Whispers of the Dead

The funeral was supposed to be a celebration of life, or so the program said in neat, italicized font, printed on thick ivory paper. But all I could feel, standing beneath the pale sky that hung over the cemetery, was a hollowness that mocked every word spoken from the pulpit.

I stood at the edge of the gathering, away from the cluster of mourners. Billionaire or not, I didn’t belong among them. These were her family, her so-called friends, the people who had held her close in the life I had only watched from afar. I had no right to grieve publicly. No one here would understand why a man like me, someone the tabloids loved to paint as untouchable, would have tears clinging stubbornly to the corners of his eyes.

The air was heavy with lilies and damp earth. Max’s photograph rested at the front — framed, smiling, that same smile that once cracked open my universe in the stale fluorescent halls of our high school. My chest tightened.

I remembered that day so clearly: her glance, her smile, the warmth that had seeped into my bones and stayed there, like a brand. I had built empires since then, crossed oceans, conquered industries. Yet all I could think about, standing here in my thousand-dollar suit, was how powerless I had been then… and how powerless I felt now.

“Rest in peace,” the priest intoned.

Peace. The word tasted bitter. Because something in my gut screamed that peace wasn’t what she had found.

I wasn’t naïve. I knew funerals were more for the living than the dead. And yet, as the mourners dispersed into clusters of whispers, I caught fragments of conversations that made my pulse quicken.

“She fell, that’s what they said.”

“Tragic accident.”

“Strange, though, don’t you think?”

“She was always so careful.”

“She and Alex seemed… different, lately.”

Alex. The name was a knife twisted into old wounds. The football captain who had stolen the moment I’d prepared for, the man who had once been her world. He stood now, black suit impeccable, his arm curled around another woman’s shoulders — her best friend.

A cold coil twisted in my stomach. Their expressions were rehearsed. Controlled. The grief looked like a mask, too symmetrical, too perfect.

For a man who’d built an empire reading boardrooms and stock markets, I knew when someone was playing a role. And that… that was a performance.

I shouldn’t have been here. My driver had tried to dissuade me. “Sir, it’ll attract press. They’ll spin stories.”

But I couldn’t stay away.

Max’s death had cracked open a vault I’d buried deep — the memories of youth, the ache of unspoken words, the soft what-ifs that had haunted me across decades.

I remembered our graduation day. She had been radiant in her gown, sunlight catching in her hair. I had stood yards away, diploma in hand, my throat thick with words I couldn’t say. Alex had kissed her on the field, and the crowd had erupted with applause. I had clapped too, because what else could I do?

And now, decades later, here I was, clapping silently for a coffin lowered into the ground.

The applause had ended.

I left the funeral with questions rattling in my skull like loose bolts.

By the time my car pulled away from the cemetery gates, I had already made the call.

“Marcus,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended.

“Sir?” My head of security and… fixer, for lack of a better word, answered immediately.

“I want everything on Maxine Carter’s death. Every police report, every witness statement, every detail the public hasn’t seen. Discreetly. Understand?”

A pause. “Of course, sir.”

I hung up before he could ask why.

Why? Because the mask of grief I had seen today wasn’t grief at all. And because something deep in me, something irrational and stubborn, refused to accept that she was simply… gone.

That night, the city stretched below me like a glittering tapestry. I sat in the glass-walled living room of my penthouse, a glass of bourbon untouched at my side.

The yearbook lay open on my lap. My fingers traced the faded ink of signatures from classmates long forgotten.

Good luck, Victor! You’ll do great things!

Don’t forget us when you’re famous.

Empty words.

And then, there was hers.

Hey, DeLuca. You always seem like you’re ten steps ahead of everyone in class. Don’t let them make you feel small. — Max

Just a scribble, nothing that would mean much to anyone else. But to me, it was proof. Proof that she had noticed. Proof that, for one fleeting moment, I hadn’t been invisible.

I pressed the page flat and shut my eyes.

I had all the money in the world, all the power a man could crave, and still… still, I would give it all up for one more smile from her.

Three days later, Marcus stood in my office, placing a manila folder on my desk.

“Preliminary findings, sir.”

I opened it with impatient fingers.

Police report: accidental fall. No signs of forced entry. No witnesses besides the husband and best friend. Coroner’s report: blunt force trauma. Closed case.

“Too clean,” I muttered.

Marcus inclined his head. “There were… discrepancies. Neighbors reported shouting earlier that night. Police didn’t follow up.”

“Why not?”

“Pressure. Influence. The husband has connections.”

Of course.

My jaw tightened. The pieces didn’t fit. Shouting. A fall. Two witnesses with perfectly aligned stories.

Accidents left jagged edges. This… this was polished.

I stared at her picture clipped to the file. A warmth in her eyes, a spark that no paper could contain.

“No,” I whispered. “This isn’t over.”

The tabloids loved to pair my name with others. Models, actors, even royalty. The pictures showed smiles, champagne flutes clinking, bodies pressed together under flashing lights.

But it was all smoke. Distraction.

There was no intimacy in them, no meaning. My lovers — if you could even call them that — were temporary, their faces blurring into each other. They wanted the billionaire, the empire, the myth. Not the boy who once sat at a locker with chalk-stained fingers, staring at a girl he thought was sunlight itself.

Now, as I stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, city lights burning below, I realized I had been waiting.

Waiting for her.

And she was gone.

It was past midnight when I returned to the folder.

The words blurred before my eyes, not from fatigue but from fury. Shouting. Connections. A closed case.

I slammed the file shut and hurled it across the room. The sound of it hitting the glass wall echoed like a gunshot.

“Damn it!” My voice cracked in the empty space.

My reflection in the window stared back — the polished billionaire, perfectly tailored, perfectly controlled.

But behind the veneer, I saw him again. The boy with crooked glasses, the boy who had once been too afraid to speak.

Not this time.

I wouldn’t let fear silence me again.

I crossed the room, picked up the file, and pressed my palm flat against Max’s picture.

“If there’s even a chance,” I whispered, “that this wasn’t an accident… I’ll find the truth. For you.”

The next evening, I attended a gala — obligation demanded it. My presence kept shareholders confident, the market stable.

Crystal chandeliers bathed the ballroom in golden light. Waiters weaved through the crowd with trays of champagne. Cameras flashed.

I smiled, I shook hands, I played the part. But my mind wasn’t here.

Until—

A flicker.

Across the room, a man stood half-shadowed near the balcony doors. Tall, poised, exuding a quiet authority that didn’t belong to this glittering circus. Our eyes met for an instant.

Something jolted in my chest.

I didn’t know him. And yet… something about him was achingly familiar.

He turned before I could move closer, slipping out into the night.

I stood frozen, a glass trembling in my hand, the taste of déjà vu sharp on my tongue.

Because for the briefest heartbeat, I could have sworn…

I had seen Max.