The green line jumped again.
For half a second, no one in the cremation corridor seemed to understand what it meant.
The monitor gave a thin electronic chirp, then another, each one cutting through the roar of the furnace behind them.
The paramedic pressed two fingers against Alejandro’s neck.
“He has a pulse.”
Sophia made a sound that was neither a sob nor a scream.
Dr.
Thomas Morris stopped struggling against the police officer holding his arm.
Daniel gripped the edge of the coffin and stared down at his brother.
Alejandro’s face looked waxen beneath the funeral-home makeup.
His lips were pale.
His eyelids remained shut.
Nothing about him suggested life except the faint rise beneath his shirt and the stubborn rhythm crawling across the monitor.
“Alejandro,” Daniel said.
“I’m here.
You’re not going into that fire.”
Inside his unmoving body, Alejandro heard every word.
Relief struck him so hard it almost felt like pain.
The paramedics moved quickly.
They cut open his shirt, placed oxygen over his face, and inserted an intravenous line.
One called the emergency department while another asked the police to photograph everything before the coffin was moved.
Sophia recovered first.
“This is a mistake,” she said.
“My husband was pronounced dead this morning.
He had no heartbeat.
Thomas examined him himself.”
The older officer looked at Morris.
“You signed the death certificate?”
Morris swallowed.
“I did.
Based on his condition at the time.”
Daniel slapped the supplier receipt against the officer’s chest.
“He also bought the drug that put him in that coffin.”
Morris’s eyes flicked toward Sophia.
It was brief, but everyone saw it.
Sophia immediately stepped away from him.
“I don’t know anything about that vial,” she said.
“Thomas handled Alejandro’s medications.”
“You wrote the note,” Daniel said.
“Anyone could imitate handwriting.”
“It came from your kitchen trash.”
“Our staff use that kitchen.
Visitors use it.
Daniel has access to the house too.”
Her voice grew steadier with every sentence.
She was building a defense before her husband had even left the coffin.
Morris heard it too.
“Sophia,” he said quietly.
She did not look at him.
The paramedics transferred Alejandro onto a stretcher.
When they lifted him, a sound escaped his throat—only a breath caught against the oxygen mask, but Daniel leaned close.
“I know,” he whispered.
“Save your strength.”
Alejandro wanted to tell him everything.
He wanted to say that he had heard Sophia celebrate.
He wanted to identify Morris, describe the coffee, and repeat every word they had spoken over his body.
His tongue remained useless.
As the stretcher rolled toward the ambulance, the police separated Sophia and Morris.
The funeral home was sealed as a crime scene.
The coffin, furnace controls, surveillance recordings, and paperwork were photographed and collected.
Outside, mourners stood beneath the portico in stunned silence.
Some had spent the afternoon comforting Sophia.
Others had praised Morris for remaining so composed after losing his oldest friend.
Now they watched both of them being placed in separate police cars.
Sophia turned toward Daniel before an officer closed the door.
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” she said.
Daniel stared back at her.
“I stopped you from murdering my brother.”
Her expression changed then.
The grief vanished completely.
“You should hope he never wakes up enough to talk.”
