Chapter 2 - The Breath in the Dark
The funeral parlor devolved into absolute bedlam.
Darren hesitated, his grip on my forearm loosening as my cold threat sank in. I didn’t wait for him to recover. I shoved him backward into a row of mahogany folding chairs, sending him crashing onto the carpet with a loud, wooden splintering sound. Marianne shrieked, clutching her black lace veil as guests scrambled toward the doors in a panic of horror and confusion.
I vaulted over the velvet rope and threw my hands onto the silk lining of the casket.
Emma lay still, her face pale beneath the heavy makeup the mortician had applied. But beneath her dark silk burial dress, her eight-month pregnant belly shuddered again—a distinct, rolling movement that rippled through the fabric. It was not a muscle spasm. It was the desperate, unmistakable kick of our unborn child struggling for oxygen in a oxygen-deprived womb.
“Emma!” I screamed, tearing off my suit jacket and ripping open her dress at the waist. I slammed my ear against her cold skin.
Silence. No heartbeat from her chest. But when I pressed my hand lower, right against the curve of her stomach, I felt a faint, rapid rhythm beneath my palm. A pulse.
“She’s not dead—the baby is alive!” I roared toward the doorway, where the funeral director stood frozen, his mouth agape. “Get me a knife! Call an emergency trauma team right now!”
“Nate, stop this madness!” Marianne screamed, rushing forward, her manicured nails digging into my shoulder. “You’re defiling her body! She was declared dead by the hospital! You’re losing your mind!”
“Get your hands off me, Marianne!” I turned, my eyes locked onto hers with a lethal intensity that made her shrink back. “I know about the six-million-dollar policy, Marianne. I know about the tonic.”
Marianne’s face turned from pale to an ashen, ghost-like gray.
Before she could speak, sirens wailed in the distance, growing rapidly louder as they screeched into the funeral home’s driveway. I had called Detective Miller ten minutes before entering the parlor, telling him to bring an armed escort and a trauma unit under the pretense of stopping an illegal cremation. I hadn't known Emma's body would move—I had only wanted an autopsy before they burned the evidence. But fate had intervened.
The heavy double doors of the chapel burst open. Detective Miller surged in, followed by four armed officers and two paramedics carrying emergency resuscitation gear.
“Nathan!” Miller shouted, his gun drawn as his eyes scanned the chaotic chapel. “What’s going on?”
“She’s in a catatonic coma or paralyzed—and the baby is alive in there right now!” I shouted, waving the paramedics forward frantically. “Perform a emergency delivery or get us to the hospital! We have minutes!”
The lead paramedic, an experienced woman named Sarah, took one look at my face, then at the visible movement beneath Emma’s dress, and dropped her kit to the floor. “Get her onto the gurney! Now! Move, move, move!”
Darren tried to step in front of the gurney, his face contorted in panic. “You can’t just take a body! We have legal power of attorney! The hospital pronounced her—”
Detective Miller slammed Darren against the wall, slapping a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists with a loud, metallic click. “Darren Vance, stay where you are. You’re being detained for obstruction of justice and suspicion of attempted murder.”
“Attempted murder?!” Marianne screamed, tears cutting through her makeup. “This is a nightmare! My daughter is dead!”
“She won't be if I can help it,” I snarled, helping the paramedics lift Emma’s limp body out of the bronze coffin onto the wheeled stretcher.
As they rolled her rapidly down the aisle toward the flashing red lights outside, I looked back at Marianne. She stood alone among the scattered white lilies, her phone clutched in her hand, frantically dialing a number she thought I didn't know.
May you like
I reached into my pocket, grabbed my phone, and tapped a pre-written message to my attorney.
Freeze the trust. The trap is sprung.
