The man who held me as I died had spent seven years keeping me alive, but his final whispered wish was that he had never remembered loving me.
Chapter 2
Within two weeks, the Hayes estate barely resembled the place where Ethan and I had grown up.
The lilies he had planted for my birthday were replaced with Hannah’s favorite red roses. Workers tore down the glass conservatory where we had practiced piano together, making room for an indoor swimming pool. Even the old wisteria arbor, where Ethan had asked me to marry him, was removed to make way for a decorative pond.
I never protested. My parents begged me to return to our family home, but I wanted to settle the final arrangements with the Hayes family before leaving. Once the engagement was formally dissolved, I intended to spend whatever time remained somewhere peaceful.
One afternoon, Hannah approached me beside the unfinished pond. She held out her left hand, displaying a delicate silver ring shaped like a bird circling a fish. My breath caught because I recognized the design immediately.
Ethan had drawn it years ago while we sat together on my bedroom floor. He said the bird represented me because I always wanted to explore the world, while the fish represented him because he was happiest near the ocean. He had promised to turn the sketch into a wedding ring someday.
“Ethan found this design among his things,” Hannah said brightly. “He told me he’d drawn it for the woman he was going to marry. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“It is,” I replied. “It suits you.”
Her smile vanished.
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true.”
“You know it was meant for you.”
I looked toward the water. “That was a long time ago, Hannah.”
Her expression hardened. “You can pretend you don’t care, but his memories could come back tomorrow. What happens to me then?”
“That’s something you’ll have to discuss with Ethan.”
Before I could move away, she looked beyond my shoulder, twisted sharply, and stumbled backward into the muddy pond. Water splashed over the stones as she screamed for help.
Ethan came running.
He shoved past me so violently that I fell, twisting my ankle beneath me. Without asking what had happened, he jumped into the pond, lifted Hannah into his arms, and carried her to the bank.
“My ring!” she sobbed. “Debbie threw it into the water, and I tried to get it back.”
I stared at her.
“That’s not true.”
Hannah buried her face against Ethan’s shoulder.
“Please take me home,” she whispered. “I can’t live somewhere I’m hated.”
Ethan turned toward me. His expression was colder than I had ever seen it.
“Where’s the ring?”
“I didn’t touch it.”
He glanced toward one of the estate’s security guards. “Someone needs to find it.”
The guard approached me. Before I understood what was happening, he seized my arm and shoved me into the pond.
The cold water struck my chest, stealing my breath. I tried to stand, but my injured ankle buckled, and my hands slid helplessly against the muddy stones.
“Find the ring,” the guard ordered. “Then you can get out.”
I looked toward Ethan, expecting him to stop this madness. But he was already carrying Hannah toward the house, speaking softly to her as she cried against his shoulder.
For hours, I searched the freezing water. My fingers became numb, my legs trembled uncontrollably, and every attempt to climb out ended with the guard forcing me back into the mud. When I finally found the ring near a drainage pipe, the afternoon sunlight had begun to fade.
I limped to Ethan’s bedroom with mud drying against my clothes.
“I found it,” I said.
He took the ring from my shaking palm, looked at it briefly, and tossed it out the open window.
“Hannah doesn’t like the design anymore,” he said. “I’ll make her another one.”
I stared at his empty hand. I had spent hours in cold water recovering something that mattered to neither of them.
“Stay away from Hannah,” he added. “I’ll overlook what happened today, but don’t let it happen again.”
I wanted to tell him about the guard, my ankle, and the weakness spreading through my muscles. Instead, I turned away, because suddenly I understood something I hadn’t learned during our first marriage.
Love could become cruel even without hatred.
Three weeks later, the Hayes family hosted an engagement celebration for Ethan and Hannah at a waterfront hotel in Portland. I attended only because Margaret begged me to come, promising it would be my last obligation to their family. My own parents were already preparing our old house in the Willamette Valley for my return.
Guests whispered as I walked through the ballroom. Everyone knew I had spent five years searching for Ethan, and everyone knew another woman now wore his ring. I smiled when spoken to, avoided the champagne, and counted the minutes until I could leave.
Then the lights went out.
Someone screamed. Chairs scraped against the floor, and a hand closed around my wrist before I could reach the emergency exit. A cloth covered my mouth, and I struggled against the men dragging me through a service corridor.
When I regained consciousness, I was lying on a concrete floor inside an abandoned boathouse. My wrists were bound, and the room smelled of diesel fuel and seawater.
Hannah was arguing with a man near the doorway.
“I told you to take me,” she hissed. “You were supposed to make everyone believe Debbie arranged it. Why did you bring her here?”
The man laughed.
“Your little performance attracted some attention, sweetheart. Unfortunately for you, somebody offered us a better deal.”
I recognized his voice. Marcus Vance was a shipping executive who had been involved in a bitter business dispute with Ethan. His company had lost millions after Ethan’s family won a major port contract.
Hannah backed away from him.
“This wasn’t our agreement.”
“Your agreement was with two amateurs,” Marcus replied. “I’m running things now.”
My stomach tightened. Hannah had planned to stage her own kidnapping and blame me, but the men holding us were far more dangerous than she’d expected.
Marcus noticed I was awake and walked over with his phone.
“Good,” he said. “Let’s give your old boyfriend something to think about.”
He started a video call.
Ethan appeared on the screen, his face pale but controlled. Marcus turned the camera toward Hannah, whose shoulder was already bruised from struggling with the guards.
“Your childhood sweetheart or your new fiancée?” Marcus asked. “Which one would you rather have back?”
Ethan leaned closer to the camera.
