“Of course not. I only mean—”
“She said you talk like that.”
Gideon stopped.
Luca’s voice shook, but he continued.
“She said when you get scared, you get polite.”
Something cold passed through Rachel.
Gideon stood.
“This is absurd.”
He looked toward the police officer.
“Officer, please.”
The officer hesitated.
Rachel closed her hand around the paper bird.
“Wait.”
Gideon turned toward her.
“Rachel.”
“She gave him our code.”
“He could have found it somewhere.”
“No.”
“You’re grieving.”
“And you’re trying very hard to make him leave.”
A murmur moved through the crowd.
Gideon lowered his voice.
“Think about what you’re doing.”
“I am.”
Rachel turned to Luca.
“You said that isn’t Mara.”
Luca looked at the coffin.
Then he said something nobody there expected.
“The woman in there is my mother.”
A gasp came from somewhere near the first row.
Rachel stared at him.
“What?”
“My mother’s name was Alicia Bell.”
His lips trembled.
“She disappeared six weeks ago.”
Gideon looked toward the police again.
“This needs to stop.”
Luca ignored him.
“My mom worked at Harbor Light.”
Rachel slowly turned.
The Harbor Light Foundation.
Gideon was its executive director.
Mara had been its internal auditor.
Luca continued.
“My mom kept the accounts for the housing program. She told me she found something bad. Then one night she didn’t come home.”
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
Rachel saw it.
Only for a second.
But she saw it.
“Mara started visiting me after that,” Luca said. “She said she was looking for my mom.”
Rachel looked at Gideon.
“You knew about this?”
“No.”
“You ran the foundation.”
“I don’t personally supervise every employee.”
Luca pointed toward the coffin.
“Mara said they were going to make everyone believe she died. She said if there was a funeral, I had to find Rachel and stop them before the coffin went underground.”
The cemetery worker had stepped away from the lowering mechanism.
Nobody seemed eager to touch it now.
Rachel looked at the coffin.
All morning she had wanted the service to end.
Now she wanted the exact opposite.
“I want it opened.”
Gideon stared at her.
“No.”
Rachel looked at him.
It was the speed of his answer that frightened her most.
The funeral director, Celia Ward, stepped forward.
She was a thin woman in her late fifties, dressed in charcoal gray.
“Ms. Ellison, I understand this is distressing, but there are legal and health considerations.”
“I’m Mara’s next of kin.”
“Mara designated Gideon to handle the arrangements.”
Rachel turned sharply.
“She did what?”
Gideon gave Celia a warning look.
Too late.
Rachel had already seen it.
“My sister never told me that.”
“She completed the paperwork months ago,” Gideon said.
“Show it to me.”
“Rachel, not here.”
“Show it to me.”
The first police officer approached.
“Ms. Ellison, perhaps we should move everyone inside while we sort this out.”
“No.”
Rachel pointed toward the coffin.
“If that is my sister, opening it changes nothing.”
Nobody answered.
“And if it isn’t my sister,” Rachel continued, “then somebody is about to bury evidence.”
Silence.
The second officer exchanged a glance with the first.
Finally, the senior officer nodded toward the funeral director.
“Open it.”
Celia went pale.
Gideon stepped toward him.
“You cannot make that decision based on the claim of a child.”
“I can delay a burial until we establish that the person in the coffin is the person named on the paperwork.”
Celia swallowed.
Then she gestured to her employees.
The coffin was lifted away from the grave.
The mourners backed away.
Some left immediately.
Others remained, unable to resist the terrible gravity of what was happening.
Rachel stayed beside the coffin.
Luca stood behind her.
Gideon stood ten feet away.
The lid opened.
Rachel had been warned not to view the body.
She understood why.
Fire had taken away much of the woman’s recognizable appearance.
Rachel’s knees weakened.
For one horrible instant grief returned with such force that she nearly believed she had made a terrible mistake.
Then her training took over.
She looked past the damage.
Past the flowers.
Past the clothing.
She looked at the body as a nurse.
Mara had broken her right collarbone in a cycling accident when she was twenty-two. The fracture had required surgery. A thin, pale scar remained beneath the collarbone.
Rachel leaned closer.
Nothing.
She checked again.
“No,” she whispered.
Gideon stiffened.
Rachel looked at the left hand.
Mara’s silver ring was there.
But that meant nothing anymore.
Rachel touched the officer’s arm.
“My sister had surgery here.”
She indicated the collarbone.
“There should be a scar.”
“Could the fire have—”
“No.”