Chapter 4 - THE EMPTY COFFIN
I had buried my father when I was seventeen.
I remembered the church.
The flowers.
The black dress my mother borrowed from our neighbor.
I remembered touching the polished wood of his coffin and whispering goodbye.
Now Derek was telling me the coffin had been empty.
I turned toward Alexander.
"Is that true?"
He didn't answer immediately.
My heart sank.
"Alexander."
He looked at me.
"I don't know whether the coffin was empty."
"But you know something."
He nodded.
"Yes."
I stepped backward.
"Tell me."
Alexander slowly removed his tie.
It was such an ordinary gesture that it somehow made the moment worse.
"After the warehouse fire, Jonathan was transported to a private medical facility."
I stared.
"Why?"
"Because someone was trying to kill him."
"Then why didn't the police protect him?"
Alexander looked ashamed.
"At the time, my father believed the police department had been compromised."
I swallowed.
"What happened next?"
"Two days later, we received confirmation that Jonathan had died."
"From whom?"
Alexander hesitated.
"Richard Hayes."
My stomach dropped.
Derek's father.
The man allegedly responsible for everything.
"You believed him?"
"I was twenty-six, Emily. My father controlled the organization. I didn't have access to the medical facility."
I turned away.
For years, I'd imagined my father dying alone.
Now I didn't even know whether he'd died at all.
Alexander spoke softly.
"I should have investigated."
I looked back.
"Yes. You should have."
He accepted the words without defending himself.
That surprised me.
Derek always argued.
Always explained.
Always found a way to make his mistakes my responsibility.
Alexander simply nodded.
"You're right."
I sat down.
My hands were shaking.
"What happens now?"
"Whatever you choose."
I looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I can help you contact the authorities and find the truth. Or I can give you space."
I almost cried.
No one had offered me choices in years.
I took a breath.
"I want to know whether my father is alive."
Alexander nodded.
"Then that's where we start."
That night, I stayed in a secure guest suite at a hotel chosen with the help of a victim-support advocate.
Alexander offered to cover the cost.
I accepted the room but insisted my attorney would review any arrangements.
He agreed.
Before leaving, he handed me a phone number.
"Call if you need anything."
I looked at him.
"Why are you helping me?"
His expression softened.
"Because Jonathan helped me when nobody else would."
Then he paused.
"And because you deserve to be safe, whether you ever speak to me again or not."
After he left, I opened my mother's wooden box.
Inside was the brass key marked seven.
A wedding ring.
And a photograph of my father standing beside a younger Alexander.
But beneath the photograph lay something I'd never noticed.
A folded hospital discharge form.
The patient's name was Jonathan Carter.
The date was three months after his supposed death.
My heart began pounding.
At the bottom was a handwritten note.
Patient transferred to private residence.
The address had been blacked out.
But the signature remained.
Dr. Eleanor Moretti.
I stared at the name.
Then I remembered Alexander mentioning his mother.
She was a physician.
May you like
And according to every newspaper I'd read, she'd been dead for ten years.
But the discharge form proved she had treated my father after his funeral.
