Lethal Baggage Chapter 2

I stood flat against the wall, barely daring to breathe.

Skyler's breathy, teasing voice drifted through the crack.

"You're so mean. What took you so long? I was suffocating in there."

Carter chuckled. "You're the one who wanted to try something crazy. Well? Was it thrilling enough for you?"

Skyler pouted. "It's only thrilling now that you're here."

In my previous life, I had woken up for a glass of water, seen the light, and heard these exact murmurs.

My mind had gone blank. I had shoved the door open to find them tangled together on the office rug.

I had lost my mind, screaming and swinging at them. Carter kept telling me he could "explain" while slowly backing me toward the open window.

Then, he suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders, spun me around, and pushed me out into the empty night.

Afterward, Carter paid off a shady psychiatrist to forge a severe depression diagnosis, claiming my death was a tragic suicide.

My fists clenched so hard they shook. The phantom agony of broken ribs and a crushed spine flared up again, making me tremble violently.

Their whispered conversation continued.

"You really know how to treat a girl," Skyler cooed. "Chloe is like a brick wall. You ask her to try anything fun and she acts like it's disgusting."

"If I wasn't waiting on her trust fund, I would've dumped her years ago," Carter scoffed.

"If you really just wanted the money, why not poison her? I saw on TikTok you can get stuff from overseas that doesn't show up in a toxicology report."

"I've been slipping it to her for six months! That bitch hasn't even had a stomach ache. I probably bought fake shit."

"Plus, I read online that coroners can test for that stuff now. It's too risky."

Carter had been poisoning me for six months?

My head whipped toward the kitchen where my daily "vitamins" sat on the counter.

Carter had claimed they were custom-formulated anti-aging supplements from Europe.

I hated taking pills and was terrified of unregulated supplements ruining my liver, so I had secretly been dumping them down the sink for months, just pretending to take them so he wouldn't be disappointed.

Turns out, those were my daily doses of poison.

Skyler's whining brought me back to reality.

"So when do I get to be the official Mrs.? I'm not waiting forever, you know. I've got options."

Carter laughed darkly. "Relax. I know a guy. I'm meeting him tomorrow morning to get a backdated depression diagnosis for Chloe."

"And then what?"

"Then what? Look at the windows in this place. The sills don't even reach your knees."

"If you were standing by the window, and I gave you a little shove from behind... what do you think would happen?"

The room went dead silent for a second, followed by their muffled, twisted laughter.

Every hair on my arms stood on end.

So, he didn't kill me in my past life just because I caught them.

He had already planned to murder me.

I had just interrupted his timeline, forcing him to do it before the paperwork was even ready.

I silently crept back to bed, closed my eyes, and let my brain run at lightspeed.

A long time later, Carter slipped back under the covers. Seeing me sound asleep, he let out a quiet, disdainful scoff.