“I saw her,” Addie said, staring him down with a bravery that didn’t match her small frame. “In a beat-up house. Rusty bars on the windows. She had her hair tied back and she looked… tired. But it was her. The same lady.”

Grant’s stomach turned.

He remembered the rushed paperwork. The closed door. The polite refusal. The sealed casket.

He stood slowly and looked at the casket like it was suddenly an enemy.

“Open it,” he said.

A funeral director stepped forward, pale. “Mr. Holloway, we can’t—”

“Open it,” Grant repeated, louder, the words hitting the air like a command no one dared to refuse. “If my wife is in there, I need to see her. And if she isn’t… then someone has been playing with my life.”

No one moved for a heartbeat.