Chapter 2
I reached into the coffin and touched Emma’s cheek.
She was cold.
But she was not stiff.
“Call an ambulance!” I screamed.
People began shouting.
Someone knocked over a row of folding chairs.
The pastor backed away from the coffin, his face completely white.
Victoria grabbed my shoulder.
“Daniel, stop. You could hurt her.”
I turned so fast she stumbled backward.
“You told me she was dead.”
“She was declared dead.”
“By whom?”
“Dr. Hale.”
The barefoot boy stepped forward.
“He lied.”
One of the security guards caught him by the arm again.
The boy twisted away.
“Check her neck,” he shouted. “Under her hair.”
I carefully turned Emma’s head.
There was a tiny red mark below her left ear.
It looked like a needle mark.
My legs almost gave out.
“What did you do to her?” I asked Victoria.
Her expression changed.
The frightened wife disappeared.
In her place was someone colder.
Someone calculating.
“You are in shock,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Sirens sounded beyond the cemetery gates.
Victoria looked toward them.
Then she looked at the open coffin.
For one second, I saw her make a decision.
She turned and ran.
“Stop her!” I shouted.
Victoria kicked off her heels and raced between the headstones.
One security guard went after her.
The other remained beside the boy.
I lifted Emma from the coffin.
Her head fell against my chest.
“Stay with me, baby.”
Her lips were slightly blue.
The ambulance came across the wet grass because the road was blocked by funeral cars.
Two paramedics jumped out.
A woman named Kayla took Emma from me and placed her on a stretcher.
“She has a pulse,” Kayla said.
Those four words broke me.
I bent forward, sobbing.
Emma had a pulse.
My daughter had a pulse.
The other paramedic placed an oxygen mask over her face.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know. They said she died two days ago.”
His hands stopped.
“Two days?”
“She was drugged,” the boy said.
Kayla looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“I saw them.”
“Who?”
The boy pointed toward the trees where Victoria had disappeared.
“Her. Dr. Hale. And Mr. Rusk from the funeral home.”
I looked at the boy.
“What is your name?”
“Eli.”
“Eli what?”
He hesitated.
Before he could answer, a black SUV burst through the cemetery’s side gate.
It sped across the grass directly toward us.
People screamed and scattered.
The paramedics pushed Emma’s stretcher behind the ambulance.
I grabbed Eli and pulled him down as the SUV skidded through the folding chairs.
The driver’s window was tinted.
But I saw a man’s hand on the steering wheel.
A heavy silver ring covered his smallest finger.
I knew that ring.
My younger brother Michael had worn it since college.
The SUV turned sharply and raced toward the rear exit.
“Was that Michael?” I shouted.
Eli’s face filled with panic.
“He knows I told you.”
Police cars entered the cemetery seconds later.
Two officers ran toward the ambulance.
Another chased after Victoria.
I climbed inside beside Emma.
Eli tried to follow, but the remaining security guard blocked him.
“You’re not family.”
“He comes with us,” I said.
The guard frowned.
“He’s a witness.”
“He is the reason my daughter is alive.”
Eli climbed into the ambulance.
As the doors closed, I saw Victoria near the stone wall.
The officer had caught her.
She was standing in the rain with her hands raised.
She looked directly at me.
Then she smiled.
It was not a nervous smile.
It was a warning.
The ambulance pulled away.
Kayla inserted an IV while the second paramedic connected Emma to a heart monitor.
The beeping was slow.
Too slow.
“What did they give her?” Kayla asked Eli.
“I don’t know the name.”
“Think.”
“It was in a glass bottle with a blue label.”
“How much?”
“Dr. Hale filled two syringes. Mrs. Mercer gave her the first one at the house.”
Mrs. Mercer.
Hearing Eli call my wife by my last name made everything feel real.
“And the second syringe?” I asked.
Eli looked down at his muddy feet.
“Mr. Rusk was supposed to give it to her before the funeral.”
My blood turned cold.
“Supposed to?”
“He didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I stole it.”
Eli reached inside his soaked jacket.
Kayla caught his wrist.
“Move slowly.”
He removed a plastic bag.
Inside it was a syringe filled with clear liquid.
“I took this from the funeral home last night,” he said. “That is why they were chasing me.”
