Chapter 2 - The Buzz Came From Rachel’s Old Reminder Timer
The sound near Rachel had not come from the casket.
It came from a small canvas medical tote placed on the side table beside it.
Sarah found the source after Leo left the room.
A palm-sized vibration timer.
No microphone.
No recording.
No communication function.
Rachel had used it during treatment because some of her medications needed to be taken on a strict schedule.
Sarah recognized it immediately.
So did Marcus.
The timer had been programmed for:
11:45 p.m.
The scheduled buzzing had not been supernatural.
It had been deliberate.
Rachel had set it before she died.
Sarah knew that because she had helped.
That became the first thing Sarah did not want to admit.
Marcus looked at her.
“You knew.”
“Partly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Rachel asked me three weeks ago to make sure the timer was in her memorial bag.”
“You helped her stage this?”
“No.”
“Sarah.”
She closed her eyes.
“She said Leo would remember something when he heard it.”
Marcus stared.
“And you allowed her to involve him?”
“I didn’t know she put a claim ticket in the bear.”
That was true.
Not enough.
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“So everybody gets to be horrified by me, but Rachel can turn our son into a delivery system from her casket?”
Sarah flinched.
“She was scared.”
“So was I.”
That sentence complicated the room.
Not enough to make Marcus right.
Enough to prevent Sarah from turning him into something easier than he was.
The scheduled home wake was supposed to end at midnight.
Rachel had requested that the casket remain open until the immediate family said goodbye.
Marcus had been trying to close it eighteen minutes early.
Why?
He admitted:
Because Rachel had spent the last month of her life talking about:
“originals.”
Original agreements.
Original valuation certificates.
Original board minutes.
Original shareholder schedules.
Marcus believed she might hide:
an envelope,
a note,
a document
somewhere among her memorial belongings.
He did not believe she had placed anything on her body.
He did believe Sarah might place something:
near the casket.
“I wanted the wake over.”
Sarah stared.
“Because you were afraid of paperwork?”
“Because my wife died six days ago and somehow her funeral had become another corporate ambush.”
Sarah looked down at the archive ticket.
He was not entirely wrong.
Then the basement.
Caleb eventually came upstairs.
He carried nothing.
Sarah had told Cole to remain at the stairwell until he did.
Caleb looked embarrassed when he entered the living room.
“What were you moving?”
“An archive cabinet.”
“Why?”
“Crescent Oak’s accountants asked for Rachel’s financial files.”
“Tonight?”
Marcus answered.
“I told him to get them while family was here.”
Sarah looked at him in disbelief.
“That makes it worse.”
Marcus rubbed both hands over his face.
“I did not want to come back tomorrow and have everybody accuse me of stealing files.”
“So you sent Caleb downstairs during the wake.”
“Yes.”
Caleb added:
“The waterproofing crew starts Monday. The cabinet needed moving anyway.”
True.
The contractor schedule was on the kitchen counter.
Yet Caleb had also been looking for:
Rachel’s valuation binder.
That was not on any waterproofing list.
When Sarah asked why he told everyone upstairs to leave, Caleb looked ashamed.
“I panicked.”
“And the children knowing too much?”
“I heard Leo talking about the teddy.”
“What exactly do children know too much about?”
Caleb did not answer.
Marcus did.
“The buy-sell agreement.”
Sarah slowly turned.
Crescent Oak Learning Systems.
The company Rachel and Marcus had founded twelve years earlier.
The company Sarah also owned a piece of.
The company whose succession agreement had been written partly by Sarah herself.
She felt the first cold edge of recognition.
“What about it?”
Marcus looked directly at her.
“You know exactly what happens to Rachel’s shares now.”
Sarah did.
At least she thought she did.
Rachel owned:
35%.
Marcus:
40%.
Sarah:
15%.
Employee ownership trust:
10%.
Under the current shareholder agreement, Rachel’s shares would be redeemed by the company after her death.
The purchase price would be determined by the most recent signed Annual Agreed Value Certificate.
Sarah suddenly stopped breathing.
The last certificate had been signed almost three years earlier.
Before Crescent Oak’s largest expansion.
Before revenue nearly doubled.
Before Rachel became sick.
Sarah looked toward the archive claim ticket.
Then at Marcus.
“How old is the current value?”
Marcus said nothing.
Sarah already knew.
Three years.
May you like
For the first time, she understood why Rachel had moved the originals.
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