Chapter 2
The police kept me at the chapel for two hours.
I told Officer Grant about the tapping, the crowbar, and Emily’s hand. He asked me to describe the pattern she had used.
“Three taps, then one,” I said. “She did that at home when she wanted someone to open a door.”
I showed him the mark on my thumb from where I had gripped the crowbar. He photographed it. He also photographed the coffin and asked the funeral staff not to move anything.
Mr. Vale kept repeating that he had followed the paperwork supplied to him.
“Who supplied it?” Officer Grant asked.
“The family. And the release from the hospital.”
He gave the officer a folder. From where I sat, I could see Patricia’s name on one of the forms.
I did not accuse her. I told Grant what I had noticed, including her phone call after Emily was taken away.
By the time he let me leave, my uniform was dusty with white wood. A woman who had attended the service offered to drive me to the hospital. I thanked her, but Daniel’s sister, Claire, was waiting outside.
“I came for you,” she said.
I had met Claire many times at the house. She worked long hours and spoke directly, even when Daniel wanted to avoid an argument.
“Where’s Lily?” I asked.
“With my husband. She knows Emily’s alive. I told her myself.”
“How is she?”
“She asked if she could see her mother. I told her we’d wait until the doctors say it’s safe.”
Claire’s voice held steady until we reached the car. Then she put both hands on the steering wheel and bowed her head.
“I helped choose the dress they put Emily in,” she said.
I sat beside her.
“She was trying to come back to you.”
Claire wiped her eyes and started the engine.
At the hospital, Daniel was in a waiting room outside intensive care. He stood when he saw me.
“She’s breathing on her own,” he said. “The doctors are treating severe dehydration and whatever made her unresponsive. They don’t know yet.”
I wanted to feel relief. I did feel it. Beneath it was anger so strong my hands shook again.
“Who told you she had died?”
Daniel rubbed his face. “Dr. Harlan spoke to Mom. Mom called me. When I reached the hospital, they said the paperwork was complete.”
“Did you see Emily?”
“Not after they moved her from the private room. Mom said I shouldn’t remember her that way.”
Claire turned toward him.
“You accepted that?”
“I had spent eighteen hours beside her,” Daniel said. “I thought she was gone. I couldn’t think.”
He looked at me. “I should have insisted.”
I understood grief could make a person follow the next instruction someone gave. I also knew Emily had been alive in a coffin while he mourned her.
“We need the records,” I said.
“Grant is requesting them,” Claire answered. “I spoke to him on the way.”
A nurse came in and said Daniel could see Emily for a few minutes. He hesitated at the door.
“Nia, come with me.”
We entered together. Emily lay beneath a light blanket, connected to monitors. Her color was better than it had been in the chapel. Her eyes remained closed.
Daniel sat beside her and held her hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should have looked.”
I stood on the other side.
“I heard you,” I said. “You kept knocking. I heard you.”
Her fingers tightened faintly around mine.
Daniel looked up.
“Did you see that?”
“Yes.”
A doctor entered and introduced herself as Dr. Kim. She explained that Emily was still very weak. Tests would take time, and they could not yet say why she had been declared dead.
“She was given a medication that can suppress breathing and make a person difficult to rouse,” Dr. Kim said. “We’re checking what was prescribed and administered.”
“Could it make someone look dead?” Daniel asked.
“It could make an assessment more difficult. I won’t speculate about what happened here until we have the records.”
I appreciated her care with the answer. Emily needed treatment first. The rest could be proved afterward.
In the hall, I told Daniel about Emily’s warning.
“She said not to believe anyone who called her confused.”
He frowned. “Mom thought Emily’s migraines were affecting her memory.”
“Emily didn’t think so.”
“She told me she couldn’t find her phone last week. Mom said she’d left it in the laundry room.”
“I found it there,” I said. “But I hadn’t seen Emily go into that room.”
Daniel leaned against the wall.
For weeks, I had watched Patricia bring Emily tea and tell her to rest. I had assumed she was helping. Emily had seemed tired and frustrated. She was still making plans for Lily’s birthday and asking me to save her drawings from the kitchen table.
“She wanted me to keep a notebook,” I told Daniel. “She said she kept losing track of what medicine she’d taken.”
“Where is it?”
“In the drawer beside her bed. Unless someone moved it.”
Daniel took out his phone and called Claire. She was already on her way to collect Lily. He asked her husband to stay with their daughter and told Claire to go to the house with Officer Grant before anyone could remove anything.
When the call ended, Patricia appeared at the far end of the hallway.
She walked toward us quickly.
“The nurse said she woke,” she said. “I want to see her.”
“She hasn’t woken,” Daniel answered. “The doctor is treating her.”
Patricia looked past us toward Emily’s room.
“She was so sick,” she murmured. “I knew something like this might happen.”
I thought of the paperwork at the chapel.
“Did you see her after Dr. Harlan said she was dead?” I asked.
Patricia’s eyes met mine.
“Yes,” she said.
May you like
Daniel went still.
“Then why didn’t you notice she was breathing?”
