Chapter 7 - The Will That Changed the FuneralArthur Hale reached inside his jacket.
Daniel pointed the gun toward him.
“Don't.”
The attorney stopped.
“No more secrets, Daniel.”
“This is a family matter.”
Arthur looked toward the casket.
“No. It stopped being a family matter when you buried a living woman.”
Daniel's face hardened.
“You have no idea what happened.”
“Then lower the gun and let her speak.”
Claire made another muffled sound from inside the coffin.
Noah knelt beside her.
“I'm not leaving you.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
Arthur slowly raised both empty hands.
“Claire came to my office three weeks ago.”
Daniel stared at him.
“She told me she wanted her finances separated from yours.”
Victoria looked stunned.
Daniel's jaw tightened.
Arthur continued.
“She had discovered that assets placed in her name had been used as collateral for Whitmore ventures without her informed consent.”
Several guests exchanged horrified looks.
These were people who understood finance.
People who knew exactly what that could mean.
Daniel snapped.
“Those were marital assets.”
Arthur shook his head.
“Not all of them.”
The room fell silent.
Arthur looked at Noah.
“Claire had inherited money from her grandmother before marrying Daniel. She also owned the publishing rights to compositions created by her father. Those assets were hers.”
Noah barely understood the legal language.
But he understood Daniel's anger.
Arthur continued.
“Claire's revised will left the majority of her separate estate in trust for Noah.”
The guests turned toward him again.
The boy they had seated behind donors.
The child whose hoodie had offended them.
The son they treated as an embarrassing attachment to a woman who married above her station.
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“You think this is about money?”
Victoria looked at him.
“Isn't it?”
For the first time, Daniel appeared genuinely wounded.
“You have no idea what Claire was planning.”
Noah stood.
“She was planning to leave you.”
Daniel looked at him.
A silence passed between them.
Then Claire suddenly struck the underside of the coffin lid three times.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Noah froze.
That was their signal.
Their private signal.
Three knocks meant one thing.
Yes.
Claire had been planning to leave Daniel.
And Daniel knew it.
Victoria looked at her brother.
“You staged her death.”
“No.”
“You put her in that casket.”
“No!”
“Then who did?”
Daniel's breathing became uneven.
For the first time, fear appeared behind his anger.
He looked not at Claire.
Not at Noah.
But toward the two giant white floral arrangements at the far end of the hall.
Victoria followed his eyes.
One arrangement was perfectly symmetrical.
The other was not.
Something small and black was hidden beneath the flowers.
A camera.
Still recording.
Daniel whispered, almost to himself:
“They're watching.”
Victoria's blood ran cold.
“Who?”
May you like
Daniel lowered the gun slightly.
And before he could answer, every light in the funeral hall went out.
