We drove back to the funeral home without speaking.
The rain had started again, thin and steady against the windshield. Reed sat in the passenger seat beside me, while Aaron followed behind in his sedan. Diane and Ross came separately with Joanna.
I kept seeing the security footage.
Frank's face.
Frank's shoulders.
Frank's unmistakable walk.
It was impossible.
I had watched the funeral director close the coffin. I had stood beside it while Pastor Dave spoke. I had touched the polished wood with my fingertips.
And yet someone wearing Frank's face had walked into his storage unit less than an hour after his burial.
At the funeral home, the director met us at the side entrance.
His expression told me everything before he spoke.
“You're certain?” Reed asked.
The director nodded.
“We can verify the identification.”
My legs weakened.
“How?”
He looked at me gently.
“Mrs. Mercer, there are procedures.”
“I know.”
He hesitated.
“Then you also know we can't simply open the coffin because someone thinks they saw your husband elsewhere.”
“I don't think I saw him.”
I looked at Reed.
“He was on camera.”
Reed showed him the recording.
The funeral director watched it twice.
Then he quietly unlocked the chapel.
The coffin was still there.
Flowers surrounded it.
The room smelled of lilies and damp earth.
I stopped at the doorway.
For the first time that day, I was afraid to see Frank.
Not because he might be dead.
Because he might not be.
The funeral director called two staff members. Reed remained with us while the coffin was opened.
Diane stood against the wall.
Ross paced.
Aaron kept his hands folded in front of him.
When the lid lifted, I looked away.
The funeral director leaned forward.
Then he froze.
“That's not him.”
My head snapped around.
The face in the coffin was older than Frank’s by several years.
The hair was similar.
The suit was the same one Frank had been dressed in.
But it wasn't Frank.
Diane screamed.
Ross backed into the wall.
I couldn't make a sound.
The dead man had a scar along his jaw.
Frank did not.
Reed immediately called for additional officers.
The funeral director kept repeating that the identification had been made through paperwork and the hospital release.
Nobody had expected a substitution.
Then Aaron noticed something.
“His left hand.”
The corpse's ring finger was empty.
Frank had never removed his wedding ring.
Not once.
Not even during chemotherapy.
The ring had been on his finger when I kissed his hand that morning.
I remembered it clearly.
A plain gold band.
The dead man's hand was missing it.
My hand went automatically to my own ring.
Aaron looked at me.
“Did you have the ring after the funeral?”
“No.”
“Who handled Frank's body?”
The funeral director listed the names.
A nurse.
Two mortuary attendants.
The hospital transport team.
The medical examiner.
Nobody recognized the dead man.
Reed asked for the original identification photographs.
While he worked, Diane slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor.
“I knew something was wrong,” she whispered.
Ross looked at her.
“What?”
“When they brought Dad from the hospital.”
I turned toward her.
“You didn't tell anyone?”
“I thought it was the medication.”
“What did you notice?”
She stared at her hands.
“His hands.”
“What about them?”
“They looked different.”
The words made my skin prickle.
“You saw him?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“At the hospital.”
Her eyes filled.
“I came late. They had already covered him.”
“You didn't see his face?”
“No.”
“But you saw his hands.”
She nodded.
“He had a scar on his thumb. Dad had it from the table saw.”
The man in the coffin did not.
Reed heard her.
“Why didn't you say anything?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
Diane looked at me.
“Of being wrong.”
I almost told her she had no idea what being wrong meant.
Instead, I asked, “Did Margaret know?”
Diane's face changed.
“I don't know.”
Ross swore under his breath.
Aaron opened Frank’s final letter again.
There was a second page tucked behind the first.
He handed it to me.
I read the opening sentence.
If they put another man in my coffin, do not trust the first explanation you are given.
My fingers tightened around the paper.
Frank had known.
Not just about the possibility.
He had expected it.
The letter instructed me to go to a motel outside Port Angeles.
Room 17.
Inside a locked case, he had left evidence concerning Margaret.
But there was a warning.
Do not go alone.
I looked at Reed.
“We go now.”
He nodded.
Before we left, the medical examiner arrived.
He examined the body again.
Then he found a small surgical scar behind the right ear.
Joanna recognized it.
“This man had an implanted identification device.”
“Can it be traced?”
The examiner nodded.
“If it hasn't been removed.”
It had.
Someone had deliberately stripped the body of identifying information.
The funeral home had become a crime scene.
We left through the rear entrance.
Outside, Diane caught my arm.
“Eileen.”
I turned.
She was crying.
“I didn't know he was going to die.”
I stared at her.
“Who?”
“Frank.”
She shook her head.
“No. I mean—I didn't know what Margaret planned.”
“What did she plan?”
Diane looked over her shoulder.
Ross was speaking with Reed.
“I heard them arguing two nights ago.”
“Who?”
“Margaret and another man.”
“What man?”
“I don't know.”
“What did they say?”
Diane swallowed.
“She said Frank couldn't be allowed to tell you the truth.”
“What truth?”
“She said if he talked, everything would collapse.”
A cold wind moved through the parking lot.
“Everything?”
Diane nodded.
Then she whispered, “She called you her sister.”
I stared at her.
“My sister?”
Diane nodded.
“She said you were the reason Frank had to die.”
The words followed me into the car.
By midnight, we reached the motel.
Room 17 was at the end of the second-floor walkway.
The door stood open.
Reed raised his weapon.
We waited.
No movement.
He entered first.
The room was empty.
The bed had been stripped.
A lamp had been knocked over.
On the table sat a black metal case.
My name was scratched across its lid.
EILEEN.
Aaron tried the latch.
Locked.
I looked at the key from Frank’s storage unit.
It fit.
Inside were photographs, bank records, old letters, and one cassette tape.
There was also a second photograph.
My mother.
Margaret.
And two babies.
I stared at it.
One baby wore a red bracelet.
The other wore a blue one.
On the back, my mother's handwriting said:
They cannot know they were switched.
My knees buckled.
Reed caught me.
“What does that mean?”
I couldn't answer.
Aaron picked up the photograph.
His face drained.
“Eileen,” he said quietly.
“You and Diane may have been born at the same hospital.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: The Photograph Revealed a Secret Older Than Frank’s Marriage, and Margaret’s Next Message Forced Me to Question My Own Childhood
An Hour After Frank Was Buried, His Children Started Claiming My Furniture—and Then a Stranger Arrived Exactly on Schedule
Part 5 of 12
