Chapter 6 - The Girl at the Funeral Home
The funeral home called while Elena was still inside the bank.
A young woman had entered through the side door and asked to see the bodies of Michael and Sophie Vale. When the director explained that the burial had already taken place, she became distressed, then left behind a backpack and disappeared before anyone could stop her.
Elena knew before the director described her.
Dark hair. Gray eyes. Seventeen or eighteen. A scar near the left eyebrow.
Lucy.
Officer Bell drove without sirens. Thomas Quill followed in an unmarked sedan, carrying the contents of safe-deposit box 417 in evidence cases. Elena sat in the passenger seat with Michael's note clenched in her hand.
Do not go to Ashford. She is already coming to you.
"Michael knew," Elena said. "He knew she was traveling here."
"Maybe he arranged it," Bell replied.
"Then why didn't he tell me?"
Bell did not answer. Some questions were too sharp for speculation.
At Morrow and Sons Funeral Home, the director led them to a private office. The backpack sat unopened on a leather chair. It was old, patched with black thread, and decorated with a pin shaped like a crescent moon.
Moonlight. The name of Michael's computer folder.
A crime-scene technician opened the bag. Inside were two shirts, a bus schedule from Ashford, seventy-three dollars, a paperback novel, a bottle of antibiotics, and a photograph of Michael.
The photograph had been taken from across a street. Michael was entering his office, unaware of the camera. On the back, in teenage handwriting, someone had written: He says he knows my mother.
There was also a folded map of Briarwood. Three places were circled: the Vale house, Michael's office, and Saint Matthew's Church.
The funeral home director cleared his throat. "She asked whether Mrs. Vale had attended the burial. I said yes. Then she asked whether Mrs. Vale was alone."
"What did you tell her?" Elena asked.
"That her parents had not attended, but several friends remained nearby. She looked relieved."
Bell examined security footage. The girl entered at 8:41 a.m. She wore a green jacket and kept glancing toward the parking lot. At 8:49, a gray sedan passed the front windows. The girl saw it, dropped the backpack, and ran through the rear exit.
The sedan continued past the building. Its license plate was unreadable.
"She was being followed," Elena said.
Bell issued an alert with the girl's description. Hospitals, bus stations, shelters, and patrol units received the photograph.
Elena returned home under police escort. The house felt violated now, every shadow a possible hiding place, every familiar object part of a secret arrangement. The crime-scene team had removed the shattered table and sealed the upstairs hall. Sophie's room remained closed behind evidence tape.
Elena sat at Michael's laptop and opened the next video.
He appeared in the company conference room.
"Lucy contacted me through an encrypted forum used by former foster children searching sealed records," he said. "She believed her name was Leah Wynn. The family who raised her died in the Ashford fire, but the fire report is false. They disappeared after someone attempted to take her blood. Lucy escaped. She has been moving between shelters for five months."
Michael rubbed his eyes.
"I wanted to tell you immediately, Elena. I did. But Lucy did not trust me. She asked for proof that I knew you. I sent details only you and I would know: the broken blue cup from our first apartment, the song Sophie called the moon song, the place beneath the bridge where I proposed. She believed enough to agree to come."
He looked directly into the camera.
"If she reaches Briarwood after I am gone, she may think you caused the danger. Do not force the truth on her. She has been lied to by everyone who claimed to protect her. Give her the one thing none of us gave you: a choice."
Elena paused the video.
A choice.
Her mother had stolen hers in a clinic. Michael, for reasons Elena could not yet forgive, had delayed returning it. Now a frightened girl moved through the same city where someone had killed a man and child to bury a secret connected to her blood.
At noon, Julian called from the station.
Elena almost ignored it. Bell advised her to answer on speaker while the call was recorded.
"I remembered something," Julian said. His voice sounded thin. "The day before the crash, Mom asked me to deliver a package to a man at the Harbor Grill. She said it was charity paperwork."
"What man?"
"Tall, gray uniform, black cap. The guy from your house."
Gavin Rusk.
"What was in the package?"
"I don't know. It was taped shut. But he gave me an envelope for Mom. She opened it in the car. There was a photograph inside. A girl at a bus station."
The image from the safe-deposit box.
"What did Mom say?"
"She said, 'Dennis can never know she survived.'"
Elena looked at Bell.
"Why not?" Elena asked.
"I asked. Mom told me to mind my own business. Then she paid for my trip."
"The beach vacation."
"Yes."
"Did Dad know about the photograph?"
"I don't think so."
The front motion sensor chimed.
Bell drew her weapon and moved toward the window.
A figure stood at the gate wearing a green jacket.
Lucy.
She looked younger than the photograph. Rain darkened her hair. One hand gripped a small knife. The other held Sophie's missing silver locket.
Elena stepped onto the porch before Bell could stop her.
The girl's knife rose.
"Stay back."
Elena stopped at the top step.
"Where did you get the locket?"
"A man gave it to me. He said it belonged to my sister."
The word sister nearly broke Elena.
"What man?"
"Michael Vale."
"Michael was my husband."
"I know."
"He died four days ago."
The knife trembled.
"I know that too."
Elena held both hands open. "My name is Elena."
The girl swallowed. "My name is Leah."
"You can keep that name."
For the first time, the girl's expression shifted.
Elena said, "You do not have to believe anything today. You do not have to come inside. But someone is following you, and my daughter was killed because of whatever they want from you. I will not let them take another child from this house."
Leah looked past her toward Officer Bell, then toward the patrol car.
"Police have handed me back before," she said.
"Then you choose the room. You choose the door. You choose who stays."
Michael's instruction. A choice.
Leah lowered the knife by one inch.
A gunshot shattered the porch light.
Bell tackled Elena behind the brick column. Leah dropped flat beside the gate. A second shot struck the front door.
From across the street, a gray sedan accelerated away.
The patrol officer fired at its tires and missed.
When the sound was gone, Elena crawled toward the gate.
Leah was alive. Blood marked her sleeve, but the bullet had only grazed her arm.
She clutched the silver locket against her chest.
May you like
Inside it was a photograph Elena had never seen: Michael, Sophie, and Leah standing together beneath the Briarwood bridge.
The date on the back was two days before the crash.
