Page 36 of Unveiled

Silently vowing to treasure these items and memories later, she riffled through the rest looking for something, anything, to clue her in to what was going on with Dale or if her father had suspected anything.

Pouring through her dad’s most treasured items was both beautiful and heart wrenching. She noted the tiny golden bear that belonged to her as a baby that he kept in his nightstand for years. The almost empty pack of cigarettes that belonged to his father and various old, well-worn pictures. While shuffling through them, a new one caught her eye.

It was Dale talking with an unsavory man. The next was Dale loading a casket into the back of the hearse. The rest were more old pics. Placing the others back in the dash, she studied the two grainy ones of Dale. Why were these important? “Ugh. Help me out, dad. What do these mean?” One fluttered from her hand to the floor mat and landed face down, and that’s when she saw her father’s handwriting.

It was a date and time. Along with what seemed like disconnected words to anyone else, but to her or her mother, it was a wealth of information. She checked the back of the other one to find more of the same. Her dad suspected Dale was using the funeral home for something illegal, but he had no proof. He was investigating bodies heading to certain cemeteries that Dale did the intake and sign out for. It seemed he also noticed a discrepancy in the cremation records and transfer of cremains.

“What the hell?” Tatum had to check her sanity because she was speaking aloud a lot more than she had ever done before. There was only one way to confirm her dad’s suspicions. That was to check out the funeral home and see the business records there. Her dad would’ve left them filed as normal so as not to raise Dale’s suspicion. She closed the dash and made her way across the property. Dale’s car wasn’t there. She was alone for a little while and she needed to make every second count.

The door and alarm codes were the same, so she got right in. It was a weird thing to miss a funeral home, but she did. Every inch of the place reminded her of her parents and their love of easing grieving families’ minds by caring deeply for their loved ones. For a childhood surrounded by loss, it was full of love and wasn’t sad. Something about how her parents cared made the loss a thing of healing instead of hurt.

The office was in slight disarray, but nothing like the home office. Grabbing a stack of cremation and body transfer records, she sat down for the long haul. It was the first time she was thankful for her study of accounting.

She’d just settled in and was lost in comparing numbers when the office door opened and Dale stood there, seething in her direction.

“Hello, wife.” He spat the last word at her.

“I’m not your wife, Dale, and I never will be.”

He slammed the door closed and stalked toward her. “Oh, I beg to differ. You are in every way that matters according to the law.”

“You can take your forged wedding certificate and shove it up your ass along with the will your father doctored for you.” Dale stopped in his tracks and turned his head to the side, studying her like an insect. “Yeah, I figured that out. My only question is why? Why does this place mean so much to you that you’d kill my parents and fake their will? Why?” Tatum hadn’t meant to let her emotions shine through, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t tip her hat that she knew anything more or that her father had his suspicions, but she’d said more than she should’ve already.

Dale’s smile was terrifying as he approached the desk.

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