Chapter 1 - The Sound Inside the Casket

At my six-year-old granddaughter's funeral, I leaned over her casket to say a final goodbye.

Then I heard a faint, desperate scrape from inside.

"Daddy said if I woke up, I would ruin everything," she whispered.

I froze.

My son and his wife had told everyone Chloe died from a sudden contagion. They had repeated it so often that the words had started to sound rehearsed.

I pried the lid open.

Chloe's eyelids moved.

"Grandma?"

My knees nearly gave way.

It was almost eleven o'clock at night. Julian's elegant home outside Chicago had gone completely quiet, with Chloe's casket sitting in the middle of the living room among white lilies, candles, and flowers sent by people who believed she had died from a sudden respiratory illness.

Julian and his wife, Victoria, had already gone upstairs.

They said they were exhausted.

They said they needed sleep before the funeral the next morning.

They said I should go home too.

I couldn't.

I had stayed because I needed one last goodbye.

Now I touched Chloe's cheek and felt warmth.

I watched her chest.

A weak breath lifted the lace of her pale blue dress.

"Sweetheart," I whispered, "can you hear me?"

Her lips trembled.

"I was good."

"What do you mean?"

"I stayed quiet."

My hands began shaking.

Then I saw that Chloe had been secured inside the casket in a way that kept her from moving freely.

This was not a funeral-home mistake.

Someone had known she was alive.

I forced myself to stop pulling and search instead.

Beneath the padded lining, my fingers brushed something hard and cold.

A small metal key.

The key worked.

I released Chloe and lifted her against my chest.

She wrapped her arms weakly around my neck.

"Please don't let them take me."

"They won't."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Every excuse Julian and Victoria had given me during the previous months came rushing back.

"Chloe is sleeping."

"The doctor says she needs privacy."

"She becomes anxious around visitors."

"You need to respect our parenting choices."

I had believed Victoria was controlling and Julian hated confrontation.

I had told myself I was being the difficult mother-in-law.

Now my granddaughter was trembling against me inside the room where everyone expected to mourn her the next morning.

I wrapped Chloe in my black wool shawl and hurried toward the back hallway.

My handbag and phone were near the living room, but the old telephone in the laundry room was closer.

I locked us inside and called emergency services.

"My granddaughter was declared dead," I told the dispatcher. "She is alive. She's six years old. She has a fever and I believe she was drugged."

The dispatcher became very still on the other end.

"Ma'am, is the child breathing?"

"Yes."

"Is she conscious?"

"Barely."

"Do you know what she was given?"

"No."

Chloe pressed her face into my shoulder.

Before the dispatcher could finish answering, a bedroom door opened upstairs.

"Mom?"

Julian's voice carried down the staircase.

I pulled Chloe tighter.

His footsteps came faster.

He crossed the hallway.

Then he rushed straight toward the locked laundry-room door.

"Mom, open this door."

I didn't answer.

"Mom."

The handle moved.

Chloe whimpered.

"Grandma."

"I'm here."

Julian knocked once, hard.

"Open the door."

"What did you do to her?"

Silence.

The kind of silence that answers a question.

Then Julian said, "You don't understand."

"Then explain it."

"Not through a door."

"Explain why your daughter is alive."

Another silence.

Victoria's voice came from behind him.

"Julian, don't."

I looked at Chloe.

Her eyes widened at the sound of her mother's voice.

"Grandma," she whispered, "the blue medicine."

"What blue medicine?"

Victoria spoke louder.

"Margaret, open the door. Chloe is very sick. You could make her condition worse."

I felt something cold move through me.

"You told me she was dead."

"She was pronounced dead."

"By whom?"

"We had a private physician."

"Name him."

Victoria did not answer.

Julian tried the handle again.

"Mom, the police are going to misunderstand this."

"The police are exactly who I called."

He stopped moving.

Through the telephone, the dispatcher said, "Ma'am, officers and paramedics are less than four minutes away. Stay where you are if you can do so safely."

Julian must have heard the sirens.

His voice changed.

Not softer.

Smaller.

"Mom, please."

I had not heard my son say please like that since he was a child.

"Tell me what happened."

"I can't."

"You can."

"Not like this."

"What did you give her?"

"I didn't give her anything."

Chloe lifted her face.

"Daddy held my arms."

The words were so quiet I almost missed them.

Outside the door, Julian stopped breathing.

Victoria said, "She's confused."

Chloe clutched my collar.

"Mommy said I had to sleep."

Victoria's voice sharpened.

"She had medication prescribed for anxiety."

"At six?"

"Margaret, you don't know her medical history."

"I know you stopped letting me see her."

"Because you undermined us."

"No. Because you needed fewer witnesses."

That finally made Julian angry.

"Enough."

"No," I said. "Not enough. Not even close."

