The Funeral Without A Body
Chapter 03 - The Funeral Without A Body
The foyer had not changed since Daniel disappeared.
White marble. Curved staircase. Family portraits arranged to make wealth look hereditary instead of accumulated. Daniel stopped beneath the painting of his grandfather and stared upward with the expression of a man entering a museum built from his own stolen life.
Lily watched from behind Claire.
She wanted to run to him. Claire could see it in her restless feet. But Daniel’s hands shook whenever anyone moved too quickly, so Claire crouched beside her daughter.
“Let him breathe,” she whispered.
Lily nodded with painful seriousness.
Marcus entered last and closed the doors.
“This is reckless,” he said. “Claire, look at him.”
“I am.”
“He is sick.”
Daniel turned. “You made sure of that.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
Claire guided Daniel into the library. He refused the sofa and sat on the rug with his back against a bookcase, knees raised, as if furniture made him too exposed. Lily sat several feet away and placed one of her crayons between them like a peace offering.
Claire called Dr. Elena Ruiz, the family physician. Then she called her attorney, not the Whitmore family attorney. Her own.
Marcus watched each call erase a piece of his control.
“The Army confirmed Daniel died,” he insisted.
“No,” Claire said. “They confirmed remains were found near his vehicle.”
“The DNA matched.”
“Did you see the report?”
Marcus hesitated.
Claire remembered the funeral. The sealed military coffin. The flag. The official who would not meet her eyes. Marcus standing beside her with one hand on her shoulder, saying viewing the body would destroy her last good memories.
She had been pregnant with Lily.
She had been sedated before the burial because she could not stop trying to open the coffin.
Daniel touched the scar above his eyebrow.
“There was no military crash,” he said. “I came home from deployment. Marcus asked me to meet him at an old warehouse near the river. He said the company was in trouble.”
Marcus laughed. “Listen to him.”
Daniel’s breath shortened.
Claire knelt beside him but did not touch.
“What happened at the warehouse?”
“I found contracts,” Daniel whispered. “Defense equipment billed twice. Safety tests forged. I told him I would go to the board.”
His eyes found Marcus.
“Then someone hit me.”
The room went still.
May you like
Daniel looked at Claire.
“When I woke up, they were calling me Samuel Gray.”
