Already Paid

I called LumaLive support from a landline.

Not my phone. Not the office account. The old beige handset in the supply closet that Mara refused to throw away because it still worked during internet outages.

"You are being paranoid," she said, then handed me the receiver anyway.

"Thank you."

"That was not agreement."

"It was assistance."

She rolled her eyes and shut the closet door behind us.

The hold music was cheerful enough to be prosecuted.

I stood between shelves of ribbon, votive candles, and emergency stain remover, staring at the photograph from the unknown number. The bouquet on the coffin had the same gray silk around the stems. Same angle. Same soft white chapel light.

Tomorrow will look beautiful.

Someone had sent me a preview of my own death like a vendor approval.

The support agent came on after nine minutes.

"Thank you for calling LumaLive creator care. This is Priya. How can I help?"

Human voice. Clear. Tired.

I almost cried from the ordinary sound of it.

I did not.

"I need to verify a scheduled event."

"I can help with that. Are you the account owner?"

"I am the subject."

Pause.

Mara closed her eyes.

I corrected myself. "I mean my name appears in the event title. The account may not be mine."

"Do you have the event link?"

I read the URL from my paper copy.

Keys clicked.

Priya went quiet.

"Ma'am, I am not seeing an active event at that link."

I had expected that answer.

I had not expected how lonely it would feel.

For a moment, the supply closet seemed too small for the three of us: Mara, me, and the version of me everyone would call unstable if I could not make a stranger on the phone see what I had seen.

"Check deleted previews."

"Creator care cannot access deleted events unless you are the account owner."

"Then check whether the link ever existed."

"Ma'am."

"Please."

That word cost me more than I expected.

Priya lowered her voice. "I can search public event metadata. Give me a moment."

More keys.

Mara watched my face, not the phone.

I appreciated that. Grant watched devices first. Mara watched people.

Priya returned. "There is no public event under that URL."

"Was there one before?"

"I cannot confirm internal logs."

"That is not the same as no."

Another pause.

When Priya spoke again, her voice had changed. "I can say there is no event available to users."

Available.

Not nonexistent.

My hand tightened around the receiver.

"What about an ad campaign?"

"For an unavailable event?"

"Yes."

"That would not be possible."

"Please check."

Mara mouthed, Careful.

I turned away.

Priya typed for a long time.

Then she stopped.

The silence was so complete I could hear the closet light buzzing above us.

"Ma'am," she said, "are you associated with Whitmore Holdings?"

My mouth went dry.

"Why?"

"A campaign receipt was generated under a business billing profile connected to that name."

Mara grabbed my wrist.

I did not move.

"For the event I gave you?"

"I cannot disclose billing details to a non-owner."

"Is the campaign active?"

"I cannot disclose that."

"Priya."

I heard my own voice sharpen. Evelyn Vale, not Evie. Not sweetheart. Not fragile.

"The event title has my full name and the word memorial in it. If someone bought ads for my funeral, I need to know whether your platform is helping them."

Priya breathed out once.

"I am going to send a standard safety escalation form to the email associated with your caller information."

"No."

"No?"

"Do not send it to any email on file. Tell me the campaign status."

"I could lose my job."

"I could lose more than that."

Mara's fingers tightened on my wrist.

Priya did not answer for six seconds.

Then, quietly, she said, "The campaign is not live yet."

Yet.

"When is it scheduled?"

"Tomorrow, 7:45 p.m. Eastern."

Fifteen minutes before my funeral.

My knees went soft. I locked them.

"Budget?"

"I cannot."

"Budget."

She whispered the number.

Forty thousand dollars.

For fifteen minutes of grief traffic.

I wrote it down twice because the first time my hand made the zeroes too large.

Forty thousand dollars could have paid Mara's salary for months.

Forty thousand dollars could have rebuilt the studio security system Grant once called unnecessary.

Forty thousand dollars, spent to make sure enough people arrived on time to watch me be gone.

Mara put a hand over her mouth.

I closed my eyes.

Grant had once refused to spend that much on a security upgrade for my studio because he said fear was not a business plan.

Apparently death was.

"Who authorized it?" I asked.

"The billing profile says Whitmore Holdings, but the user display is private."

"Can you send me a receipt?"

"No."

"Can you read me the invoice number?"

Another silence.

Then Priya read it.

I wrote every digit on the back of a ribbon order form.

"Thank you," I said.

"Ma'am?"

"Yes."

"If this is what it sounds like, do not use your normal account again."

The line clicked dead.

I stood in the supply closet with the receiver still against my ear.

Mara took it gently from my hand.

"Evelyn."

I looked at the invoice number.

At the coffin photograph.

At the roses.

Until that moment, some stupid, loyal part of me had still been hunting for a door marked misunderstanding.

There was no door.

There was a campaign.

It was already paid.