**MIRA FERNANDES—AND SHE IS STILL ALIVE.**

Mrs. Fernandes made a sound that did not seem human.

The brass key slipped from my hand.

“Mira?” I whispered.

Her daughter.

The girl who had once braided my hair before school. The girl who now worked in medical records at Holy Grace Hospital.

Mrs. Fernandes gripped the bedroom doorframe.

“She disappeared two nights ago.”

Rhea’s eyes darted toward the stairs.

Neil turned on her. “You said Mira had gone to Goa.”

“She did.”

“No,” Mrs. Fernandes said. “Mira called me from the hospital. She said she had found documents carrying Anaya’s identification number. Then the line went dead.”

I looked at the forged death certificate again.

The plan became horrifyingly clear.

Mira had discovered the fraud.

They had drugged her, registered her as me, and scheduled her cremation before she could wake.

But a dead Anaya could not walk into a police station.

So I was never supposed to leave the wake alive.

My gaze moved to the framed photograph beside Mumma’s coffin.

The black ribbon.

The candles.

The relatives recording everything.

Rhea had not placed my photograph there to insult me.

She had created witnesses to my funeral.

“You planned this,” I said.

Rhea’s face became strangely calm.

“You always thought you were smarter than everyone.”

Neil stepped away from her as though she had become poisonous.

“What were you going to do to Anaya?”

Rhea did not answer.

She did not need to.

On the dressing table stood a steel cup of chai Aunt Rosy had brought for me minutes earlier.

I remembered Rosy insisting that I drink it.

I remembered Rhea watching from across the room.

My aunt backed toward the hallway.

“I did not know,” she stammered. “Rhea only asked me to make her drink something that would calm her.”

“What did you put in it?” I asked.

“Tablets. She gave me tablets.”

My father slid down the wall.

“Oh God.”

Rhea suddenly grabbed the forged documents and ran toward the altar candle.

Neil caught her wrist before the pages reached the flame.

She struck him across the face.

“Let go of me!”

“What have you done?” he shouted.

“What I had to do!”

Her voice carried into the living room.

Every relative heard it.

Every phone recorded it.

Rhea stopped struggling and looked at the people gathered beyond the doorway.

The grieving daughter disappeared.

What remained was someone cornered.

“Mumma was going to give everything to Anaya,” she said. “The house. The accounts. Even the insurance.”

“It was never yours,” I replied.

“I stayed here!”

Her scream shook the candles.

“I took her to church. I sat through her hospital appointments. I listened to her complain about you every day while you lived your perfect life somewhere else.”

“My life was not perfect. You destroyed it.”

“You survived.”

“That does not make what you did less cruel.”

Her mouth twisted.

“You always survive, Anaya. Even when everyone begs you not to.”

She reached into her handbag.

My father moved before anyone else.

He struck the bag from her hand.

A syringe rolled across the floor.

Clear liquid trembled inside it.

Nobody spoke.

My father stared at the syringe as if it were a weapon pointed at his soul.

“She told me it was only paperwork,” he whispered.

I looked at him. “Your signature is on my death certificate.”

“Rhea said she needed you declared dead for twenty-four hours. She said the property would transfer, the loans would be cleared, and then the certificate would disappear.”

“You believed that?”

“No.”

The answer broke something inside me.

He had not believed her.

He had simply chosen not to stop her.

“She threatened to expose Neil,” he continued. “He took money from his company to pay the last of Rhea’s debts. If the police found out, he would go to prison.”

Neil’s face drained of colour.

“Papa…”

“I thought I could protect both of them.”

“By sacrificing me?”

My father looked toward the coffin.

“Your mother asked me the same question.”

The words came slowly, each one dragged through shame.

“She found the certificate yesterday. She told me to go to the police. I begged her to wait until after the loan was repaid. We argued. Rhea called Dr. Saldanha.”

Rhea shook her head violently.

“Stop talking.”

“He changed Leena’s medication.”

“You cannot prove that!”

“Mira can,” Mrs. Fernandes said.

Rhea turned toward her.

For the first time, I saw murder in my sister’s eyes.

Then the hidden phone rang.

The name on the screen was **MUMMA**.

My fingers trembled as I answered.

No voice came through.

Instead, the phone began playing another recording.