Chapter 5 - the funeral for a living man
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Mark looked at Daniel.
"Your funeral?"
Daniel didn't appear surprised.
He appeared tired.
Robert stood.
"I saw the program."
Daniel nodded.
"You were supposed to."
"What does that mean?"
"It wasn't mine."
Robert stared at him.
The room seemed to shrink around the two older men.
Emily pulled out a chair.
"Someone needs to start at the beginning."
Daniel remained standing.
"The beginning is complicated."
"Then simplify it."
He looked at Mark.
"Your mother and I met twelve years ago."
Mark's expression hardened.
"How?"
"Business."
"What business?"
"I was an investigator."
Robert whispered, "Private?"
"For a law firm."
Emily understood before Mark did.
"Diane hired you?"
"No."
Daniel looked at Robert.
"Someone hired me to investigate Diane."
Robert sat slowly.
"Who?"
Daniel smiled without humor.
"If I knew the real answer to that, half of this would be over."
The law firm had received an anonymous package containing financial records tied to Diane.
There were payments to hospital employees.
A property purchased through a shell corporation.
Private investigators.
Confidential genetic testing.
Mark interrupted.
"Genetic testing?"
Daniel nodded.
"Samples, not names."
"Whose samples?"
"I never found out."
Emily thought of Lily.
"You think one was hers."
"I think Diane wanted one to be hers."
Robert looked sick.
Daniel continued.
"Two years into the investigation, the attorney supervising me died."
"Accident?" Emily asked.
"Officially."
Mark's eyes narrowed.
"Unofficially?"
"I don't know."
Daniel walked to the window.
"The investigation ended. I was told to destroy everything. Then someone sent me a photograph."
"The woman with the baby?"
"No. Another photograph."
"What was it?"
Daniel hesitated.
"A cemetery."
Robert stared.
Daniel looked back.
"My name was on one of the markers."
Emily's pulse quickened.
"Someone had made a grave for you?"
"A memorial marker. No body."
"Why?"
"To create a record that I was dead."
Mark folded his arms.
"That's ridiculous."
"I agreed."
Daniel reached into the file box and produced a funeral program.
Robert recognized it immediately.
Daniel Mercer.
1986 to 2015.
Robert whispered, "Diane showed me that."
"What did she say?"
"That an old family friend had died."
Daniel nodded.
"Convenient."
"Why fake your death?" Emily asked.
"Because dead men don't testify."
Mark's skepticism faded.
"What did you know?"
"Not enough then."
"But now?"
Daniel turned.
"Now I know your mother spent ten years preparing for a secret she believed would eventually surface."
Emily looked at the photograph from the envelope.
"About Lily."
"I think Lily is the center of it."
Mark's face tightened.
"Careful."
"I'm not accusing Emily."
"I didn't say you were."
Daniel glanced between them.
"Whatever happened at the hospital, Emily was a victim of it."
That frightened her more than an accusation.
Robert suddenly stood.
"The safe."
Everyone turned.
He repeated, "We need to open it."
Mark stared.
"You said you didn't know what's inside."
"I know enough now."
"What changed?"
Robert lifted the fake funeral program.
"This."
He looked at Daniel.
"Diane kept a copy."
"Where?"
"In the safe."
They drove to Robert and Diane's home just after noon.
The house sat in an older gated neighborhood twenty minutes away.
Diane's car was missing.
Robert entered the alarm code.
Incorrect.
He tried again.
Incorrect.
Mark looked at him.
"She changed it."
Daniel walked around the house.
A side door had been left unlocked.
Not forced.
Unlocked.
Inside, the house was spotless.
Too spotless.
The study door stood open.
Robert crossed the room.
The painting that concealed the safe had been removed.
Behind it, the metal door hung open.
Empty.
Robert stared.
"No."
Mark searched the desk.
Nothing.
Daniel crouched beside the safe.
"No damage."
"She opened it herself," Emily said.
Daniel nodded.
Robert leaned against the desk.
"Everything's gone."
Mark looked inside.
A small square object remained in the back corner.
He reached for it.
A Polaroid photograph.
It showed Lily at age six.
At the Christmas market.
She was standing beside Diane.
And beside them was a woman Emily had never seen.
On the back were three handwritten words.
VERONICA CONFIRMED IT.
Emily stared at Daniel.
"Confirmed what?"
Daniel's phone rang.
He checked the screen.
Unknown number.
He answered.
"Hello?"
A woman's voice spoke loudly enough that Emily could hear a few words.
Daniel went rigid.
"Where are you?"
The voice continued.
Daniel grabbed a pen and wrote an address.
Then the call ended.
"Who was that?" Mark asked.
Daniel looked at the Polaroid.
"Veronica Reed."
Emily felt hope and fear arrive together.
"What does she want?"
May you like
Daniel held up the address.
"To tell us what Diane made her do the night Lily was born."
