At My Husband’s Funeral, His Phone Rang with “Look Behind You” – I Turned, and My Blood Ran Cold

The Confession

I left through the back exit and walked for 40 minutes, taking random turns, doubling back, and using every trick I could think of to throw off pursuit. The afternoon sun was harsh, making my head ache.

I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. My feet were blistering in the donated shoes, but I kept moving because stopping meant capture, and capture meant everything Richard had died for would be buried with me.

The church appeared like a sanctuary in every sense of the word. I practically fell through the side door into the cool darkness.

Reverend Holloway was in his office, and he wasn’t alone. Anne sat across from him, her face streaked with tears.

I froze in the doorway. Every instinct screamed: “Trap.”

My daughter had betrayed me on television, called me delusional and dangerous, and helped build the case against me. And now she was here, in the one safe place I had left.

“Mom?” Her voice cracked.

“Please. I need to talk to you.”

“Is Derek outside? Weber? How many of them did you bring?”

“No one, I swear. I came alone. I—” She looked at Reverend Holloway helplessly.

“Tell her! Tell her I’m not wired, not recording, not—”

“She’s clean,” The Reverend said quietly.

“I checked. Old habit from the civil rights days. She’s not here to hurt you, Connie.”

“Just destroy me on television instead?” Anne flinched.

“I didn’t know. I swear to God I didn’t know what Derek was involved in. I thought—” She wiped her eyes roughly.

“I thought you’d lost it. That grief had made you paranoid. Derek said you were imagining conspiracies, that you needed help, that going on TV would make people look for you so we could get you treatment instead of—” Her voice broke completely.

“Instead of letting you get killed.”

“You called me delusional because that’s what Derek told me to say? He had the whole speech written out. Told me it was the only way to save you. That if people thought you were mentally ill instead of dangerous, they’d bring you in alive.”

She was sobbing now, messy and real—nothing like the composed performance on TV.

“I was trying to help you by making everyone think I’m crazy? By making everyone think you were harmless.” She stood, anger cutting through the tears.

“Do you have any idea what they’re saying? That you murdered Catherine Lewis in cold blood! That you’re armed and planning to kill the people you blame for Michael’s situation! They’re treating you like a terrorist, Mom. Like someone who needs to be shot on sight.”

The words hung in the air, ugly and true.

“Anne,” My voice came out harder than I intended.

“What changed? Why are you here now instead of doing another interview about your disturbed mother?”

She reached into her purse. I tensed, but she only pulled out a flash drive.

“Because I found this in Derek’s office at home. Hidden in a locked drawer. I only found it because I was looking for our passports. We were supposed to take Emma and your granddaughter to Disney World next month, remember? But when I opened that drawer…”

She held out the drive.

“It’s all here. Every payment he’s received from Hartwell Industries. Every report he filed about Dad’s activities. About Michael’s location. About you.”

A New Ally

I took the drive slowly, like it might explode.

“Derek knows you have this?”

“Not yet. He’s at a conference in Harrisburg until tomorrow. I copied everything, put the original back. He has no idea.” She met my eyes.

“Mom, I’m so sorry. For everything. For not believing you. For believing him. For—” Her voice broke again.

“For not being there when you needed me.” Reverend Holloway cleared his throat gently.

“I’ll give you two some privacy.”

“No,” I stopped him.

“Stay. You should hear this too.” I turned back to Anne.

“You understand what this means? If you’re caught with that drive? If Derek finds out you copied it? You’re in danger. He’ll tell them you know too much.”

“I know. That’s why I came here. Because—” She swallowed hard.

“Because I need to know if my brother is really alive. If everything you’ve been saying is true. If I threw away five years of his life by believing he was guilty.”

The moment stretched between us: years of distance and disappointment and disappointed hopes. Finally, I nodded.

“He’s alive. He’s been hiding since the day before his trial, and he’s innocent. Everything they said he did, Derek and his friends did. They framed him, destroyed his life, and made us all believe he was a criminal.”

Anne’s face crumpled.

“Where is he? Can I see him? Does he hate me?”

“He doesn’t hate you, and no, you can’t see him. Not yet. Not until this is over.” I softened my voice.

“But Anne, if you really want to help, I need you to do something. Something dangerous.”

She straightened, wiping her eyes.

“Anything.”