Kayla placed it in a medical evidence container.
“How did you know Emma was there?”
Eli’s eyes filled with tears.
“I heard her crying.”
I stared at him.
“You heard my daughter?”
“She woke up for a few minutes.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“What did she say?”
Eli swallowed.
“She said her name was Emma. She said her daddy would come for her.”
I covered my mouth.
All night, I had been sitting in Emma’s bedroom, holding one of her stuffed animals.
My daughter had been alive in a funeral home.
Terrified.
Waiting for me.
“Why didn’t you call the police?” I asked.
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“Michael took my phone.”
The way he said my brother’s name made me look at him more closely.
“You know Michael?”
Eli nodded.
“How?”
He turned toward the ambulance doors.
“Ask him.”
“Eli.”
He closed his eyes.
“He’s my father.”
For several seconds, I could only hear the heart monitor.
Michael had no children.
At least, that was what he had always told us.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Fourteen.”
I calculated the years.
Fourteen years earlier, Michael had disappeared for three months.
He claimed he had gone to Europe after a business failure.
Our mother had refused to discuss it.
“Who is your mother?”
“Her name was Rachel.”
The air left my lungs.
Rachel was also the name of Emma’s biological mother.
My first wife.
The woman who had died in a car accident six years earlier.
“That’s impossible,” I whispered.
Eli looked at me.
“She had me before she met you.”
The monitor suddenly sounded an alarm.
Emma’s heart rate began falling.
Kayla reached for medication.
“Emma, stay with us.”
I took my daughter’s hand.
“Baby, it’s Daddy. I’m here.”
Her fingers remained still.
The paramedic told the driver to hurry.
We were less than three minutes from the hospital when Emma’s heart stopped.
A single continuous tone filled the ambulance.
Kayla began chest compressions.
I was pushed into the corner.
“No,” I begged. “Please, no.”
Eli grabbed my hand.
“They want you to think she is gone.”
Kayla worked desperately.
The second paramedic prepared another injection.
One minute passed.
Then two.
Finally, the monitor beeped.
Once.
Then again.
Emma’s heart had restarted.
I pressed my forehead against Eli’s muddy hair.
He had saved her at the cemetery.
Now he was holding me together in the ambulance.
At Harborview Medical Center, a team rushed Emma through two swinging doors.
A detective stopped me in the hallway.
“Mr. Mercer, we need to talk about your wife.”
“Where is she?”
The detective looked behind him.
“She escaped.”
“What?”
“The officer transporting her was hit by a vehicle near the cemetery entrance. Your wife got into that vehicle and left.”
“Was it a black SUV?”
“Yes.”
“That was my brother.”
The detective wrote down Michael’s name.
I told him about Dr. Hale and Simon Rusk.
Then I told him about Eli.
When I turned around, the boy was gone.
A nurse had left a gray blanket on the chair where he had been sitting.
I ran toward the exit.
“Eli!”
No answer.
Then my phone rang.
It was Michael.
I answered immediately.
“Where is my wife?”
Michael laughed softly.
“You should be asking where my son is.”
“You tried to run us down.”
“You always did exaggerate.”
“If Emma dies—”
“She already died, Daniel. You signed the papers.”
“She is alive.”
Silence.
That was the first moment I knew Eli had told the truth.
Michael’s voice became quiet.
“You opened the coffin?”
“Yes.”
“You should not have done that.”
“You helped Victoria.”
“You don’t understand what is happening.”
“Then explain it.”
“I will. But first, bring me the boy.”
“Go to hell.”
Michael sighed.
“You have until midnight. If Eli talks to the police, Victoria will tell them what really happened to Rachel.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What does Rachel have to do with this?”
“She did not die because of a drunk driver.”
The call ended.
Behind me, a doctor stepped into the hallway.
“Mr. Mercer?”
I turned.
“Your daughter is breathing on her own.”
My knees weakened with relief.
But the doctor was not smiling.
“We found a powerful sedative in her blood,” she continued. “And that isn’t all.”
“What else?”
“There are signs she was given the same drug several times over the last six months.”
I stared at her.
“Why would anyone do that?”
May you like
The doctor’s face hardened.
“To make a healthy child appear seriously ill.”
