She sobbed, a high, reedy sound, her stiletto heels skidding uselessly against the stone as they pulled her through the heavy wooden doors.
The church doors slammed shut, plunging the sanctuary back into a heavy, traumatic quiet. The board members were rapidly dialing their cell phones, already initiating the crisis management protocols that would formally sever Evan from his empire. The journalists were rushing out the side exits to break the story of the decade.
Slowly, the congregation began to file out, heads bowed, unable to meet my eyes. They had come to witness a tragedy; they had survived a slaughter.
Soon, only Mr. Halden, my sister, and I remained.
I turned back to the coffin.
I reached out, my trembling fingers grazing the cold, polished mahogany. I looked down at my beautiful, brilliant daughter. She had known the darkness was coming for her, and in her final days, terrified and poisoned in her own home, she had not succumbed to despair. She had built a fortress of evidence. She had armed her mother.
She had fought smart.
“It’s done, my sweet girl,” I whispered, the first tear finally breaking free, tracing a hot path down my wrinkled cheek. “The monsters are gone.”
Mr. Halden stepped up beside me, placing the ivory envelope gently on the closed lid of the casket.
“The board has already requested an emergency meeting for tomorrow morning, Margaret,” he said softly, his dry voice imbued with a newfound reverence. “They will want to know who is taking the helm. They will try to bully you into selling the shares back to them.”
I wiped the tear from my cheek, my spine straightening. I looked away from the casket, my gaze fixing on the stained-glass window above the altar, where the storm clouds outside were finally breaking, letting a single ray of bruised, purple light bleed into the room.
“Let them try, Arthur,” I murmured, my voice harder than the stone beneath our feet. “Cancel my afternoon appointments. I have a company to purge.”