“Let Hannah go,” he said. “Whatever you want, we’ll negotiate. But if you hurt her again, you’ll regret it.”
Marcus laughed.
“That’s what I thought.”
I closed my eyes.
Even knowing what Ethan would choose, hearing it spoken aloud hurt more than I expected. Then Marcus ended the call and ordered his men to move us.
They forced Hannah and me inside a large, reinforced glass transport enclosure, the kind used for moving valuable marine exhibits. Hannah was unconscious by then, having struck her head while fighting one of the guards. Heavy weights were secured to the enclosure before the men loaded it onto a boat.
I realized what Marcus intended only when the boat stopped offshore.
The enclosure tipped.
For one suspended instant, I saw gray sky through the glass. Then we struck the ocean, and the weights dragged us into the darkness.
Hannah floated beside me, unmoving. I kicked against the glass, but the enclosure continued sinking, and my weakened legs barely responded.
I pulled off one of my shoes. The heel had a narrow metal tip, and I struck the corner seam repeatedly, forcing myself to ignore the burning in my lungs.
The glass finally cracked.
Water surged inward, and I kicked through the broken opening, dragging Hannah after me. Sharp edges cut my arms and shoulder, but I held on to her until we reached the surface.
A piece of broken timber floated nearby. I pushed Hannah onto it, supporting her head while I kicked toward shore. She coughed, opened her eyes briefly, and began breathing on her own.
“Hold on,” I whispered. “Just hold on.”
I shoved the timber toward the beach where distant lights flickered through the rain. Each movement sent an awful heaviness through my arms, and my fingers no longer obeyed me properly.
Then my grip slipped.
Hannah floated beyond my reach, carried toward shore by the waves. I watched until I saw figures running toward her, and only then did I stop struggling.
The water closed over my face.
I thought about the strange mercy of this second life. Hannah would survive, Ethan would have the woman he loved, and my parents would never need to watch ALS slowly destroy me.
Then someone caught my wrist.
The grip was fierce, almost painful. An arm wrapped around my chest, lifting me through the darkness until rain struck my face and I heard someone shouting my name.
“Debbie! Look at me!”
Ethan.
He held my head above the waves while swimming toward a rescue boat. His breathing was ragged, and his eyes were filled with a fear I’d never seen before.
“Stay awake,” he begged. “Please, Debbie. Stay with me.”
I tried to lift my hand toward his face, but my fingers wouldn’t move.
“Hannah,” I whispered.
“She’s safe,” he answered. “You got her to shore.”
His arms tightened.
“Why did you jump in after her?”
I looked into his eyes, exhausted beyond anything words could describe.
“I didn’t jump,” I whispered. “They threw me.”
Something changed in his expression. Before he could speak, rescuers hauled us aboard the boat and wrapped me in blankets.
Ethan knelt beside me, holding my hand while the engine roared toward shore. He kept rubbing my fingers, trying to make me squeeze his hand.
But I couldn’t.
At the hospital, doctors treated my hypothermia and injuries while detectives questioned everyone involved in the kidnapping. I lay behind a curtain in the emergency department, listening to the conversation outside.
“Mr. Hayes,” a detective said, “we recovered the payment records from Hannah Schultz’s bank account. She hired two men to stage a kidnapping during the engagement party.”
Ethan said nothing.
“Her instructions were to make it appear that Debbie arranged the abduction out of jealousy. Marcus Vance intercepted the operation and turned it into an actual kidnapping.”
“You’re saying Hannah planned this?”
“Yes, sir. We have the messages and transfers.”
The curtain opened moments later.
Ethan stood there, staring at me as though seeing me for the first time.
“You knew something was wrong,” he said.
“I suspected.”
“And you still saved her?”
“She’s alive,” I answered. “That’s what matters.”
He stepped closer, his eyes searching my face.
“Why would you risk your life for someone who tried to ruin yours?”
I looked at him for a long moment.
“Because you love her, Ethan. And I know what losing her would do to you.”
He sat down heavily beside the bed.
“I don’t understand you,” he whispered. “I don’t remember our childhood, but when I saw you sinking, I thought my heart was going to stop.”
Before I could answer, the neurologist entered with my medical chart.
“Mr. Hayes,” he said quietly, “there’s something important you need to understand about Debbie’s condition.”
Ethan stood immediately.
“She’s exhausted and injured. I know. I’ll arrange the best specialists.”
The doctor shook his head.
“Her weakness wasn’t caused by the accident. She was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis several weeks ago. Her current examination suggests the disease is progressing.”
Ethan stared at him.
“What?”
“ALS,” the doctor repeated. “It’s a progressive neurological disease that affects the motor neurons controlling voluntary muscles.”
Ethan turned toward me.
“You knew?”
I nodded.
“Before you came to the aquarium?”
“Yes.”
“Before you ended our engagement?”
“Yes.”
He looked down at my motionless hands. Then his expression collapsed as memories of his recent cruelty seemed to pass through his mind one after another.
“The pond,” he whispered. “I made you search that pond.”
I said nothing.
“And you couldn’t climb out because your muscles were already failing.”
His voice broke.
“Oh, God, Debbie.”
He dropped to his knees beside the hospital bed and covered his face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I looked at the man I had loved for two lifetimes. His shoulders shook, and for one aching moment I saw the husband who had cared for me through seven terrible years.
“Because I’ve already watched you sacrifice your life for me once,” I said.
He lifted his head slowly.
“What are you talking about?”
I reached for the courage I had carried since awakening in this second life.
“Ethan, there’s something you need to know about the night I died.”
