I never thought I’d be a widower at 35. Elizabeth was my rock. Now, she was gone, leaving me alone with our two little girls. The car accident had taken her in an instant. I could barely breathe at the thought of it. Five years of marriage and now she was… just gone.
The funeral had been gut-wrenching. My daughters, 4-year-old Sophie and 5-year-old Emma, kept asking where “Mommy” was. I didn’t know how to answer them. How could I explain something I didn’t even fully understand myself? At least Elizabeth’s parents and sister helped me handle the affairs.
As I walked back to the car after the service, still in a daze, I felt someone watching me. At first, I thought it was just my imagination, but then I saw an old woman standing near the cemetery gates.
She looked ancient, with deep lines etched into her face. Her eyes, sharp and piercing, seemed to see right through me.
“Excuse me,” she called softly.
I stopped but didn’t respond. I didn’t have the energy for a conversation, let alone with a stranger.
“I know your fate,” she said, her voice low and serious.
I frowned. “What?”
“Cross my palm with silver, and I’ll reveal what joy and sorrow lie ahead,” she continued, holding out her hand.
I stared at her, confused. Was she serious? A fortune-teller? At a funeral?
“Look, I’m not interested,” I muttered and started to walk away.
“Elizabeth won’t rest until justice is served.”
That stopped me in my tracks. I turned back, narrowing my eyes. “What did you just say?”
The woman’s bony fingers beckoned. “Twenty dollars,” she said. “That’s all.”
Normally, I would’ve ignored her. But I was numb—too numb to care. 20 dollars meant nothing to me at that moment. So I handed her a crumpled bill.
Her hand felt cold as she grabbed mine, her grip stronger than it looked. She didn’t take her eyes off me, and for a moment, I felt exposed, like she could see all my pain.
“Today, you lost someone dear,” she whispered.
“Yeah, no kidding,” I snapped bitterly. “We’re standing outside a cemetery.”
She didn’t flinch. “Your wife’s death was no accident.”
I felt a cold chill crawl up my spine. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s more to her death than you know. Tomorrow, the truth will begin to unravel.”
My mouth went dry. “What do you mean? What truth?”
She smiled—a slow, unsettling smile. “By this time tomorrow, you’ll see.”
Before I could ask anything else, she turned and melted into the mist, disappearing as if she’d never been there. I stood frozen for a moment, unsure whether to feel angry or scared.
A part of me wanted to brush it off as nonsense. But another part that couldn’t stop thinking about Elizabeth felt something deeper, something uneasy.
That night, I lay in bed, wide awake. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Elizabeth’s face. Her laugh. Her smile. Her soft voice telling the girls goodnight. And now… she was gone. But the fortuneteller’s words haunted me, circling my thoughts like vultures. “Your wife’s death was no accident.”
Was it possible? Could there really be more to the crash?
I sighed and got up, heading toward Elizabeth’s things. I needed to feel close to her, even if it was just for a little while. I sifted through her purse, her notebooks, her clothes. Memories of her were everywhere.
Then I found them. The receipts from the car rental service.
“What’s this?” I whispered to myself, turning the papers over in my hand. We had two cars. Why would she need a rental?
Suddenly, the fortuneteller’s words echoed in my head again. “There’s more to her death than you know.”
I stared at the receipts, my heart pounding.
Had Elizabeth been hiding something?
The next morning, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. The fortuneteller’s words echoed in my head: “There’s more to her death than you know.” I didn’t want to believe her, but the car keys I found in Elizabeth’s things wouldn’t let me rest. I had to know more.
I called Elizabeth’s best friend, Sarah. She worked at the garage where Elizabeth had her car serviced. Maybe she could help me make sense of those receipts.
“Hey, Sarah. I need to ask you something… strange,” I started, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Of course. What’s going on?” she asked, sounding concerned.
“Did Elizabeth mention anything to you about renting a car? I found receipts, and I have no idea where they’re from.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
“Actually,” Sarah said slowly, “she did rent a car for an outing to the beach. Your both cars are in the shop for repairs, remember?”
“But why didn’t she tell me?” I wondered aloud.
“She wanted it to be a surprise,” Sarah replied. “She mentioned she would return the rental after the trip. You can contact the rental, here’s their number.”
I thanked Sarah and hung up, but my mind was racing. Something wasn’t right. I needed answers.
I drove straight to the rental company, my heart pounding in my chest. When I explained the situation, the manager pulled up the records.
“Sorry, man. We never knew about the accident. The car was returned without any visible damage, so we accepted it,” he confirmed. “Her sister Karen brought it back.”
I felt the ground shift beneath me. Karen? Why would she do that? And why would she repair the car first?
“Is there anything else in the records?” I asked.
The manager scanned the screen. “Just the standard details, except… huh. The car wasn’t driven much. Only a few miles added to the odometer.”
None of it made sense. I left the office in a daze. Why would Karen return the car? What was she hiding? I needed to talk to her, but I knew I couldn’t confront her on my own.
I went to the police. I didn’t want to believe it, but the suspicion that Elizabeth’s death wasn’t an accident was growing too strong to ignore. I explained everything—the car receipts, the rental, the fortuneteller’s eerie prediction.
The officer listened carefully.
“We’ll investigate,” he assured me. “You see, initially we focused on clearing the scene and determining that it was a tragic accident caused by brake failure. The investigation hadn’t seemed urgent at the time, especially since there were no witnesses, and Elizabeth was the only person involved. We took it as another unfortunate accident.”
The next few days were a blur. I barely slept, my mind racing with possibilities. Could Karen have been involved in Elizabeth’s death?
I thought back to all the times she’d been there after the accident, offering sympathy and support. How could someone who had seemed so caring be involved in something so dark?
The police worked quickly. They inspected the rental car and found something horrifying—evidence of tampering with the brakes. My heart sank as the truth began to unfold.
It wasn’t long before the police uncovered more. They found that Karen had taken out a life insurance policy on Elizabeth just a few months before the accident. She had forged Elizabeth’s signature, making herself the sole beneficiary.
I felt sick to my stomach. My wife’s death hadn’t been an accident—it was murder. And the person responsible was her own sister. The betrayal was too much to bear.
When the police arrested Karen, I couldn’t even look at her. The same woman who had cooked meals for my family, sat with me in my darkest moments, had been the one behind it all.
She confessed during the interrogation, admitting that she had tampered with the car to make Elizabeth’s death look like an accident. All for money. She had been counting on the life insurance payout to return the loans she took to fund her lifestyle.
I thought about the fortuneteller again. Her words had come true in the worst possible way. “Your wife won’t rest until justice is served.” Elizabeth hadn’t been able to rest because her death had been planned. Coldly. By someone we trusted.
Karen was sentenced to life in prison. It didn’t bring Elizabeth back, but knowing that Karen would never hurt anyone again brought some measure of justice. I sat in the courtroom, numb, as the sentence was handed down.
My heart was heavy with grief, but there was also a sense of closure. Elizabeth’s death had not gone unanswered.
A few weeks later, I found myself walking by the cemetery again. The air was crisp, and the leaves crunched under my feet as I approached Elizabeth’s grave. I thought about the fortuneteller—the mysterious old woman who had known more than I could ever have guessed.
I stood there for a long time, staring at the flowers on the ground, and whispered, “You can rest now.”
As I prepared to leave, I saw a butterfly land on the headstone. I knew it was Elizabeth telling me she was finally at peace.
I never saw the fortuneteller again, but I often thought about her words. That $20 had led me down a path I never expected, but in the end, it had given me the truth.
And the truth, as painful as it was, was worth every cent.
