Chapter 4
The police took Daniel's credit card from Emma at 2:11 that morning.
By sunrise, the number that had warned her about me was no longer in service.
Someone had read Emma's message. Someone had replied through an account connected to Daniel.
But the police said that did not prove my husband was alive.
Two days later, I sat across from the detective who had come to my house after Daniel's accident. The hotel report lay open on his desk.
"I want the body examined again."
He removed his glasses.
"Mrs. Hayes, a stolen card doesn't mean the wrong man was buried."
"What about the message?"
"It came from an unregistered number."
"It knew my name."
"Because Emma included your name in the message she sent."
I looked down at my hands.
The police had an explanation for everything.
The card could have been stolen. The photographs could have been real but unrelated to Daniel's death. The person answering Emma could have been anyone with access to his account.
Each explanation made sense by itself.
Together, they did not.
"She has nineteen years of photographs with my husband," I said.
"She has his clothes. She has his credit card. Someone told her not to trust me before either of us understood what was happening."
The detective closed the hotel report.
"We're investigating Emma Mercer."
"She didn't know I existed."
"You don't know that."
The words landed harder than I expected.
He was right. I knew almost nothing about Emma. She might have lied about Laura. The photographs could have been arranged. Even the fear on her face might have been an act.
"Then prove she's lying," I said.
"How?"
"Open the grave."
The detective's face changed.
I kept both hands on my knees so he would not see them shaking.
"If the body is Daniel, I'll accept it. I'll hand over every message, every photograph, and the hotel report. You can investigate Emma without me."
"And if it isn't?"
I could not answer immediately.
If Daniel was inside that coffin, I had opened his grave because of a girl I met three nights ago.
If he wasn't, then I had stood in a church, accepted condolences, and buried a stranger while my husband's other life continued without me.
I didn't know which answer frightened me more.
"If it isn't,"
I said, "you start looking for my husband."
The detective did not promise anything.
That afternoon, he called to say the medical examiner had requested an order to confirm the identity of the remains. A judge approved it before the courthouse closed.
The next morning, I stood in the county medical examiner's office.
Daniel's coffin rested on a metal platform.
Mud clung to the lower corners. One dark streak ran along the side where someone's glove had touched it.
I stopped several feet away.
The medical examiner wore blue gloves. The detective stood near the wall with a paper cup in his hand.
"You don't have to stay," he said.
"Yes, I do."
The examiner checked the paperwork before touching the coffin.
I watched him read Daniel's name.
For twenty years, that name had been printed beside mine. On our mortgage. On tax returns. On anniversary cards. Three days earlier, I had watched it carved into stone.
Now it was attached to whatever lay inside that box.
The examiner released the first latch.
The sound was small.
The second latch opened.
My breathing changed. I pressed one hand against my stomach.
Daniel always said I was good in a crisis. I made lists. I remembered appointment times. I knew which person to call and what question to ask.
There was no list for this.
The examiner lifted the lid.
A white covering hid the body.
I took one step forward, then stopped.
Part of me wanted Daniel to be there. Not because I wanted him dead, but because death was the only part of the last six days I understood.
A car had burned.
My husband had died.
I had buried him.
If those three facts remained true, then everything else might still have an explanation.
But if they didn't, I no longer knew which part of my life had been real.
The examiner reached for the edge of the white covering.
For one second, I almost told him to stop.
Then I remembered the message on Emma's phone.
Don't trust Rachel Hayes.
He drew back the covering.
I watched his face instead of the body.
His expression changed.
He looked down at the identification report on the metal tray. He turned one page, then another.
"What is it?" I asked.
He did not answer.
His finger stopped on the signature at the bottom of the report.
Then he looked at me.
"Ma'am,"
he said, "are you certain you ever saw your husband's body?"