The birth date — wrong. She could not have been born that year, he knew that for certain. The death date — also didn’t match. According to the documents, she had died earlier than what was engraved there.

He stood up, stepped back, and looked at the stone again, this time carefully. The dates were engraved differently — the depth and shade were not the same. As if they had been added later, over the previous ones.

He ran his finger across the stone and felt, beneath the polished surface, the traces of older numbers. Someone had erased the real dates and engraved new ones.

And then the thought, so chilling that it froze his blood, became undeniable: