Chapter 2 - The Funeral Arranged Too Quickly
Claire had died on a Tuesday morning.
By Tuesday evening, Jason had chosen the chapel.
By Wednesday, he had selected the coffin, flowers, burial plot, and service time.
Helen had asked to help.
Jason refused.
“You’re grieving. I’ll handle everything.”
Tom requested the hospital’s official records.
Jason claimed they were still being processed.
Helen asked where Claire’s newborn daughter was.
Jason said the baby remained in intensive care and visitors were restricted.
He would not give them the infant’s room number.
He would not name the attending physician.
He would not allow Helen to bring clothes or a blanket.
Every question received an answer that sounded reasonable until examined twice.
At the chapel, Walter Pierce initially told Helen the family could have a private viewing.
One hour later, he called back and said the arrangement had changed.
“Changed by whom?” Helen asked.
“The legal next of kin.”
Jason.
On the morning of the funeral, Helen arrived early.
The coffin was already closed.
The floral spray had been positioned across the center so heavily that reaching the upper latches required moving it.
Jason stood beside the bier as if guarding a vault.
When Helen asked for five private minutes with her daughter, he said no.
“She wouldn’t want you to remember her that way.”
Helen looked toward Claire’s memorial portrait.
Her daughter was smiling in the photograph, one hand resting over her pregnant belly.
Claire had called Helen less than twelve hours before her reported death.
She sounded frightened.
Not sick.
Not weak.
Frightened.
“Mom,” Claire had whispered, “if Jason calls you tomorrow, don’t believe the first thing he says.”
Then the call ended.
Helen had tried calling back.
Claire’s phone was switched off.
Now Jason’s own phone remained hidden inside his jacket.
And each time someone mentioned the hospital, his hand moved toward it.
Tom leaned close to Helen.
“We don’t open the coffin here.”
She stared at him.
“Why not?”
“Because if he has altered anything, we need the police before he can stop us.”
Helen looked at Jason across the chapel.
For the first time, her grief made room for something harder.
May you like
Suspicion.
👉 Claire’s final phone call had not been a goodbye—it had been a warning.
