Chapter 2 - THE FUNERAL WAS NEVER MEANT TO END
For several seconds, nobody inside Havenbrook Memorial Chapel moved.
Richard Parker stood beside the front pew with the handgun shaking in his right hand.
Forty-seven mourners stared back at him.
Nobody cried anymore.
Nobody whispered.
The organist had stopped playing.
The only sound came from inside the coffin.
Scratching.
Weak.
Desperate.
Claire was still trying to get out.
“Richard.”
The voice came from the third row.
Detective Marcus Hale slowly stood.
He was forty-six, broad-shouldered, dressed in a charcoal suit. He had known Claire since high school, though they had barely spoken in twenty years.
He had attended because Claire’s alleged death had bothered him.
According to Richard, Claire had fallen from an overlook into the Connecticut River six days earlier.
Her purse had been discovered near the railing.
Her coat had been recovered downstream.
Richard claimed Claire had been depressed.
No body had initially been recovered.
Then, two days later, Richard announced that remains had been identified privately and that the family wanted a closed-casket funeral.
Marcus had found that strange.
Now he understood why.
“Put the weapon down,” Marcus said.
Richard aimed at him.
“Sit.”
Marcus stopped.
Ethan remained beside the coffin.
His hands were bleeding from splintered wood.
“Get away from there,” Richard ordered.
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“My mom is alive.”
Richard’s face twitched.
“You don't understand.”
“Then explain it.”
For the first time, Ethan sounded older than twelve.
Richard’s eyes moved toward the exits.
He was calculating.
Marcus recognized the look.
“There's nowhere to go.”
“You think?”
Richard smiled.
Then the lights died.
Someone screamed.
The chapel fell into darkness.
Richard had planned that too.
Emergency lights flickered red along the floor.
A gunshot exploded.
People dropped behind pews.
Ethan threw himself over the coffin.
Another shot.
Glass shattered.
Then Marcus tackled Richard near the side aisle.
The gun slid beneath a pew.
Richard punched him.
Marcus drove an elbow into his shoulder.
Guests scrambled toward the exits.
A funeral attendant grabbed the weapon.
“Police!” Marcus shouted. “Call 911!”
Richard froze.
He had lost the gun.
Three men restrained him.
Ethan was already back at the coffin.
“Hammer!”
Someone handed it to him.
“No,” Marcus said.
He grabbed a metal casket key from the funeral director.
But it would not turn.
The locking mechanism had been altered.
“Richard!” Marcus shouted. “What did you do?”
Richard laughed from the floor.
“You open that, you kill her.”
Ethan stopped.
“What?”
Richard smiled.
“Ask yourself why she's still alive.”
Marcus looked at the coffin.
Then smelled something.
Chemical.
A thin tube ran through the floral arrangement behind the casket and disappeared into a tiny drilled opening near the base.
Marcus ripped the flowers away.
A portable oxygen cylinder was hidden underneath.
So Claire had air.
But beside it sat another device.
An infusion pump.
A clear line entered the coffin.
Marcus’s stomach turned.
Someone had engineered the casket as a temporary prison.
Claire had been sedated.
Kept alive.
Why?
If Richard simply wanted her dead, he could have killed her elsewhere.
The funeral itself mattered.
Ethan touched the coffin.
“Mom, we're here.”
Three faint taps answered.
Marcus called the fire department directly.
“Do not move the coffin until rescue gets here.”
Ethan stared at Richard.
“You knew she was awake.”
Richard looked away.
“You heard her.”
Silence.
“You heard my mom inside.”
Richard finally looked at him.
And smiled.
That smile frightened Ethan more than the gun.
“She wasn't supposed to wake up until later.”
Later.
After burial?
Marcus heard it too.
“What happens later?”
Richard said nothing.
Sirens approached.
Within nine minutes, firefighters entered carrying hydraulic rescue equipment.
They carefully separated the locking assembly.
Ethan refused to leave.
Finally—
the lid lifted.
Claire Parker lay inside.
Alive.
Barely.
Her wrists were bound.
Tape covered her mouth.
An IV catheter had been inserted into her arm.
Her skin was pale and cold.
Her eyes immediately searched the room.
They found Ethan.
He climbed toward her.
“Mom.”
Claire tried to speak behind the tape.
Paramedics stopped him long enough to remove it safely.
Her lips trembled.
“Ethan.”
That was all.
Then she lost consciousness.
The paramedics moved.
Oxygen.
Monitor.
IV access.
Blood pressure.
Marcus looked into the coffin after Claire was lifted.
Something had been written on the satin lining beneath her body.
Not by Richard.
By Claire.
She had apparently used a broken fingernail and blood from her own fingertip.
Three characters.
714.
Marcus photographed them.
Richard saw.
And for the first time since the coffin opened—
May you like
Richard looked genuinely terrified.
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