Ryan got out of the car and looked at the church with a knot in his chest.
The pain of losing his father was suffocating him, although something inside him didn’t quite add up.
His dog, Bella, was acting unusual: barking loudly from the back seat, her ears pricked, her body tense.
He tried to calm her with a gesture, and although she reluctantly lay down, her eyes still conveyed a concern that Ryan found impossible to ignore.
„Stay here, Bella,” he whispered, petting her through the open window.
But the dog’s alert expression followed him as he turned and entered the church.
Inside, the ceremony had already begun.
The coffin of his father, Arnold, lay sealed in front of the altar, surrounded by flowers. Because he had died of an infectious disease, the area around the coffin was cordoned off. The body would be cremated after the service.
Ryan sat next to his mother, trying to calm himself.
But when the final hymn began, Bella’s barking broke the solemn silence.
Before anyone could stop her, the dog burst into the church, jumped on the coffin, knocked over a wreath, and began barking frantically.
Everyone turned, mouths agape.
Bella then sat rigid, staring at Ryan.
He froze.
Something wasn’t right.
His instinct took over.
„Open the coffin!” he exclaimed.
A murmur ran through the church as he approached and lifted the lid.
It was empty.
The whispers turned to shouts.
His mother fainted from the impact, and Ryan barely managed to hold her up before her head hit the marble floor.
An ambulance took her away, and the consuming grief gave way to a cold, bewildering rage.
That night, at his mother’s house, Ryan called the police.
Detective Bradshaw listened attentively, but explained that the coroner had already certified Arnold’s death and released the body to the funeral home. He asked if Arnold had any enemies or secrets.
Ryan, who had stepped away from the family business to open his own dog training center, couldn’t imagine his father being involved in anything dishonest.
Without proof, Bradshaw promised to investigate, but Ryan knew he couldn’t just stand idly by.
He left Bella at home and went to the morgue.
There, he discovered that the coroner had recently retired and hadn’t been replaced.
With growing suspicions, he requested access to his father’s file, but a nurse denied him.
Ryan left a thousand dollars on the counter and, taking advantage of a distracted moment, slipped into the office.
The documents related to Arnold had disappeared.
While he was trying to process what was happening, his phone rang.
It was Mr. Stevens, his father’s lawyer.
The company had appointed Ryan as the new CEO, and Stevens was demanding an urgent meeting.
At the office, Ryan noticed that Arnold’s mailbox was empty. Nothing was left.
Stevens greeted him, and Ryan asked about his father’s computer, but what caught his attention most was another absence: two decorative figurines that had always been on the desk were gone.
Stevens claimed Arnold had taken them home, but Ryan had already looked there. They were gone.
The lawyer mentioned that Arnold had never managed to acquire the third figurine in the collection, whose owner refused to sell it for less than half a million dollars.
The conversation turned to the company’s financial status.
Stevens revealed that he was on the verge of collapse: investors were pulling out, and Arnold’s reputation had been damaged by his relationship with his new secretary, Miss Pearson.
Ryan felt a pang of revulsion. The thought that his father had betrayed his mother was unbearable.
But he held back. He needed answers, not more chaos.