Chapter 2 - The Dead Woman Opened Her Eyes
For three seconds, nobody moved.
The entire chapel seemed frozen around the shattered white coffin.
Claire Parker lay beneath splintered wood, her terrified eyes staring through the opening Ethan had made.
Silver duct tape covered her mouth.
Her wrists were bound together.
And Richard Parker was pointing a handgun at the crowd.
“Everybody back!”
His voice cracked through the room.
People screamed.
Several guests dropped behind pews.
Others rushed toward the exits.
Ethan didn’t move.
He could barely hear them.
All he could see was his mother.
Alive.
“Mom.”
Claire’s eyes locked on him.
Then she tapped weakly against the inside wall of the coffin.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Ethan’s throat closed.
I love you.
Richard swung the gun toward him.
“I said move!”
Ethan finally looked at his stepfather.
The grief was gone from Richard’s face.
So was the calm.
The man standing beside the coffin no longer looked like the devastated widower who had spent the past two days accepting condolences.
He looked trapped.
A man in the third row slowly lifted both hands.
His name was Thomas Reed, Claire’s cousin.
“Richard, put the gun down.”
“Stay where you are.”
“She’s alive.”
“I know what you can see.”
Richard’s answer silenced the room.
Thomas stared at him.
“You knew?”
Richard’s eyes flicked toward the doors.
That tiny movement was enough.
A woman near the rear of the chapel grabbed a heavy brass candle stand and hurled it.
Richard ducked.
The gun fired.
The bullet tore into the ceiling.
Everyone screamed.
Ethan threw himself over the coffin.
Richard stumbled backward.
Two men rushed him.
He fired again.
The second bullet struck a marble column.
Richard slammed one man into the pew, kicked the other aside, and ran toward a narrow service corridor behind the chapel.
“STOP HIM!”
Someone shouted.
But Richard was already gone.
Ethan climbed onto the broken coffin.
“Mom!”
Thomas reached him first.
Together they ripped away shattered pieces of the lid.
Claire flinched as daylight poured over her face.
Thomas tore the tape from her mouth.
Claire dragged in a violent breath.
“Ethan.”
He almost collapsed.
“Mom.”
Her voice was barely a whisper.
“You heard me.”
“I heard the knocks.”
She began crying.
“I knew you would.”
Sirens screamed outside.
Someone had called 911.
Thomas cut the restraints from Claire’s wrists with a pocketknife.
Her skin was red and bruised.
When he tried to help her sit up, her entire body shook.
“Easy.”
“No.”
Claire grabbed his sleeve.
“Richard.”
“He ran.”
Her expression changed.
Fear replaced relief.
“He’ll go to the house.”
“Why?”
Claire looked toward Ethan.
For several seconds she seemed uncertain whether she should speak in front of him.
Then she made a decision.
“There’s something in my study.”
“What?”
“A blue envelope.”
Ethan stared at her.
Claire squeezed his hand.
“If Richard finds it before the police do, none of this will matter.”
Thomas frowned.
“What’s inside?”
Claire swallowed.
“Proof.”
“Proof of what?”
Her eyes moved toward the doorway where Richard had disappeared.
“That he didn’t start with me.”
The paramedics arrived seconds later.
They lifted Claire from the coffin and placed her onto a stretcher.
The chapel erupted into questions.
How had she been declared dead?
Who had examined her?
Who had sealed the coffin?
How long had she been trapped inside?
Claire answered none of them.
Her blood pressure was dangerously low.
Her pulse was erratic.
One paramedic noticed an injection mark near the inside of her elbow.
“What was she given?”
Nobody knew.
Claire grabbed Ethan’s wrist before they carried her away.
“Listen to me.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You are.”
Her fingers tightened.
“But first tell the police about the study.”
“I will.”
“The second drawer of my desk.”
“Okay.”
“Blue envelope.”
“I understand.”
Claire pulled him closer.
“And Ethan…”
He leaned down.
Her voice became almost inaudible.
“Do not trust anyone who says your father’s death was an accident.”
Ethan stopped.
“My father?”
Claire’s eyes filled with terror.
Before he could ask another question, the paramedics pushed the stretcher toward the doors.
Ethan remained standing beside the destroyed coffin.
His biological father, Michael Parker, had died seven years earlier.
Everyone had always said the same thing.
A boating accident.
A storm.
A terrible tragedy.
Richard had entered their lives two years later.
He had comforted Claire.
Helped her rebuild the family company.
Eventually married her.
Ethan turned toward the bloodless white flowers surrounding the coffin.
Suddenly the funeral no longer looked like the beginning of a crime.
May you like
It looked like the end of one.
And somewhere beyond the chapel doors, Richard Parker was running toward whatever Claire had hidden in that blue envelope.