A pounding came from the front door.

"Police!"

I almost cried from relief.

Julian cursed under his breath.

Victoria moved away.

I heard another door slam.

"She's leaving," I told the dispatcher.

Officers entered the house seconds later.

"Police! Identify yourselves!"

I shouted from the laundry room.

"We're in here!"

"Mom," Julian whispered, "please don't do this."

I looked down at Chloe.

Her face was pale beneath my shawl.

"You did this."

I unlocked the door.

Two officers stood in the hallway with paramedics behind them.

Julian was three steps away.

His face was white.

"That's my daughter," he said.

One officer raised a hand.

"Stay back, sir."

"She's medically fragile."

The paramedic nearest me took Chloe carefully.

"Hi, Chloe. My name is Erin. We're going to help you, okay?"

Chloe caught my sleeve.

"Grandma comes."

"I'm coming."

Victoria was nowhere in sight.

The second officer looked toward the staircase.

"Where is the child's mother?"

Julian swallowed.

"Upstairs."

"Call her down."

He did not move.

The officer repeated himself.

"Call her down."

Julian stared at me instead.

For the first time, I saw something in his face I had never imagined I would see directed at me.

Fear.

Not fear for Chloe.

Fear of me.

"Mom, you should have gone home."

My stomach turned.

The paramedic looked at him sharply.

"What does that mean?"

Julian said nothing.

We moved through the living room.

The casket stood open.

One officer saw the fastening straps inside and stopped.

"What the hell is that?"

Julian closed his eyes.

The paramedic carrying Chloe said, "We need transport now."

I followed her toward the ambulance.

At the doorway, another officer approached me.

"Ma'am, before you leave, did you alter anything besides opening the casket and removing the child?"

"No."

"Did you touch any medication?"

"I didn't see any."

"Did you see who prepared the body?"

"No. Julian and Victoria handled everything privately."

He glanced toward the staircase.

"Where's Victoria now?"

"I don't know."

A third officer came from the rear hall.

"Back door is open."

Julian looked down.

Victoria had run.

That was the moment the last part of me that wanted to believe in an impossible misunderstanding disappeared.

At St. Catherine Medical Center, doctors took Chloe behind double doors.

I stood in a consultation room with my black shawl still around my shoulders and her warmth fading from the fabric.

A detective named Lena Ortiz arrived just after midnight.

She sat across from me.

"Mrs. Hale, I need you to tell me exactly what your granddaughter said."

I told her.

Every word.

When I finished, Detective Ortiz closed her notebook.

"Your son is in custody."

My breath caught.

"Victoria?"

"Missing."

"Is Chloe going to live?"

"The emergency physician believes so."

I covered my face.

For a few seconds I could not speak.

Then Ortiz leaned forward.

"Mrs. Hale, there's something else."

I lowered my hands.

"The initial toxicology screen found a strong sedative in Chloe's blood."

My mouth went dry.

"How much?"

"Enough that the doctor is concerned it was not therapeutic."

I thought of Chloe saying she had been good.

I thought of the straps.

I thought of the closed casket.

"Was she ever dead?"

"No."

The word hit harder than I expected.

"Then who pronounced her dead?"

"We're trying to determine that."

A doctor entered before I could answer.

"Mrs. Hale?"

I stood too quickly.

"How is she?"

"Stable. Dehydrated. Sedated, but improving."

I gripped the back of the chair.

"The baby—"

I stopped.

There was no baby.

My mind had gone somewhere strange, somewhere old, when Julian was six and I had waited for doctors after he broke his arm falling from a tree.

The doctor touched my elbow.

"Chloe is asking for you."

I followed him.

Chloe looked impossibly small in the hospital bed.

I sat beside her.

She opened her eyes.

"Grandma?"

"I'm here."

Her fingers found mine.

"Are they mad?"

"Who?"

"Mommy and Daddy."

"No."

It was the only lie I told her that night.

"They can't hurt you."

She stared at the ceiling.

Then she whispered, "Daddy said tomorrow everybody would cry."

I squeezed her hand.

"What else did he say?"

"He said after the box went in the ground, everything would be fixed."

My blood went cold.

"Did he say what would be fixed?"

Chloe nodded weakly.

"The money."

Detective Ortiz, standing quietly near the door, looked at me.

I looked back at her.

And I understood that whatever had happened inside Julian's house was larger than a terrible act by frightened parents.

May you like

[COMPLETED] She waited ten years for her fiancé, but the night she marri...

[COMPLETED] Five Years After My Mafia Husband Chose Another Woman, He Me...

[COMPLETED] I CALLED MY HUSBAND 18 TIMES WHILE OUR SON WAS DYING. EIGHT...

Someone had tried to bury a living child.

And somewhere inside my son's life, there was a reason worth more to him than his own daughter.