Chapter 4 - The Funeral Without Two Bodies)
Eight years earlier, Richard Hale had stood beside two empty graves.
He remembered rain striking the black umbrellas.
He remembered Eleanor holding his arm.
He remembered a minister saying Amelia’s name.
Then Lucy’s.
He remembered asking why there were no bodies.
The answer had been simple.
The fire had caused a structural collapse.
The remains had been too badly damaged.
Richard had been sedated.
Grieving.
Angry.
And surrounded by people who seemed certain.
He had accepted certainty because uncertainty was unbearable.
Now, standing in a hospital corridor eight years later, he realized certainty had been the trap.
“Get me everything about that fire,” Richard told David.
“Fire department files?”
“Everything. Internal reports. Insurance reports. Hale Industries security records. Every person who entered that property that week.”
David hesitated.
“That may take time.”
“Start with Thomas Reed.”
Richard looked through the glass toward Amelia.
“And Eleanor.”
David left.
Richard sat with Lucy outside Room 814.
“Did your mother ever talk about a fire?”
Lucy stared at the floor.
“Sometimes she has nightmares.”
“What does she say?”
“She says ‘the window’ a lot.”
Richard looked at Lucy’s arm.
“The scar.”
Lucy covered it instinctively.
“It happened when I was a baby.”
“Your mother told you that?”
“She said somebody carried me through broken glass.”
Richard’s breath stopped.
He remembered the guesthouse fire differently.
Not because he had been there.
Because Eleanor had told him firefighters never reached the nursery.
But someone had.
“Who carried you?”
Lucy shook her head.
“Mom never said.”
Richard looked at the locket.
“Did she ever tell you about me?”
“Sometimes.”
“What did she say?”
Lucy thought.
“That you used to make pancakes shaped like animals.”
Richard laughed once despite himself.
They were terrible pancakes.
Amelia used to complain that the rabbits looked like bears.
“What else?”
“She said you taught her to drive.”
Richard smiled faintly.
“She drove through a hedge.”
Lucy’s eyes widened.
“Really?”
“Entirely through it.”
For the first time, Lucy laughed.
The sound hit Richard like sunlight through a locked room.
Then she became serious.
“She said everything changed after Grandma Elizabeth died.”
Richard looked down.
That was true.
After Elizabeth’s death, grief had made him harder.
More controlling.
He had opposed Amelia’s relationship with Evan because he thought Evan wanted money.
Eleanor had encouraged that suspicion.
She had brought Richard photographs.
Financial records.
Anonymous claims.
All suggesting Evan was deeply in debt.
Richard remembered telling Amelia that if she married him, she would lose access to the family trust.
Amelia had screamed at him.
He had screamed back.
Three weeks later, she had disappeared.
Then came the fire.
Then Eleanor’s call.
Then death.
Richard suddenly remembered something.
“Lucy.”
“Yes?”
“Your father. Did your mother ever tell you why he changed his last name?”
“She said they wanted to become invisible.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Not free.
Invisible.
There was a difference.
David returned just before midnight.
He placed an old tablet on the table.
“I found the original internal safety report.”
Richard read.
Electrical fault.
Ignition point near east wall.
No accelerant detected.
Security camera failure from 10:12 p.m. until 3:40 a.m.
Richard frowned.
“Who signed it?”
David turned the page.
Thomas Reed.
“And who authorized closure of the investigation?”
David pointed.
Eleanor Whitmore.
Richard stared.
Eight years earlier, Eleanor had been Hale Industries’ general counsel.
She had controlled the insurance claim.
The internal investigation.
The estate documents.
And the information reaching Richard.
“How did I not see this?”
“You were grieving.”
“That isn’t an excuse.”
“No. But it is an explanation.”
Richard kept reading.
Then he found an attached handwritten note scanned into the file.
The handwriting belonged to Thomas Reed.
Possible secondary ignition source near nursery. Further testing recommended.
Across the note was a red stamp.
REVIEW CLOSED.
Eleanor’s initials appeared beside it.
Richard felt cold.
“Find Thomas.”
David nodded.
“And Richard?”
“What?”
“There’s another problem.”
He placed a document on the table.
It was the original death certificate for Amelia Hale.
Richard read the physician’s signature.
Dr. Martin Keller.
“I remember him.”
“You should.”
David’s face was grim.
“He retired six years ago.”
“So?”
“He currently lives in a house worth four million dollars.”
Richard waited.
David continued.
“Before the fire, his annual income was under two hundred thousand.”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
“Who bought the house?”
“A trust.”
“Whose?”
David looked at him.
“The Whitmore Family Trust.”
Richard stood.
At the same moment, a nurse ran out of Amelia’s room.
“Dr. Collins!”
Richard rushed to the glass.
Machines were sounding alarms.
Lucy stood beside him.
“What’s happening?”
Doctors entered.
Richard pulled Lucy against him so she would not see.
Then he noticed something else.
At the far end of the corridor, the elevator doors were closing.
May you like
For one brief second, Richard saw a blonde woman inside.
Eleanor.
