Chapter 3 - The Empty CasketTwo days later, the rain poured down over the historic St. Jude Cemetery in downtown Savannah like an act of divine mourning.
Under a black umbrella, Garrett Corbin stood at the edge of an open grave, wearing a tailored charcoal suit that looked expensive and impeccably dry. Beside him stood Penelope, her hand resting delicately on his arm, her posture projecting the picture of grieving sisterly tragedy.
From the shadows of a massive live oak tree fifty yards away, through the screen of my binoculars, I watched my husband wipe a dry, theatrical tear from his eye as the polished mahogany casket—filled with heavy sandbags and lead weights—was slowly lowered into the earth.
"Look at him," Tobias whispered beside me, standing upright, dressed in a plain black hoodie and dark jeans. "He’s already calculating the tax write-offs."
"He looks happy," I said, my voice chillingly calm as I watched Penelope whisper something into Garrett's ear that made him smile faintly. "Look at her stomach. She's showing."
"Five months," Tobias confirmed. "Which means their affair started right around the time Garrett convinced you to step down from the primary board meetings at the shipyard."
The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place with terrifying clarity. Every overseas business trip, every late-night conference call, every weekend he spent "inspecting regional warehouses"—it had all been a facade to build an alternative life with Penelope, funded by our family's assets and secured by my planned murder.
"The funeral ends in ten minutes," Tobias checked his watch. "The local sheriff is going to hand Garrett the preliminary coroner’s certificate of presumed drowning. Once he signs that, he legally assumes controlling interest of the shipyard tomorrow morning at the emergency board meeting."
"Not if we get there first," I said.
"If we walk into that boardroom right now, Garrett will have us arrested or worse before we can open our mouths," Tobias warned. "We need his confession. We need him to admit on record—in front of the board—that he engineered the crash and poisoned your milk."
"How do we get a confession from a man who thinks I'm six feet under?"
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A slow, dangerous smile crept across Tobias’s face. He reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a sleek, high-definition electronic tablet linked to a secure local broadcast frequency.
"By throwing him a resurrection party he’ll never forget."
