PART 2
The glass shattered into pieces on the hardwood floor, and for two long seconds nobody in the house moved.
Christopher reacted first, his voice tightly controlled. “Mason, buddy, you’re just a little confused,” he said, crouching beside the boy. “Your aunt is resting peacefully.”
“No, she’s not,” the boy insisted. “She looked right at me.”
My mother stopped praying instantly. I saw her step toward the casket on shaking legs, looking as if terror itself was pressing down on her shoulders.
“Madelyn?” she whispered.
I pulled together every last bit of strength I had and let out a deep, strained groan.
My mother clapped a hand over her mouth. Christopher immediately jumped up to block her path. “Mrs. Miller, please don’t do this to yourself,” he pleaded smoothly. “You’re just very upset right now.”
“Get out of my way, Christopher!” she snapped.
She jammed her fingers into the gap and shoved the heavy lid all the way open.
Sunlight hit my face full force, blinding my tired eyes. I opened them completely and looked around the room.
My mother screamed so loudly that every woman in the kitchen came running. One aunt crossed herself in shock while another grabbed her phone to call an ambulance. Chloe backed up until her spine hit the far wall.
Christopher didn’t scream or make a sound. He stood frozen, staring at me without blinking. There was no relief on his face — only cold, desperate calculation.
“It must be a severe episode of catalepsy,” Christopher announced loudly to the room. “We need to get her to the emergency room right now.”
I managed to lift my head a few inches off the white satin pillow. My mind felt like it was floating in fog, but I turned my neck to find my sister. The gold heart pendant caught the light against her black blouse.
I lifted a trembling hand and pointed straight at her chest. “Mine…” I rasped.
Everyone in the room turned to look at Chloe.
Chloe swallowed hard and tried to cover the chain with her fingers. “Christopher told me you wanted me to have it…”
“Take it off her right now!” my mother ordered furiously.
“Mom, please, I can explain everything,” Chloe stammered.
“I said take it off!” my mother shouted.
As Chloe fumbled frantically with the small clasp, the thick taste of cinnamon milk rushed back into my memory. I remembered how dark the bedroom had gone after Christopher turned off my phone following our fight. And then I remembered something far worse. Right before I lost consciousness, I’d heard his low voice in the kitchen: “Don’t worry about her anymore. Tomorrow she won’t be able to stop a thing we do.”
When the paramedics finally arrived, one gently asked if I knew where I was. I stared past his shoulder at the open casket, at my shaking mother, at my sister standing against the wall with her bare neck.
“I’m at my own wake,” I answered clearly. Then I looked the paramedic in the eye and asked for just one thing: “Call the police right now.”
Christopher made a sudden, quiet move toward the front door. My older cousin Benjamin stepped into his path and blocked the frame. “Nobody leaves this house until the officers get here,” Benjamin said sternly.
At the emergency clinic, tests quickly confirmed heavy traces of a potent prescription sedative in my blood. I’d never held a prescription for that drug in my life.
The detective took my full statement that same afternoon, right from my hospital bed. I described the mysterious bank transfer, the warm milk, the terrifying conversation I’d overheard from inside the coffin, and the sizable life insurance policy. I made sure to mention that the suburban house Christopher and I lived in was solely in my name, and that four months earlier I’d inherited a valuable downtown commercial building from my late aunt.
The detective stopped writing and looked up. “Did your husband have full access to those legal property documents?”
Icy cold washed over my skin. “Yes, he did.”
Hours later, the investigator came back with an update. Chloe had been taken into custody after officers stopped her trying to board an intercity bus to Minneapolis. They found two one-way tickets, my gold necklace tucked inside her purse, and certified copies of my original property deeds.
Christopher, though, had vanished completely.
Early the next morning, the lead detective walked into my room carrying a thick manila folder. “Ma’am, we located your husband an hour ago,” he told me evenly. “And what he tried to pull off this morning proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that your wake was no accident.”
He set a legal document bearing my signature on the tray table in front of me. It was a signature I knew I’d never written.
