It was Nora Cole.

Iris stood frozen on the porch, her legal mind struggling against the official death certificate she had reviewed only hours earlier.

“You’re alive,” she whispered.

“Barely,” Nora said, quiet but firm, stepping aside to let her in. “Jared thought he’d finished me. He hit me with a heavy iron statue, took my financial files, and left me to bleed out on the floor.

But Oscar found me before the police arrived. He knew that if Jared learned I was still breathing, he’d come back to finish it — and use his connections with Judge Douglas to make sure Gavin took the fall regardless.”

“But the body,” Iris said, sitting at the small wooden table. “The state identified you through dental records.”