Chapter 1 - Mommy Said Check Her Tummy
My five-year-old granddaughter pointed at her mother’s coffin and said the sentence that destroyed the funeral.
“Mommy says check her tummy.”
The chapel went silent.
Sophie stood beside me in her navy coat, clutching the stuffed rabbit Melissa had bought her when she was three. Her tiny face was pale, but there was no confusion in her eyes.
Only certainty.
I stepped toward the white coffin.
Brent moved faster.
His hand snapped around my wrist.
“Leave the body alone, Diane.”
I looked down at his fingers.
Then at his face.
Three days earlier, Brent had called before sunrise and told me my twenty-nine-year-old daughter was dead.
Stomach pain.
Fever.
Vomiting.
A catastrophic infection, according to his older brother, Dr. Wade Mercer.
Too fast to save her.
No hospital.
No autopsy.
A funeral arranged almost immediately.
And now Brent was squeezing my wrist hard enough to hurt.
“Take your hand off me.”
“You’re upsetting everyone.”
Sophie suddenly pointed at him.
“Mommy said Daddy would stop you!”
Gasps rippled through the chapel.
Brent released me.
“She’s five!” he shouted. “She’s confused!”
Sophie shook her head violently.
“Mommy says you’re lying!”
Wade moved toward the coffin.
“Diane, grief can make children say extraordinary things.”
I stared at him.
“Then you shouldn’t be afraid of what I’m about to see.”
His jaw tightened.
That was enough.
I pulled back the satin.
Then carefully lifted the lower edge of Melissa’s cream dress.
My breath disappeared.
Across her abdomen was a dark bruise partially concealed beneath funeral makeup.
At its center:
A recent stitched surgical incision.
The funeral director stepped closer.
His expression changed.
“That procedure isn’t on the transfer paperwork.”
Wade went white.
Brent lunged forward.
“COVER HER!”
The funeral director blocked him.
I could barely hear the shouting.
I was staring at Melissa.
My daughter had supposedly died at home.
No ambulance had transported her to surgery.
No hospital had treated her.
So who had cut her?
Then Sophie tugged my dress.
“Mommy says he took something.”
“What?”
Sophie pointed toward the flowers.
A black leather medical bag sat behind the lilies.
Wade’s bag.
“Her phone is inside.”
Wade moved.
So did I.
I grabbed the bag first.
Brent screamed:
“DON’T OPEN THAT!”
I unzipped it.
Melissa’s phone lit up inside.
A recording began playing.
But before I could hear more than Melissa’s frightened breathing, Sophie looked over my shoulder toward the back of the chapel.
“Nana…”
Her face went completely still.
“Mommy says there were three men.”
May you like
I turned.
A silent mourner near the doors immediately began walking away.
