Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Planned the FuneralBy midnight, every television station in New York knew Nora Rowan had awakened during her own burial.
Our lives became public property before sunrise.
A blurry cellphone video showed me leaning into the coffin.
Another showed Lily screaming for paramedics.
Someone had captured Celeste running toward her car.
That clip played on repeat.
Rowan Hospitality shares fell eleven percent when markets opened.
My board demanded an emergency meeting.
I told them to go to hell.
Nora was alive.
For twenty-four hours, nothing else mattered.
Then Detective Kline showed me Celeste’s bank records.
Suddenly, everything mattered.
She had transferred $4.8 million to three overseas accounts during the week before Nora collapsed.
Two days before the funeral, she paid Dr. Wynn $900,000.
Another $350,000 went to Havencrest Funeral Services.
The funeral home that prepared Nora’s body.
I stared at the numbers.
“Why would a funeral home need that much money?”
Kline looked at me.
“They wouldn’t.”
The next morning, federal agents joined the investigation.
Financial crimes.
Attempted homicide.
Fraud.
Possible conspiracy.
My life had become a crime series.
Only nobody yelled cut.
Nora remained hospitalized.
Her strength returned slowly.
She hated being treated as fragile.
When a nurse told her she shouldn’t walk without assistance, Nora waited five minutes, disconnected one monitor, and tried walking to the bathroom alone.
She nearly fell.
I caught her.
She glared at me.
“Don’t say it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were thinking it.”
“Yes.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her expression softened.
“No.”
Then she whispered, “Unfortunately.”
That tiny piece of our old marriage nearly destroyed me.
But the bigger truth still waited between us.
The trust.
My father’s secret.
And my mother’s silence.
Beatrice refused to discuss it at the hospital.
So I drove her home.
The Rowan estate in Greenwich had belonged to our family for sixty years.
My mother entered the library and poured bourbon.
“At ten in the morning?”
“I watched my daughter-in-law wake in a coffin yesterday.”
Fair.
I remained standing.
“Tell me.”
She looked toward my father’s portrait.
Charles Rowan had been dead seven years.
He had built hotels the way other men collected trophies.
He also believed family loyalty meant obedience.
“Your father never trusted you to preserve the company.”
That hurt more than I expected.
“Why?”
“You married Nora.”
I stared.
“What did she have to do with it?”
“He thought she made you soft.”
I laughed without humor.
“She made me human.”
“That was precisely what frightened him.”
My father.
Of course.
Beatrice continued.
“Charles created two trusts. You received voting authority over his shares as long as your marriage remained intact.”
“And if Nora died?”
“The shares would transfer to Andrew’s surviving spouse.”
Celeste.
My brother Andrew had died in a boating accident five years earlier.
He and Celeste had no children.
“So Dad designed a trust that rewarded my wife’s death?”
“He never imagined anyone would murder her.”
“That’s a comforting distinction.”
Beatrice flinched.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Charles made me promise.”
“He’s dead.”
“I know.”
“Then why keep protecting him?”
Her voice sharpened.
“Because not every promise becomes meaningless when someone dies.”
I stared at her.
“No. Sometimes it just poisons everyone who survives.”
She turned away.
“What did Nora discover?”
My mother’s hand tightened around her glass.
“More than the missing money.”
“What else?”
“She came here the night before she collapsed.”
“You already told me.”
“She asked about Andrew.”
I froze.
“My brother?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She found his signature on recent transactions.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I told her the same.”
Andrew had been dead five years.
We buried him.
Unlike Nora, he did not wake up.
“Maybe someone forged it.”
“Nora didn’t think so.”
My pulse quickened.
“What did she think?”
“That Andrew may have created the shell companies before his death.”
That was possible.
Andrew had served as COO.
He controlled procurement.
Celeste worked under him before they married.
“Was he stealing?”
My mother stared into her drink.
“I don’t know.”
That meant yes.
“You knew something.”
“I suspected.”
“How much?”
“Your father found irregularities shortly before Andrew died.”
“And?”
“He confronted him.”
“What happened?”
“Andrew denied everything.”
“Then he died.”
“Yes.”
The boating accident.
A storm off Martha’s Vineyard.
Andrew vanished overboard.
His body was recovered two days later.
Or so I had always believed.
I sat down.
“Did you identify him?”
My mother’s face changed.
“What?”
“The body.”
“Caleb…”
“Did you see Andrew’s face?”
She took too long.
“The body was badly damaged.”
My stomach dropped.
“How did we identify him?”
“His watch.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
A watch.
Nora had been identified partly through jewelry.
Andrew through a watch.
Two deaths.
Two convenient objects.
My mother whispered, “Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Turn every tragedy into a conspiracy.”
“My wife was almost buried alive yesterday.”
That ended the argument.
My phone rang.
Detective Kline.
“We found Celeste’s car.”
“Where?”
“Newark Airport.”
“Did she board a flight?”
“No.”
“Then where is she?”
“We have security footage.”
She sent it.
I opened the video.
Celeste entered a parking structure at 5:36 p.m.
A man waited beside a gray SUV.
Tall.
Baseball cap.
He turned toward a camera for less than one second.
My entire body went cold.
The image was grainy.
But I knew the posture.
I knew the way he tilted his head.
I knew the scar near his chin.
I had spent thirty-nine years knowing that face.
My dead brother.
Andrew Rowan.
I called Detective Kline back.
“That man is Andrew.”
Silence.
“Your brother is deceased.”
“So was my wife.”
I stared at the frozen frame.
My mother stepped behind me.
When she saw it, the glass slipped from her hand and shattered.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Mother.”
Her face emptied.
“My son is alive.”
Then I noticed something worse.
In the video, Andrew opened the passenger door for Celeste.
She got in willingly.
May you like
She wasn’t running from him.
She was running to him.
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