I thought I was saying my final goodbye to my wife. Then something happened that made me call for help immediately. Minutes later, a family secret began to unravel.

PART 1

“Close the gate! That woman is not allowed at my wife’s funeral.”

I still find it hard to admit that those cruel words came out of my own mouth.

That cold December morning, the Oakridge Memorial Cemetery in Cedar Rapids was wrapped in a thick fog. I, Conrad Pendelton, a forty-nine-year-old businessman and head of the Pendelton Enterprises, could not think about business contracts or corporate strategies. Before me lay the plain wooden casket of Vivienne, my cherished wife of twenty-two years.

The previous evening, Dr. Lucas Albright from a local private clinic had informed me that she did not survive a sudden systemic collapse.