Chapter 10 - WHAT ELISE KNEW
Elise sat in the family waiting room with her hands locked together.
"I didn't know Dad poisoned her."
"What did you know?"
"He said Vivian was sick."
"She wasn't."
"I know."
"He told you she was alive."
Elise started crying harder.
"After Adrian pronounced her."
"When?"
"That afternoon."
Rosa felt sick.
Elise explained.
Thomas called her privately.
He said Vivian had been given something that would keep her unconscious.
He said doctors might reverse it if they looked too closely.
Elise asked if Vivian would wake.
Thomas said no.
"And you did nothing?" Grant asked.
"He said she had already destroyed us."
"She was your sister."
"I was scared."
Rosa remembered the funeral director.
"No embalming."
"Dad told me to sign the form."
"Because embalming would expose that she was alive."
Brooks asked, "Why didn't Thomas simply kill her?"
Elise whispered, "He said a natural-looking death was safer."
Silence.
Rosa thought of Vivian trapped inside her own body.
Hearing voices.
Unable to move.
Carried from bed to mortuary.
Dressed.
Placed in a coffin.
The horror of it made her hands shake.
Grant asked, "How long was she conscious?"
"She called Rosa."
Rosa's eyes filled.
So Vivian had been awake.
Maybe not continuously.
But enough.
Brooks asked Elise whether anyone else knew.
Elise said one name.
"Martin Shaw."
Grant frowned.
"The family attorney?"
"He prepared the emergency trust documents."
Brooks called his office.
No answer.
His assistant said he had left suddenly after the funeral.
"Find him."
But Vivian made a weak sound from the bed.
She was pointing toward Rosa's orange uniform.
There was a dark spot near the pocket.
She reached inside.
Her fingers touched something hard.
A tiny digital recorder.
She had never seen it before.
May you like
Someone had slipped it into her uniform.
The red light was still blinking.
