Chapter 16 - THE FUNERAL DIRECTOR
Colin Webb returned with a lawyer.
"I heard movement."
"When?"
"Before the funeral."
"How long before?"
"Twenty minutes."
"You heard her?"
"A scrape. Then tapping."
"Why didn't you open the coffin?"
His face crumpled.
"Thomas Mercer was standing beside me."
Silence.
Colin explained.
He told Thomas he thought there was movement.
Thomas said grief and temperature changes made coffins sound strange.
Colin insisted.
Thomas showed him Vivian's signed death certificate and threatened the funeral home's license.
Then Martin stepped in.
"He offered me fifty thousand dollars."
Rosa's face twisted.
"And you took it?"
"Yes."
Grant wanted to hit him.
Vivian spoke first.
"You left me in there."
Colin began crying.
"I know."
"You heard me."
"I know."
"Rosa didn't."
Vivian's eyes filled with tears.
"Rosa heard one voicemail and believed me more than you believed your own ears."
Brooks asked why he tried to leave after the coffin was broken.
"To get the money."
"What money?"
"It was in my office safe."
The police searched it.
Gone.
But the safe contained a photocopy Colin had made.
A payment agreement signed by Martin Shaw.
And a handwritten note from Thomas:
AFTER THE BURIAL, DESTROY ALL PREPARATION RECORDS.
"That's useful."
Thomas's legal team was already claiming the paralytic came from Adrian's surgical center and that Thomas knew nothing.
The note hurt that defense.
Then Colin remembered something else.
"Someone came to the funeral home at two in the morning."
"Who?"
"A woman."
"Rebecca?"
"No."
"Elise?"
"No."
"She asked where Vivian's coffin was."
Rosa frowned.
"Who?"
"Vivian's assistant. Paige."
Paige Monroe had worked beside Vivian for seven years.
She had not attended the funeral.
Everyone assumed she was too devastated.
Brooks checked her phone.
Off.
May you like
Apartment empty.
And according to airport records, Paige had flown to Switzerland that morning.
