Chapter 3: Exposing the Hero’s Dirty Secret

Right then, I spotted my mark.

The reborn David Sutton.

Or, more accurately, David Sutton—drowned, and now living in some other young guy’s body.

He’d barely settled into his new identity before hunting down Jessica Harper, who was working at the hotel.

Those two clung to each other in a corner, whispering with their heads together. Their body language—shoulders pressed close, hands brushing, glances darting around—looked exactly like two people plotting their next move. I couldn’t hear them, but their eyes said it all: they were scheming, hungry for a fresh start.

I nudged the hotel’s general manager—my best friend. "See those two in uniforms? Know them?"

She squinted. "Guy’s a shuttle bus driver, girl’s probably front desk."

"Fire them both, would you?"

By then, my in-laws had already left my house—though they did it with plenty of grumbling.

Just as I’d guessed, my mother-in-law called soon after:

"We’ve patched things up with Jessica Harper. Turns out, my son was innocent—a real hero, just a good kid."

"Come by for dinner sometime. Jessica wants to thank you. She’s had a rough go of it too."

I hung up, snorting.

By now, David Sutton had wormed his way back into the family. The real fireworks were about to start.

"Maggie, I honestly don’t know how to face you…"

Four veggie sides and a soup—cabbage, spinach, collard greens, garlic scapes. My father-in-law had a lone meatball and a splash of whiskey. Bare bones, no frills. This was technically my first time meeting Jessica Harper in this life.

Correction: I’d seen her plenty before. In my last life, she’d smiled as she described my daughter’s agony in the ICU, right at my bedside.

That smile was burned into my memory forever.

The in-laws and Jessica Harper were thick as thieves, all convinced David Sutton was a hero.

My mother-in-law shamelessly insisted Jessica had been pregnant for three months—so how could she have been with my late husband?

I smiled. In my last life, I’d swallowed that excuse. Now, thinking back…

They’d been together way before all this—David just switched bodies and thought he could get away with it?

Not a chance.

I looked them over, cold as ice. "So, you’re not paying up, and you’re still calling him a hero?"

All three nodded, all innocent eyes and fake sympathy.

Fine. Then I’ll put my husband’s heroic deed on blast—nothing wrong with that, right?

That night, I hit every social media platform I could think of: Facebook, the Maple Heights moms’ group, Nextdoor, TikTok. I posted every juicy detail of my husband’s supposed heroism, tagging Jessica Harper’s job and the Suttons’ neighborhood. I made sure every neighbor, every parent, every coworker saw:

"With a heavy heart: Monday at lunch, my husband, David Sutton, sprinted across Maple Heights to 'save' Jessica Harper behind the Orange Motel—and drowned."

The posts blew up. Screenshots of their texts, photos of their secret meetings—anything I could dig up, I posted. Comments poured in. Gossip flew. Soon, the Suttons and Jessica couldn’t walk down the street without someone whispering.

My in-laws called from a cheap motel, hiding out from the online storm and neighborhood gossip. They didn’t dare show their faces.

Nobody cared about the heroic deed anymore—the real story was way juicier.