Abuse My Daughter? I'll Wreck His Wake

My ex-husband was dead, and when his wife called me, it was not to inform me about the funeral. She wanted my six-year-old daughter to stand vigil for her father at the funeral parlor. “People will talk if his daughter does not do it.” I was away on a business trip, and I had to ask my ex-husband’s sister to look after my daughter. That lasted until two in the morning, when my daughter left voice messages on her smartwatch. “It’s cold, Mommy. There are so many drawers. It looks like someone is lying inside. The door is locked. I can’t get out.” She was locked inside the mortuary refrigerator at the funeral parlor. Her pediatrician had said that if a six-year-old remained in forty degrees Fahrenheit for more than four hours, their organs would start to fail. Chapter 1 “Mommy, I saw a really white hand when that cloth fell off.” My fingers dug into my palms as my hands trembled. “Do not look, Baby. Go to the door to skip and count from one to one hundred. Mommy will be there soon.” She sobbed while counting. “One, two, three.” Every number she said hit me like a hammer. I tried calling my ex-husband’s older sister, Florence Crumb, who picked up only after the phone rang about nine times. “Dottie? Edie said she brought Dottie back to the wake. I had a little too much to drink just now.” “Dottie is in the mortuary refrigerator. Wake up, Florence.” Only the sound of Florence turning over and snoring answered me. She was dead drunk. I shouted her name at least three times, but she did not respond. Florence never drank because of her weak stomach, and she always threw up the moment she consumed alcohol. Edie must have been the one who made her drink. I called Edie’s number with clenched teeth, and she picked up quickly. I heard a variety show playing on the television in the background. “Oh, are you talking about Dottie? She’s staying up the night to accompany her father. Kids should learn to honor their elders from a young age.” “She is not at the wake. You locked her inside the mortuary refrigerator.” Edie stayed silent for several seconds. “Tsk. That girl has such a big mouth. I told her to stay in there quietly, and I will let her out in the morning. The dead will not bite her, and her dad is in there with her. What are you so worried about?” The veins on my temple throbbed, and my jaw hurt from clenching my teeth. “Open that door right now, Edie. It is forty degrees Fahrenheit in there, and Dottie might end up spending four hours inside. She is a child, and her organs will fail. I will have it out with you if anything happens to her because of you.” Edie laughed. It sounded like the canned audience laughter from the variety show, which was fake as hell. “Who are you trying to scare? I have custody of her. Besides, it is the middle of the night, and I am too lazy to make the trip.” She yawned. “Come get her yourself if you insist on letting her out.” The line went dead. My arms trembled as I flung the phone at the bed, and it bounced in the air. I decided to call 911. “My daughter has been locked inside the mortuary refrigerator. She is six and wearing a thin dress. It is forty degrees in there, and she has been inside for almost two hours.” “Stay calm. The mortuary is under the jurisdiction of the suburbs. It will take the police thirty to forty minutes to get there.” “Forty minutes? She is only wearing a dress.” “We have already informed the patrolling officers. Please stay calm, Madam Shore.” After hanging up, I checked the flights right away. The earliest flight was at five thirty in the morning, and it would land at seven. The entire journey to reach her would take at least seven hours. I stared at my phone screen, which displayed the words ‘Tickets unavailable’. My phone rang again. Dottie had stopped counting, and her voice had changed. “Mommy, my feet hurt, and my shoes are gone. I’m so tired. I want to sleep.” I jumped and knocked my knee against the corner of the bed, but I did not notice the pain. Getting sleepy in low-temperature conditions was a sign of danger. If she fell asleep, her body temperature would continue dropping. “Do not fall asleep, Dottie. Stand up. Jump. Jump with all your might.” There was silence for several seconds. “I can’t jump anymore, Mommy. I don’t have any strength in my legs.” Dottie’s situation could not be delayed. There was no time. My university mate, Mandy Sussman, lived in the same city, and she was about twenty minutes away from the funeral parlor. It took four rings for her to pick up my call. “Who’s this calling in the middle of the night?” “Mandy. My daughter has been locked inside the mortuary refrigerator in South City’s funeral parlor. She will not make it. You are the only person who can reach her within thirty minutes.” “Funeral parlor?” “I am begging you.” “Give me the location. I will head there right away.” I shared the location with Mandy and ran out of my room barefoot in a hurry without my socks or luggage. All I needed were my phone and car keys. I could not wait for the elevator, and I used the fire escape to run down twelve flights of stairs. When I turned the corner, my arm slammed into the railings. I saw stars from the pain, but I did not stop. When I reached the underground parking, I started the engine, and my watch vibrated. A notification appeared, informing