Chapter 5 - THE SECOND AUTOPSY
Giovanni refused for exactly forty seconds.
Then he ordered the funeral director to clear the building and bring the coffin into the preparation room.
Clarissa began crying before the lid was lifted.
Emilio stood beside her without speaking.
Giovanni looked at Elena's face and nearly lost the strength to remain standing.
She looked peaceful.
Too peaceful.
Luca pointed toward the inside of her left wrist.
A small puncture mark sat beneath the funeral makeup.
The hospital report had mentioned no injection there.
Giovanni called Dr. Maya Chen, a forensic pathologist who owed Elena a favor from years earlier.
She arrived before midnight and examined the body under a portable light.
"I cannot give you a conclusion here," she said.
"Give me a reason not to bury my wife tomorrow."
Maya looked at the puncture.
"This is a reason."
She also found faint bruising behind Elena's ear and a chemical smell in tissue preserved from the hospital.
Giovanni ordered a private toxicology screen.
Luca warned that somebody would notice the delay.
"Let them notice."
At 1:13 a.m., Emilio received a text from an unknown number.
It contained a photograph of the three of them standing beside Elena's open coffin.
The photo had been taken through the preparation-room window moments earlier.
Beneath it was one line.
"The island was your warning. The coffin is your mistake."
Giovanni ran outside with Luca and two guards.
The parking lot was empty.
But on the hood of Giovanni's car sat another airline tag from Cayo Lucero.
Dr. Chen also found that Elena's hospital bracelet had been replaced after death, even though the serial number still matched the paperwork.
Someone had wanted the record to look untouched.
Giovanni ordered every nurse, driver, and private aide from Elena's final week identified before sunrise.
For the first time, grief gave him something to do besides collapse.
May you like
This one had today's date.
Someone from the island had followed them home.
