Chapter 2 - What Was Beneath the CollarEvan — Desmond stepped closer. "Eleanor, perhaps we should discuss this privately."
I met his eyes. "That's all I'm asking. I simply want to understand something before we say goodbye."
For several moments, nobody spoke. The funeral director, Mr. Whitlock, calmly suggested that our immediate family remain nearby while he spoke with us privately.
Wren slipped her hand into mine.
Halfway through the service, before Mr. Whitlock could pull us aside, Wren started trembling beside me.
"Grandma, look under Mommy's collar."
Desmond immediately looked across the aisle. "Eleanor, sit down."
The room fell silent. I looked at him, unsettled not merely by the command in his voice but by its timing. I had never told him what I intended to do, yet somehow he seemed to understand.
I walked toward the casket. Desmond stepped into the aisle, but Mr. Whitlock moved closer too.
"You're upsetting everyone," Desmond said.
"I need to see my daughter."
"Don't touch her."
That sentence gave me the resolve I had been missing.
I carefully lifted the lace around Renata's collar. Beneath the cosmetics were several noticeable marks curving along the side of her neck, positioned in a way that did not resemble an ordinary medical procedure. Near her hairline was a tiny puncture, and close to her collarbone was a pale square of irritated skin where an adhesive patch appeared to have recently been removed.
A woman nearby covered her mouth.
Desmond answered almost immediately. "Those marks came from the preparation process."
Mr. Whitlock examined them and shook his head. "No, sir. They did not."
Wren started crying. "That's not the truth. He put it lower." She pointed toward Renata's waist.
Desmond stepped forward, and for the first time that morning, his carefully controlled sorrow disappeared. What replaced it looked unmistakably like fear.
Mr. Whitlock moved between him and the casket while I cautiously lifted only the outer layer of Renata's dress near her hip. A narrow piece of medical tape had been placed against her skin. Beneath it was a thin plastic module, smaller than a credit card.
Desmond's face turned pale. "That has nothing to do with what happened," he said.
No one had even asked what the object was.
Mr. Whitlock immediately stopped the cremation process and contacted county authorities. Twenty-five minutes later, Detective Priya Osei arrived with two officers. She listened carefully, examined the concealed object, and instructed Desmond to step away from the casket.
He requested an attorney and insisted that, as Renata's husband, he controlled the arrangements. The argument changed nothing. Renata was transferred to the county medical examiner, while the device was secured inside an evidence bag.
Mr. Whitlock recognized it before anyone else. "That appears to be the recorder from a cardiac monitoring patch."
Renata's monitoring patch. The same one Desmond claimed had fallen off several days before.
That evening, Detective Osei confirmed its serial number. The device belonged to Renata, and technicians believed that most of the information stored inside could still be recovered.
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Desmond had apparently arranged for it to disappear with her before anyone discovered what it might have recorded.
And somehow, Wren had remembered exactly where he had concealed it.
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