me that the body temperature of the wearer of the watch I was tracking was now at ninety-four degrees. The normal body temperature of a human being was ninety-eight point six degrees. My daughter’s body temperature was dropping. Chapter 2 My car was the only one speeding on the highway at one hundred miles per hour. My left hand stayed on the steering wheel, and my right hand clicked through my phone as I searched for a flight. When I reached the fourth company, a webpage appeared for a private flight. It was a small plane that could take off in the middle of the night, and the earliest flight was in an hour. It cost four thousand dollars, and I needed to transfer the money right away. It took me three tries to complete the transfer. My watch vibrated again, and I heard Dottie singing, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Dottie was breathless between every word she sang. She struggled to breathe, yet she tried to finish the song. I bit my lip until it bled, and I tasted blood in my mouth. She suddenly stopped singing. “I can’t sing anymore, Mommy. My lips feel hard, and I can’t open them.” Her lips were turning stiff. That meant her muscles were losing temperature. “Listen to me, Baby. Stand up and clap your hands. Clap hard. Clap loud enough, and Mommy will buy you that singing rabbit you wanted.” “I can’t do it, Mommy. My fingers won’t listen to me.” Her words made me press harder on the gas. My phone buzzed at that moment. It was a voice message from my superior, and his voice exploded in the car. “Nina, you’re the person in charge of the contract signing with Northern Industries at eight in the morning tomorrow. I don’t care what happened to your daughter. You need to be present, or I’ll dock forty-five thousand dollars from your pay for breach of contract.” I blocked his number right away. My daughter was alone with a group of corpses, and she was freezing so badly that she could hardly open her mouth, and these people were trying to blackmail me with forty-five thousand dollars. My phone vibrated again. This time, it was a call from 911. “Are the police there?” The voice on the other end sounded young and hesitant. “Madam Shore, we are already at the funeral parlor, but there is a Madam James at the wake, and she has a little girl by her side. The girl is wearing a pink jacket, and she told us she was staying with her father during his wake.” “That is not my daughter. That is her daughter. Have you asked the name of the girl?” The police officer asked the girl her name in a low voice, and a child replied, “My name is Sweety Crumb.” “Did you hear that? Her name is Sweety Crumb, not Dottie Crumb. My daughter is in the mortuary refrigerator, the room at the end in Building B.” There was a long silence before Edie’s voice was heard. She sounded soft and even choked back a sob. “Do not listen to her, Officer. Dottie is Sweety’s nickname. Her mother has been giving me trouble since she divorced my husband. She is always calling in the middle of the night to make up some lie.” Edie’s sobbing grew louder. “It has not been long since my husband’s passing, and she is already making a scene.” The veins on my temple throbbed, and the steering wheel squeaked under my grip. “She is lying. Open the door to Building B, and you will see for yourselves. All you need to do is take a look.” “Madam Shore, Madam James is the legal spouse of your ex-husband. She told us that the doors to the mortuary refrigerator are problematic and cannot be opened. We would need to wait for the supervisor to come in the morning to handle this. We cannot force open the door without a warrant.” “Are you going to do nothing and allow a six-year-old freeze to death inside?” There was no reply. “We will continue to assist in this investigation, Madam Shore. Please calm down.” After hanging up, I slammed the steering wheel three times, and the muffled sounds of my knuckles hitting the leather echoed in the car. A text notification appeared on my phone. It was from Edie, who had sent me a photo. Sweety was wearing the pink jacket I bought for Dottie last week, and she was sitting on a heating sofa at the wake with a bowl of hot cocoa in her hand while smiling sweetly. The text said, ‘What a good girl Sweety is to stay by her daddy’s side on behalf of her older sister. She is well-fed and staying warm. There is no need for you to worry about anything.’ One sister was enjoying cocoa in a stolen jacket, while the other was freezing among a group of corpses and hardly able to open her mouth. My phone rang again. It was a video call from Mandy. “I’m here, Nina. The doors to the funeral parlor are locked, and the security guard refuses to open them for me. I told him a little girl was about to freeze to death inside, but he insists he will not open the doors for non-family members at midnight.” “Climb over the walls. The wall is lower on the east side. You can climb over there.” Mandy paused for a second before replying, “All right.” I heard Mandy trying to get over the wall through the phone. The metal gates clanged when she grabbed them, and her clothes tore on the sharp ends of the gate. After that, I heard her land on the ground and take a sharp breath from the pain. “All right, I’m in. I’m heading toward Building B right now.” Mandy ran frantically, and her breathing grew heavier, but