CHAPTER 2 — THE MAN WHO WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE
Chaos exploded across the cemetery.
Several guests ran away screaming.
Others pulled out their phones.
The funeral director stumbled backward, nearly falling into the open grave.
Inside the coffin...
Next to Emily...
Lay a middle-aged man with duct tape around his wrists.
His face was pale.
His lips trembled.
Then...
He coughed.
The crowd froze.
"He... he's alive!"
Paramedics rushed forward.
The lid was completely removed.
The man gasped for air before collapsing onto the grass.
Police arrived within minutes.
No one recognized him.
Until Detective Samuel Brooks pushed through the crowd.
His face turned white.
"Oh my God..."
"I know him."
The man was Michael Hayes.
A private investigator.
He had disappeared six days earlier.
Michael had secretly been hired by Margaret.
Weeks before Emily's death.
She had noticed bruises.
Late-night crying.
Sudden fear whenever Richard's name appeared on Emily's phone.
A mother's instinct had whispered one terrifying thought.
"My daughter isn't safe."
Michael had begun following Richard.
Then...
He vanished.
Police assumed he had left town.
Now everyone knew otherwise.
As paramedics treated Michael, he grabbed Detective Brooks' arm.
His voice barely escaped.
"Don't..."
"...let Richard leave."
"He killed her."
The cemetery erupted.
Richard's expensive suit suddenly felt too tight.
He tried to laugh.
"This is insane."
"He's delirious."
But Michael kept speaking.
"I recorded everything."
"The warehouse."
"The argument."
"The injection."
"He buried the evidence..."
"...inside the coffin."
Police searched beneath Emily's body.
Hidden under a false wooden compartment...
They discovered syringes.
A burned cellphone.
Stacks of cash.
And a waterproof hard drive.
Richard's confidence disappeared instantly.
He slowly stepped backward.
One step.
Two.
Then he turned and ran.
But he never reached the cemetery gate.
Detective Brooks tackled him into the mud.
Handcuffs clicked shut.
Everyone believed the nightmare was over.
They were wrong.
Because when forensic experts opened the hard drive...
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They discovered something far worse.
Emily hadn't been Richard's only victim.
