Chapter 3 - The Wrong Corpse
The silence of the dressing room felt heavier now, pressing down on Adrian’s shoulders with the weight of an oncoming avalanche. He stared at the Swiss bank statement, his eyes scanning the columns of numbers. Millions of dollars—transferred out of Claire’s personal trust and funneled through a web of shell corporations directly into an account controlled by Madison.
How was this possible?
Claire’s trust fund was tied to strict family provisions. The principal could only be touched upon her death or with her explicit biometric authorization. If she was dead, the funds legally transferred to Adrian as her sole surviving spouse. If she was alive, the funds remained locked under her name.
Unless someone had legally proved she was dead.
Adrian picked up the next document in the stack. It was a medical examiner’s preliminary autopsy report from the Lake Forest County Morgue, stamped with a confidential classification.
His eyes raced across the text.
“Subject: White female, approximate age 28-32. Cause of death: Asphyxiation due to freshwater drowning, blunt force trauma to the cranium consistent with vehicular collision.”
Adrian’s pulse thudded in his ears. He remembered identifying the body at the county morgue three years ago. It had been a harrowing, agonizing experience. The corpse was waterlogged, battered from the violent crash, its features distorted by days in the freezing river.
At the time, grief had blinded him. Margaret had stood beside him, weeping into a lace handkerchief, whispering that it was Claire, that the dental records matched, that the ring found nearby confirmed her identity. The authorities had rushed the paperwork through, eager to close the high-profile case during a brutal storm season.
But as Adrian read further down the coroner’s confidential addendum, a cold sweat broke out across his skin.
“Secondary findings: Post-mortem dental analysis reveals discrepancies in molar restoration compared to antemortem dental charts provided by family dental registry. DNA extraction pending secondary verification.”
Adrian froze.
Secondary verification.
He flipped the page. Stapled to the back of the medical report was a follow-up memo from an independent forensic pathologist dated three days after the burial. It noted that DNA samples taken from the corpse did not match the genetic profile of Claire Westwood.
In fact, the DNA belonged to an unidentified female matching Claire’s general height and build, reported missing from Chicago forty-eight hours before the accident.
The paper slipped from Adrian’s fingers, fluttering silently down onto the Persian rug.
The woman buried in the Westwood family plot three years ago... was not Claire.
A violent wave of dizziness washed over him. The woman who had been eulogized, wept over, and buried beneath a headstone bearing Claire’s name was a stranger. A decoy.
Which meant Claire had never been in that car when it plunged into the ravine.
And if Claire hadn't been in the car, where was she?
The memory of Claire’s frantic phone call from three years ago slammed back into Adrian’s brain with terrifying clarity, replaying in his mind like a horror film.
“Adrian! There’s something I need to tell you about Madison.”
She hadn't called to chat about dinner plans. She had called because she discovered something catastrophic about the woman she had welcomed into their home as a friend and assistant. Madison had been systematically stealing her identity, siphoning her assets, and planning her removal.
And the night Claire tried to expose her, someone had hunted her down.
Adrian stood up so abruptly that his chair crashed backward onto the floor. The red Cartier box tumbled open, scattering the platinum ring and the documents across the dark wood.
He didn't care about the mess.
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His mind was burning with a single, overriding imperative.
He had to get back downstairs.
