CHAPTER 5 — THE MAN WHO ATTENDED HIS OWN FUNERAL
Emily couldn't breathe.
The old photograph slipped from her trembling fingers and fluttered onto the dusty floor of the abandoned train station.
"No..."
Her voice was barely audible.
"That's impossible."
Ethan quickly picked it up again.
The man standing beside a younger Victoria Hartwell was unmistakable.
The same kind smile.
The same gray-green eyes.
The same tiny scar beneath his chin.
Emily had kissed that scar goodbye at his funeral fifteen years earlier.
"My father died."
She whispered the words as if repeating them enough times could make them true.
"I buried him."
Samuel Brooks looked at her with quiet sadness.
"No."
"You buried someone else."
Silence swallowed the station.
Rain hammered the broken windows while a freight train rumbled somewhere in the distance.
Emily shook her head.
"I identified the body."
Samuel slowly opened the leather notebook again.
"Did you?"
He removed a yellowed newspaper clipping.
LOCAL ENGINEER KILLED IN EXPLOSION
The article included a photograph of a burned warehouse and a closed casket funeral.
Samuel pointed to one line.
The body was identified through personal belongings due to severe fire damage.
Emily's knees nearly gave out.
"There was no DNA..."
Samuel nodded.
"No fingerprints."
"No dental records."
"Only a wallet."
Ethan stared at Emily.
"You never actually saw him."
Fresh tears rolled down her face.
"I wasn't allowed."
"They said..."
"...they said the burns were too severe."
Samuel took a deep breath.
"Because there wasn't a body to show you."
Emily collapsed into a nearby chair, clutching Rose tightly against her chest.
For fifteen years she had visited a grave that belonged to a stranger.
Samuel continued.
"Your father wasn't an engineer."
"He was a forensic accountant."
Ethan frowned.
"A forensic accountant?"
"He specialized in exposing financial crimes."
Samuel nodded.
"He discovered Project Phoenix."
The name chilled the room.
"He found evidence that billions of dollars had been stolen from pension funds, charities, veterans' organizations, and orphan foundations."
Emily stared at him.
"My father investigated them?"
"He built the entire case."
"So why fake his death?"
Samuel looked toward the rain.
"Because the people behind Project Phoenix never left witnesses alive."
The notebook contained page after page of handwritten notes.
Secret shell companies.
Politicians.
Judges.
Bank executives.
Every page ended with the same initials.
A.V.
Ethan looked confused.
"Who's A.V.?"
Samuel didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he looked at Emily.
"Your father spent seven years trying to discover that."
"And?"
"He succeeded."
The old man closed the notebook.
"That's why they tried to kill him."
Suddenly Samuel's old phone vibrated.
His face changed instantly.
"They found us."
Before Ethan could ask who...
A bullet shattered the station window.
Glass exploded across the room.
"DOWN!"
Samuel tackled Emily behind a concrete pillar while Ethan shielded Rose with his own body.
Another shot echoed.
Then another.
Three black SUVs surrounded the station outside.
Armed men poured into the rain.
Each wearing the same silver phoenix pin on their jacket.
Samuel whispered only three words.
"They came personally."
The lead gunman stepped through the broken doorway.
He removed his sunglasses.
Smiled.
Then spoke into the silence.
"Mr. Hartwell..."
"Our Chairman would like to meet you."
Behind him...
A black limousine slowly rolled into view.
The rear door opened.
A polished leather shoe stepped onto the wet pavement.
Emily's heart stopped.
She recognized that walk before she even saw his face.
"Dad...?"
The man smiled.
"Hello, sweetheart."
May you like
The father she had mourned for fifteen years...
...was standing alive in the rain.
