Three Knocks Beneath the Hymn
Chapter 02 - Three Knocks Beneath the Hymn
The minister began the service before Daniel could object. His voice filled the room with familiar words about peace, memory, and eternal rest, but Daniel heard none of them. Every few seconds, his gaze returned to the coffin.
He remembered his father’s last voicemail, left only four days earlier. Richard had sounded tired but alert. He had asked Daniel to come home because “the numbers no longer make sense.” Daniel had assumed he meant the foundation’s finances. Now the message felt like a warning delivered too late.
As the first hymn began, Daniel moved toward the coffin again. Vivian stepped directly into his path.
“Do not make a scene,” she said through a frozen smile.
“I heard knocking.”
“You heard the heating system.”
“The sound came from the coffin.”
Her smile vanished. “Your father is dead, Daniel. Accept it.”
Aunt Miriam joined them, pretending to straighten the flowers. “The medical examiner never contacted me,” she murmured without looking at Daniel. “And Richard’s longtime doctor says he did not sign the certificate.”
Daniel felt the room tilt.
Before he could answer, Vivian raised her voice and asked everyone to bow their heads. The guests obeyed. Under the cover of prayer, two attendants quietly rolled the coffin toward the hallway.
Daniel followed, but a broad-shouldered man he recognized as Grant Keller, the foundation’s attorney, blocked the doorway. Grant had handled every Bennett contract for nearly a decade and had once spent Christmas morning assembling a bicycle for Lily. That familiarity made the coldness in his face more disturbing.
“The burial schedule changed,” Grant said. “The cemetery requested an earlier arrival.”
“Since when does a cemetery rush a family?”
“Since weather is moving in.”
Outside, sunlight poured across a cloudless sky.
Daniel shoved past him. The attendants were already guiding the coffin toward the waiting hearse. As the wheels crossed the threshold, Daniel heard another sound. Not knocking this time, but a muffled cry, so weak it might have been the groan of metal.
He grabbed the handle. One attendant pulled it away.
Vivian’s voice cut across the porch. “Daniel, stop humiliating your father.”
Everyone turned toward him. Phones rose. Guests whispered. For one dangerous moment, Daniel wondered if grief had broken his judgment.
Then his phone vibrated.
May you like
The message came from Lily’s number.
DANIEL, IF YOU ARE AT THE FUNERAL, DO NOT LET THEM BURY THAT COFFIN.