she suddenly stopped. “I’m here. It is a gray, short building with a metal door, but there is a huge lock on it.” “Try listening through the door.” There was a long silence. My hands were sweating as I gripped the steering wheel, and I almost lost my hold as the moisture made it slippery. Mandy’s tone changed. “I can hear her. It is really soft, but it sounds like she is crying. Dottie is alive, Nina.” “Break down that door. Get a brick and break the lock.” The sound of a brick hit the metal. Clang. “I can’t do it. This is an industrial-grade lock. The brick broke apart, but the lock is unscathed. My hands are bleeding, but I can’t get it open.” “Do not stop hitting the lock.” That was when I stopped hearing anything from Mandy’s end. I saw a flash of light from someone’s flashlight, and I heard the footsteps of more than one person. Edie’s voice came through the dark. “That is her. She is the trespasser. What is security doing?” I heard Mandy struggling as she was dragged away. “Let me go. There is a child in there.” A rough male voice covered hers. “Stop moving, or we will call the police. Throw her out of here.” The call ended. I tried calling back, but no one picked up. Chapter 3 A minute later, Mandy called me back while catching her breath through gritted teeth. “I was thrown out by four people, Nina. They threw me right over the wall.” She paused before saying, “Sorry.” “It is not your fault. Call the police again and tell them that a minor has been held against her will. You are a witness because you heard her crying.” “All right.” It was four ten in the morning when I arrived at the airport. My private plane was parked in the hangar. The pilot was about fifty, and he was conducting a final check before the flight. “We still need twenty minutes.” “Make it ten, and I will pay you another thousand dollars.” The pilot turned to glance at me. Tears streamed down my face, and I was barefoot, while my clothes were covered in dust. He started working faster without another word. My watch vibrated, and I answered the call. Weak breathing could be heard on the other end. It was slow, short, and took too much time between inhales. “Dottie.” There was no reply. It took me six shouts for Dottie to finally react. “Mommy, Daddy’s here. He wants me to take a nap with him. I’m so tired.” Dottie’s father had died three days ago, and his body was kept in the mortuary refrigerator where she was. My six-year-old was starting to hallucinate her father talking to her. “Listen to me, Dottie. You cannot fall asleep. Stand up. Jump.” There was no reply, and Dottie’s breathing sounded weaker. My watch showed that her body temperature was ninety-three degrees. It was getting lower. “Dottie. Answer me.” No sound came from her. The pilot called out for me to board the plane, and when the door closed behind me, the phone’s signal became unsteady with one bar left, then half a bar. The first person I called was Leo Shore, my big brother. “Leo, I land at five thirty in the morning. Come pick me up and head straight to South City Funeral Parlor.” Leo did not question me. “I’m on the way.” My second call was to my lawyer, Evan Channing. “The cloud has all the audio recordings, screenshots, and call records. If anything happens to my daughter, I want her sued for everything.” “Your daughter will be fine, Nina.” My phone’s signal was lost, and so was the internet connection to my watch. Everything looked dark below from thirty thousand feet in the air. I had no idea if Dottie was still breathing, nor did I know if her temperature had continued dropping from ninety-three degrees. I wondered if she had closed her eyes and followed behind her father as she fell asleep. I had no idea what was happening, and there was nothing I could do. Every second felt like death as I sat on the plane, gripping my phone, which had no signal. The wheels of the plane screeched on the ground at five twenty-eight in the morning. I turned on my phone and received a flood of texts. I had twelve missed calls and three voice messages from Mandy. Her first message said, ‘The police are here, but Edie is hugging Sweety and crying at the wake, claiming that you are making up stories.’ The police had been tricked again. Mandy followed with a second message. ‘I begged them to check Building B, but Edie’s brother-in-law came over to accuse me of trespassing and pushed me.’ Her voice was hoarse in the third message. ‘I tried everything. I’m so sorry.’ Edie’s voice message was from forty-two minutes ago. ‘Are you still up in the air? It will be morning by the time you arrive.’ The last notification on my watch was from forty minutes ago, recording Dottie’s temperature at ninety-two degrees. Her heart rate was forty-eight beats per minute. A normal child’s heartbeat should be around eighty to one hundred thirty. It was still dark outside when I barged out of the plane and went down the airstairs. Leo’s car was parked right outside the landing field with the engine running. I jumped into the car, and Leo only glanced at me before stepping on the gas. Leo’s car sped into the morning mist. We were thirty minutes away from the funeral parlor, and it had been more than four hours since my daughter had been locked inside. Chapter 4 Leo drove like he was a man on a mission. He did not hit the brakes when he reached a bend, and he did not flinch when the truck opposite honked and flashed at him. He sped past everything with a sharp turn of the steering wheel. I grabbed my seat, and my nails dug into the upholstery as I stared at the GPS. Two miles. One point seven miles. “Hurry up, Leo.” Leo stayed silent as he increased the speed from seventy-five miles per hour to eighty-five miles per hour. It was six oh five in the morning when the metal gates of the funeral parlor appeared through the mist in front of us, locked. Before I said anything, Leo stepped on the gas, and his car crashed into the metal gates. The sound of metal cracking echoed through the streets. The railings were pulled out of the ground and dragged below the car as sparks flew everywhere. Leo pulled the emergency brake right outside Building B, and I dashed out of the car. The metal doors were closed, and four people stood outside. They were Edie, her brother-in-law, her cousin, and a staff member from the funeral parlor. Edie blocked the door with her arms crossed. She panicked for a second before putting up a fierce front. “Are you crazy, Nina? You just destroyed public property. I’ve already called the police. Be prepared to go to prison.” I did not look at her. I looked past her shoulder at the metal doors behind her. My daughter was inside with a body temperature of ninety-two degrees and a heartbeat of forty-eight beats per minute. I moved forward, and Edie’s brother-in-law reached out with his thick arms to stop me. He was five feet nine and weighed about one hundred ninety pounds, which made him big enough to block my way completely. “You should know what is good for you and stay where you are.” Leo grabbed him by the back of the neck before he finished speaking, and his feet left the ground. Leo flung him into a nearby flower bed like a sandbag, and the vases broke into pieces. “Anyone who stands in the way should get lost.” Edie lunged forward with a scream and scratched my neck, leaving three bloody marks with her nails. I grabbed her wrist and flung it away. “Get lost.” She crashed into the wall and fell to the ground, howling. Her cousin took a small step forward, then backed off when Leo glanced at him. The first door was locked with an industry-grade metal chain through the handles. There was a fire hydrant box at the corner of the wall, and I opened the glass box with my bare hands. The metal sides cut my palm, and blood streamed down, but I did not care. I grabbed the bolt cutter and tried to cut the chain with every ounce of strength in my arms. Leo came to help me press down on the bolt cutter, and the wound on my hand tore open again. Blood dripped down the bolt cutter. Crack. The chain finally broke, and I pulled it out to open the door. Edie screamed behind me. “I’ll sue all of you for trespassing.” The corridor was dark and cold, and the smell of formalin filled our nostrils. When we reached the second door at the end of the corridor, we found an electronic lock that could not be destroyed. I flung the bolt cutter at it, and sparks flew everywhere. I smashed the LED screen, and the electronic lock kept beeping, but the door stayed locked. Leo and I tried to destroy it by inserting the bolt cutter into a space in between. Our sweat and blood dripped onto the cement ground, and finally, we heard a crack. We widened the space in between and jerked the bolt cutter at the same time. The aluminum doorframe bent out of shape. We dashed inside. It was the holding space of the mortuary refrigerator with two rows of stainless steel cadaver storage units. A pale emergency green light shone on the storage unit doors. At the end of the corridor was a third door. It was a walk-in mortuary refrigerator with a metal stick stuck through the handles in a deadlock. I ran forward to pull out the metal stick, but my fingers were covered with blood, and my grip was slippery. I used the bolt cutter to grip the end of the stick, hitting it hard and pulling it over and over. Leo and I took turns, and the metal stick slowly loosened. It snapped out of the door handle with a loud crack. The door handle was circular, and I turned it once, twice, and at the third turn, the door opened with a hiss. The freezing air of forty degrees hit us, and the emergency light turned off. The doors on both sides of the cadaver storage units were half-open, revealing corners of white-cloth-covered corpses. When I rushed into the deepest corner of the room, I found Dottie curled up in a ball on the floor between two storage units. She was not wearing shoes, and her thin dress was covered with dirt and dust. Dottie looked extremely pale, and her lips had turned gray. Frost covered her lashes, and her fingernails were purple. She was not moving at all. I dashed toward her, and my knees hit the cold ground as I picked her up in my arms. She was light. Too light. She was cold as ice from inside to outside. I touched her face, which no longer had warmth. “Dottie. Dottie. Mommy’s here. Mommy’s right here.” There was no response. I placed my ear against her chest, but my heartbeat was too loud to hear anything, so I held my breath. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. A very weak heartbeat could still be heard, but it was beating too slowly. I took off my jacket to wrap it around her and ran out with Dottie in my arms. “Call 911. Quick.”