found in her prenup. This was further evidence of a plan. Premeditation. An actual plot to get rid of her.

Dell looked up at Cole, at a loss for what to say.

He stared back at her, sympathy twisting his mouth and a deep furrow in his brow. He looked like he wanted to tell her not to jump to conclusions, that this might all be a coincidence, but coupled with the prenup and what they’d heard Nikki say aboutsupposed to happen, it was impossible to think such a thing.

“Dell—” he started to say, but she cut him off.

“Can we have a little fun with him?”

Cole audibly gulped. “How do you mean?”

Dell nodded at his satchel. “What does the book say about haunting?”

“Oh, no. We can’t—”

But she’d already lunged at him and dug her hand into the leather bag. “Relax. I just want to scare him. I mean, he deserves it, don’t you think? Plus, I want him out of my house.” She flipped to the index again and scanned forhaunting. “Page one forty-seven. Perfect.”

“Dell, please—” Cole tried to intervene, but she shot him a look that silenced him.

She scanned the page, dragging her finger over the words. “Okay, it says a quality haunt includes something personally meaningful to the victim.” She paused and thought for a second, while Cole continued to look at her anxiously. “Oh, I got it,” she said with a satisfied grin. “I knowexactlywhat will do the trick, but I’m going to need your help.” She shut the book and thumped it into his chest. She turned for the closet on the room’s north wall.

“I understand your distress, but I do, sincerely, have to warn against this. Haunting is an advanced skill,” Cole pled.

“Well, so is possession, but I got that on the first try, didn’t I?”

Cole paused his argument for half a beat, unable to disagree with her. “Well, yes, you did. But look!” He’d whipped the book open again and pointed at the haunting page. “It also says haunting cannot be performed without express written consent from the Afterlife Administration.”

Dell stopped short of pulling her closet doors open. “What? It does not say that.”

“It does, in fact.” Cole pointed at the teeny,tinyprint at the bottom of the page. Dell squinted to read it.

He was right. It did say that.