« Elle n’est pas partie ! » hurla une pauvre petite fille aux funérailles de la femme du milliardaire — et le cercueil scellé déclencha une série d’événements qui transformèrent le chagrin en une vérité à laquelle personne n’était préparé.
Grant’s head lifted, pulled out of his trance by the sound of something real.
Addie pointed at Serena’s photo with a shaking finger.
“She’s not gone!” Addie cried. “I saw her! Yesterday! She was behind a window. She looked right at me!”
A ripple of whispers rolled through the cemetery.
“Whose child is that?”
“Where are her parents?”
“How disrespectful…”
Grant took a step forward. His bodyguards tried to block him, but he shoved past them with a sudden, raw force. He walked straight to Addie and dropped to one knee, not caring what happened to his expensive suit.
“What did you say?” Grant asked, voice trembling.
“I saw her,” Addie said, staring him down with a bravery that didn’t match her small frame. “In a beat-up house. Rusty bars on the windows. She had her hair tied back and she looked… tired. But it was her. The same lady.”
Grant’s stomach turned.
He remembered the rushed paperwork. The closed door. The polite refusal. The sealed casket.
He stood slowly and looked at the casket like it was suddenly an enemy.
“Open it,” he said.
A funeral director stepped forward, pale. “Mr. Holloway, we can’t—”
“Open it,” Grant repeated, louder, the words hitting the air like a command no one dared to refuse. “If my wife is in there, I need to see her. And if she isn’t… then someone has been playing with my life.”
No one moved for a heartbeat.
