Chapter 3 - THE MAN IN THE HALLWAY
Security cameras showed the stranger entering through a service corridor.
He wore blue medical scrubs and carried a clipboard.
He looked like any hospital employee.
Except he wasn’t.
The badge had been stolen that morning.
Detective Bennett watched the footage twice.
The man kept his face turned away from the cameras.
But at one point, he lifted his head.
Claire recognized him immediately.
“That’s Cole.”
Police searched the hospital.
Victor Cole had already disappeared.
Ethan sat beside Claire’s bed.
“Why are they still coming after you?”
Claire reached for his hand.
“Because I can prove what they did.”
“How?”
Claire looked toward the door.
“Richard made a mistake.”
She explained that two weeks earlier, she had begun noticing strange things.
Mail disappeared.
Her phone sometimes showed messages she didn’t remember sending.
Richard started asking questions about her father.
Then she discovered a life insurance policy she had never signed.
“I confronted him.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“What did he say?”
“He laughed.”
Claire stared at the ceiling.
“He told me I was being paranoid.”
Three nights later, Claire became sick after dinner.
She remembered Richard helping her upstairs.
Then darkness.
When she woke again, she was inside a wooden box.
Ethan squeezed her hand.
“You were awake the whole time?”
“Not all of it.”
Claire swallowed.
“I heard voices.”
Richard.
Victor Cole.
And a third person.
A woman.
“They were arguing.”
“About what?”
“Richard wanted the funeral done immediately.”
Claire’s voice dropped.
“But the woman said they needed to wait until Friday.”
“Why Friday?”
“I don’t know.”
Detective Bennett stepped into the room.
“Maybe we do.”
She placed a laptop on the table.
Investigators had found records connected to the inheritance.
The money could not be transferred immediately after Claire’s death.
A trust provision required confirmation from two independent representatives.
One meeting had been scheduled.
Friday morning.
“Someone needed you legally declared dead before then,” Bennett said.
Claire stared at the screen.
“And if I was buried?”
“You couldn’t challenge anything.”
Ethan felt sick.
His mother had almost vanished because of paperwork and greed.
Bennett opened another file.
“We found something else.”
A photograph appeared.
Richard stood outside a restaurant.
Beside him was Victor Cole.
Between them stood a woman with dark hair and sunglasses.
Claire leaned toward the screen.
“That’s her.”
“You recognize her?”
“I heard her voice inside the coffin.”
Bennett zoomed in.
Claire’s face changed.
“No.”
“What?”
Claire whispered the name.
“Rebecca.”
Ethan looked at his mother.
“Who’s Rebecca?”
May you like
Claire’s eyes filled with disbelief.
“My sister.”
