And so, I was free. Now, the pressing, terrifying question was: what next? How does one rebuild a life from nothing? I had no friends left. The few I’d had during my marriage to Victor turned their backs on me the moment news of my arrest spread. My own parents had died years ago, just before I moved to Philadelphia. I came from a small town near Lancaster, where I’d spent most of my childhood. My mother worked on a local farm, tending to feed crops for the livestock, while my father operated a combine harvester.
Like them, I had planned to work on the farm after high school. I’d even taken veterinary courses, dreaming of treating sick animals and supporting the farm’s operations. But life, as it so often does, had other plans. One winter, when I was just twenty, my parents came down with a severe flu. Despite my begging them to see a doctor sooner, they waited too long, and sadly, neither of them survived. Devastated, their daughter barely avoided catching the illness herself, but found no comfort in that small mercy. They died within a week of each other, and that final blow pushed me to pack my few belongings and move to Philadelphia.
Right after the funeral, I sold the family home. With the sale complete, I left my hometown behind, closing the door on that tragic chapter of my life for good. In the city, I found work at a private veterinary clinic in Old City, and it was there that I met Victor, my future husband. The businessman had brought in his little black pug, Henry, for treatment, and from that moment, a pleasant acquaintance began, slowly blossoming into a calm romance and, eventually, marriage.
Now, I had nothing and no one to hold onto as I tried to find my way back into society. Pregnant and alone, I couldn’t land a decent job. Potential employers took one look at my condition and assumed I was only after maternity benefits, and my prison release papers slammed every other door shut. Nobody wanted to hire an ex-convict; the stigma felt like it was branded on my forehead.
With no place to live, I spent my first few days of freedom sleeping on Philadelphia’s streets. Later, I learned about crisis centers for women in dire situations. They offered a hot meal and a safe place to sleep for a few nights, a chance to rest and clean up. I didn’t abuse their generosity, using their help only when I had absolutely no other choice. Still, I had to find a way to survive out here, which is why I resorted to collecting food from the cemetery. It felt less humiliating than outright begging, at least.
I even mapped out a specific route through the Philadelphia graveyard. I learned which were the wealthiest plots, the ones where I could almost always find a prepared dish or sweets for myself and my unborn child. Every time I took something, I would say a quiet prayer for the soul resting beneath the earth. It didn’t matter to me if they had been a local criminal or a pillar of the community killed in a car crash or by a cruel disease. I simply thanked them for helping to keep me and my baby from starving for one more day.
One day, passing by a particular grave, I noticed a large leather wallet lying under a nearby bench. My heart gave a little leap of excitement, and my mood lifted instantly. It was no wonder—a find like that was a rare piece of luck. Life had been so unkind to me lately that finding a lost wallet could mean food for at least a couple of days. Glancing around to make sure I was alone, I picked it up from the damp ground and, holding my breath, slowly opened it. Disappointment hit me like a physical blow. There was barely any cash inside—just a couple of ten-dollar bills and some loose change. It was mostly filled with bank cards and crumpled receipts.
Sighing, I was about to close it and toss it back when I spotted the corner of a driver’s license tucked into a side pocket. I pulled it out, and the pregnant woman examined it carefully. The face staring back from the plastic card looked oddly familiar. Arthur Gregory Stevens. I read the name, and then I gasped. My eyes darted to the headstone right next to the bench where I’d found the wallet. For a moment, I thought I was seeing things. But no. The name, the surname, and the photograph on the license were a perfect match for the name of the deceased, whose stern face was etched into the marble monument.
“What in the world, Lord,” I thought, instinctively crossing myself three times in quick succession. “If this Arthur was buried a whole year ago, how on earth did his wallet end up here? The dead don’t just drop their belongings, do they?” “This is all too weird,” I said aloud, turning the wallet over in my hands. Sure enough, the leather looked almost new—it couldn’t have been lying out in the elements for long. Someone would have picked it up before now, or the money and the license would have been ruined by snow and rain, turned to mush. The receipts, like the bills, were perfectly dry, as if they’d been printed just hours ago.
The whole situation struck me as deeply bizarre. Tucking the wallet into the pocket of my old jacket, I pondered what to do next. There wasn’t much money, and I would spend it, of course. But the cards? I couldn’t get cash from them. Trying to use them in a store, even for a small purchase, could land me right back in jail. I had no desire to ever see the inside of a prison again, so I decided not to risk it and to just leave the wallet as it was.
From that day on, I found myself visiting the mysterious grave more often, hoping to spot a relative of the deceased. One day, my patience finally paid off. I saw a man sitting on the bench by the headstone, and I quietly approached him. “Excuse me,” I began, “are you by any chance related to the person buried here?” The stranger, who had been facing away, turned around, and I felt a jolt like an electric shock. Despite a thick, full beard and a mustache, it was unmistakably the same man from the monument and the wallet’s license photo.
“Oh, my God,” I gasped, my hands flying to my belly. The shock sent a wave of false contractions through me. Terrified that I might go into premature labor right there in the cemetery, I stumbled over to a bench by a neighboring grave and sat down heavily. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on taking deep, calming breaths, trying to ease the intense cramping in my lower abdomen. “One, two, three, four,” I counted softly, stroking my stomach in a circular motion.
“Miss, are you alright?” the man rushed over, gently patting my shoulders in an attempt to calm me. “You—you’re on the headstone,” I stammered, pointing a shaky finger toward the monument. The man followed my gaze and replied with a curt, almost amused tone, “Yes, I am. But it’s not what you think. I’m very much alive, I assure you. Please, calm down. Nothing scary is happening. I’ll explain everything, I promise.”
Once the contractions subsided and I began to feel a bit better, the bearded stranger began his incredible story. “I had to fake my own death because I was left with no other choice. Someone is trying to kill me.” My eyes widened in disbelief. “Kill you? Who?” “My stepmother and my half-brother,” Arthur explained without hesitation. “After my father passed away, they smelled the money and went into a frenzy, like piranhas. They decided they wanted all of his assets for themselves, but to get them, they needed me out of the picture first. Even though I was adopted, Dad always treated me as his own son, and I’m three years older than Oliver. I turn thirty-five this year, which meant I was next in line to take over Dad’s company.”
“Wow,” I breathed, “what awful people.” “You have no idea,” Stevens nodded grimly. “It’s a full-blown conspiracy. It all started when Susan bribed one of our drivers to sabotage the brakes on my car. I was in a terrible accident, but I managed to crawl out of the wreck just seconds before the whole thing went up in flames.”
I pressed my hands to my face, whispering, “My God!” “But that wasn’t the end of it,” Arthur continued, his voice eerily calm. “Next, I was jumped in a dark alley near my office in Rittenhouse Square. The guy stabbed me twice.” To prove his words, he lifted his shirt, showing me two long, vicious-looking scars just inches from his heart. “God spared me again, somehow,” he said simply. I could only gasp softly, completely unprepared for such a sight…
