CHAPTER 2
775 Words
The Harrington funeral was held three days later under a sky that refused to rain.
Eva thought it was cruel of the weather—this insistence on calm, on light, on pretending nothing had broken. The cemetery was immaculate, manicured hedges lining a pathway of polished stone. Black cars arrived in slow succession, doors opening to release grief dressed in tailored suits and expensive perfumes.
Wealth mourned differently.
There were no loud cries, no public collapses. Just murmurs. Nods. Controlled expressions that said how tragic without ever meaning how unfair.
Eva stood at the front beside two coffins.
One large. One smaller.
Her hands were folded neatly in front of her, gloved in black. Her posture was perfect, her face composed in a way that made people whisper about her strength. They did not know it wasn’t strength holding her upright.
It was focus.
She watched everything.
Former colleagues of her husband approached first—men who had once laughed too loudly at his jokes and shaken his hand too eagerly. Their condolences were practiced.
“He was a brilliant man.”
“A terrible loss.”
“Our thoughts are with you.”
Eva thanked them softly, her eyes searching their faces for cracks. For guilt. For relief. Some avoided her gaze entirely.
Interesting.
Her son’s friends stood farther back, unsure where they belonged in a space so formal, so unforgiving. Their youth looked out of place against polished marble and quiet power. One girl cried openly, mascara streaking down her face. Eva noticed her hands trembling.
That grief was real.
She stored that away too.
The service began. The priest spoke of legacy, of love, of lives well lived and ended too soon. Eva listened as though from a distance, her mind replaying the night over and over again—not the deaths, but the timing. The precision. The message.
Two lives. One night.
Not random.
When it was time to lower the coffins, Eva stepped closer. The earth waited patiently, indifferent to wealth and reputation. She felt the weight in her chest shift—not ease, not grow, just move. Like something rearranging itself inside her.
This is where it ends, they thought.
She almost smiled.
As the crowd began to disperse, the real funeral started—the quiet negotiations of power and presence. People who had never set foot in her home before spoke as though they had known her family intimately.
A woman she barely recognized squeezed her arm. “If there’s anything you need…”
Eva nodded politely.
There was always something people could give. They just didn’t like when she asked.
Then she saw him.
He stood near the back, half-shadowed beneath a tree, dressed well enough to belong but distant enough to avoid conversation. Eva did not recognize his face, but she recognized his stillness. He was not grieving.
He was watching.
Their eyes met.
For a fraction of a second, something flickered across his expression—surprise, perhaps. Or calculation. Then it was gone, replaced by polite neutrality. He turned away and blended into the departing crowd.
Eva did not move.
She memorized the angle of his shoulders. The way his hand lingered near his coat pocket. The absence of emotion.
He should not have been there.
A voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Mrs. Harrington.”
She turned to see one of the police officers from the hospital, dressed today in black instead of blue. His expression was softer, more human. Less guarded.
“I wanted to check on you,” he said. “See how you’re holding up.”
Eva looked back at the graves. “Do I have a choice?”
He hesitated. “The investigation is ongoing. We’re doing everything—”
“I know,” she said gently. “That’s what you said before.”
The officer lowered his voice. “If you remember anything—anything at all—that seems out of place…”
Eva met his eyes. “Everything is out of place.”
He didn’t argue.
After he left, Eva remained where she was long after the last guest departed. The cemetery grew quiet, the kind of silence that presses in on you, waiting for permission to speak.
Her driver approached carefully. “Mrs. Harrington, it’s getting late.”
Eva nodded. As she turned to leave, her gaze drifted once more across the now-empty grounds.
The man beneath the tree was gone.
But the feeling remained.
Someone had come not to mourn, but to confirm.
And for the first time since that night, Eva felt something sharpen inside her grief.
They were still watching her.
Good.
Let them.
- Writer
