I stood up, stepping back from him like he was a stranger.
“No,” I said. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. Not after today. Not after everything.”
His jaw tightened.
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“Then explain it,” I shot back. “Right now. Why did you take his phone? Why did you pretend to be him? And why the hell are you hiding in a cemetery at three in the morning?”
Andrew ran a hand through his hair, his composure cracking.
“I wasn’t pretending,” he said.
I let out a bitter laugh. “Are you serious?”
“I needed you to come,” he insisted. “And I knew you wouldn’t unless—”
“Unless you manipulated me using the one person I just buried?” I finished, my voice cutting.
He flinched.
“Melissa, please—”
“No,” I said firmly. “You don’t get to ‘please’ me anymore. You left me at my father’s funeral to go on a trip with your mistress. Do you have any idea what that looks like? What that feels like?”
His silence answered for him.
“Start talking,” I said, my voice dropping dangerously low. “Or I call the police right now.”
That got his attention.
His eyes darted to the phone in my hand again.
Then, slowly, he exhaled.
“This… isn’t about the affair,” he said.
I stared at him, stunned by the absurdity.
“You think that makes it better?”
“No,” he said quickly. “It makes it worse.”
A cold knot formed in my stomach.
“What are you talking about?”
Andrew looked toward my father’s grave, then back at me.
“Your dad didn’t just die from heart failure,” he said.
Something inside me recoiled.
“That’s not funny,” I said.
“I’m not joking,” he replied.
I shook my head. “We were at the hospital. I was there. The doctors—”
“The doctors reported what they were told,” Andrew interrupted. “But your father… he found something. Before he died.”
My pulse quickened.
“What kind of ‘something’?”
Andrew hesitated.
And in that hesitation, I saw fear.
Real fear.
“Financial records,” he said finally. “Hidden accounts. Transfers that didn’t make sense. He thought someone was using his business to move money.”
My father had owned a small logistics company. Nothing massive—but stable. Honest.
Or so I thought.
“You’re lying,” I said, but my voice lacked conviction.
“I wish I was,” Andrew said quietly.
“Then why didn’t he tell me?” I asked.
“He tried,” Andrew replied. “But he didn’t trust that your phone wasn’t being monitored.”
That sent a chill through me.
“What?”
“He thought someone close was involved,” Andrew continued. “Someone with access.”
I stared at him.
“You mean you.”
He shook his head immediately. “No. Not me.”
“Convenient,” I said.
“I know how it looks,” he admitted. “But listen to me—he came to me three days before he died. Gave me his phone. Told me if anything happened to him… I should get you somewhere safe.”
I felt like the ground beneath me had shifted.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I whispered.
“He didn’t want to scare you,” Andrew said. “And honestly… I didn’t believe him at first. I thought it was paranoia.”
“And now?” I asked.
Andrew gestured around the cemetery.
“Now I’m not so sure.”
Silence settled between us.
My mind raced, trying to piece together something—anything—that made this logical.
“You expect me to believe,” I said slowly, “that my father was involved in something dangerous, died mysteriously, and instead of telling me, you decided to fake a message from him and run around like a ghost in a graveyard?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds insane,” he admitted.
“It is insane,” I snapped.
Andrew stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“I wasn’t on a trip with my mistress,” he said.
I laughed bitterly. “Really? Because I have proof—”
“I needed her cover,” he cut in.
I blinked.
“What?”
“She works in cyber security,” he said. “I needed someone who could help me access the phone without triggering anything.”
My head spun.
“So you cheated on me for… tech support?”
“No,” he said firmly. “I used the situation to make it look like I left you. So no one would connect me to you tonight.”
My anger faltered, replaced by something far more dangerous:
Uncertainty.
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