Chapter 2 - The Wrong Body
Nathan dragged Claire behind a stone mausoleum while rain slapped against marble walls.
“Stay low.”
“I’m not taking orders from a dead man.”
“I’m not dead.”
“That is not helping!”
He almost smiled, and the familiar expression made Claire furious.
She slapped him.
The sound cracked between them.
Nathan did not touch his face.
“You deserved that,” she said.
“Probably more.”
Claire’s eyes filled again. “If you are Nicholas, you watched me bury you.”
“I was unconscious in a basement in Queens.”
She froze.
“What?”
He checked the cemetery path, then pulled a small waterproof pouch from under his coat. Inside was a folded photograph.
Claire took it.
The image showed a hospital-style wristband on a bruised male arm. The name printed on it was NATHAN VALE.
A date beneath it was seven days after Nicholas’s funeral.
“This proves nothing.”
“Turn it over.”
On the back was a handwritten address in Brooklyn and a single sentence:
ASK DR. EVELYN SHAW WHO SHE IDENTIFIED.
Claire’s stomach dropped.
Dr. Shaw had signed Nicholas’s death certificate.
Nathan said, “The body you buried was burned after the crash. Identification was made from dental records and a wedding ring.”
“I saw the ring.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because it was mine.”
Claire stared at his left hand.
No ring.
Nathan continued. “They took it before they staged the crash.”
Claire shook her head. “Nicholas had enemies. You could have studied him. You could have studied me.”
“Your mother called you Birdie until you were twelve. You hated it.”
Claire went still.
“You broke your wrist when you were nine because you jumped from the Hawthorne pier after your brother dared you. You lied and told your father you slipped.”
Her lips parted.
Nathan stepped closer.
“On our first date, you spilled red wine on my white shirt and cried in the bathroom because you thought I would leave.”
Claire could not breathe.
He whispered, “I bought that shirt because I wanted an excuse to remember the night.”
No one knew that.
No one.
A car door slammed near the gates.
Nathan looked over her shoulder.
“We have sixty seconds.”
“For what?”
“To decide whether you want answers.”
Claire looked at the bullet mark in the gravestone.
Then at the man with her husband’s face.
“Fine,” she said. “Take me to Dr. Shaw.”
Nathan’s expression darkened.
“I can’t.”
May you like
“Why?”
“Because Dr. Shaw was murdered last night.”