“I need you to go home. Act normal. Pretend you still believe I’m guilty and Michael is gone. Keep Derek thinking you’re on his side.” I held up the flash drive.

“This evidence will help, but I need more. I need you to be my eyes inside that house. Find out what Derek’s planning. Who he’s talking to. What they’re saying about the investigation.”

“You want me to spy on my own husband?”

“I want you to help save your brother and yourself. Because, Anne, when this all comes out, when the evidence goes public and people start getting arrested, Derek’s going to try to use you as a shield. He’ll say you knew everything. That you helped him. That you’re complicit in the cover-up. Your only protection is information.”

She looked at Reverend Holloway.

“Is she right?”

“In my experience, yes. Men like your husband don’t go down alone. They take everyone near them when they fall.” He leaned forward.

“But your mother’s also asking you to put yourself in real danger. You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do,” Anne’s voice was stronger now, steadier.

“Because she’s right about all of it. And I need to… I need to fix what I broke.”

The Press Conference

We spent the next hour planning. Anne would go home, resume her normal life, and plant suspicions in Derek’s mind that I might try to contact distant relatives.

She’d search his office when he was asleep, photograph anything relevant, and send it to a new burner phone the Reverend would provide. She’d be careful, cautious, and at the first sign Derek suspected her, she’d run.

“Take Emma and your granddaughter,” I told her.

“Tell them you’re going on a vacation. Go somewhere Derek can’t find you until this is over.”

“Emma won’t want to see me. She thinks—” Anne stopped.

“She thinks Michael abandoned her.”

“Then it’s time she learned the truth.” After Anne left, promising to be careful and promising to call, I sat in Reverend Holloway’s office feeling like I’d aged another decade.

“I just put my daughter in danger.”

“You gave her a chance to do the right thing. There’s a difference.” He poured me tea from a battered thermos.

“Though I have to ask, what’s your endgame here? You’ve given the evidence to a reporter. You’ve got your daughter gathering more. But Jacqueline McKenzie needs two weeks to verify everything. You think you can stay hidden that long?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Everyone has a choice. You could run. Disappear. Let the evidence speak for itself.”

I thought about Catherine Lewis walking into danger because it was right. I thought about Richard fighting until his last breath.

I thought about five years of Michael’s life stolen by people who thought they were untouchable.

“I can’t,” I said simply.

“If I run, they’ll discredit everything. They’ll say I fabricated the evidence. That I’m a grief-crazed old woman who can’t accept her son’s guilt. But if I stay, if I see this through, if I’m here when the truth comes out, then they can’t hide anymore.”

My phone—yet another burner, the third one this week—buzzed with a text from Michael.

“News says you were spotted in Oakland. Are you safe?”

I texted back: “For now. Met with the reporter. Anne knows everything. She’s helping.”

Three dots appeared, disappeared, and appeared again. Finally:

“Mom, there’s something I didn’t tell you about why I really ran.” My hands tightened on the phone.

“What?”

“They didn’t just threaten Emma. They threatened you. Said if I fought the charges, they’d make sure you and Dad were implicated as accomplices. That you’d lose everything. The house, your savings, your freedom. I ran to protect you as much as Emma.”

The words blurred on the screen. All this time I’d thought my son had abandoned us.

Instead, he’d been trying to save us.

“I’m finishing this,” I texted back.

“For all of us.”

“Please be careful. They’re getting desperate. Desperate people do desperate things.”

I was about to respond when Reverend Holloway’s phone rang. He answered and listened, his face growing grim.

He hung up and turned to me.

“That was my contact at the police department. They’ve issued a shoot-on-site order. They’re claiming you fired at officers during the park incident. That you’re armed and extremely dangerous.” He paused.

“Connie, they’re not planning to arrest you anymore. They’re planning to kill you and call it justified.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“I never fired a weapon. I was never armed in that park.”

“I know, but they’ll plant a gun after the fact, claim self-defense. And with your daughter’s testimony about your mental state, the public will believe it. You’ll be another tragic story about untreated mental illness turning violent.”

“Then I need to turn myself in now. Publicly. With witnesses. Make them arrest me properly so they can’t just—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“You walk into a police station, you’re dead before you reach the desk. These people have reach everywhere.” Reverend Holloway stood, pacing.

“You need leverage. Something that forces them to keep you alive. The evidence with Jacqueline McKenzie won’t publish for two weeks. You’ll be dead in two days.”

He stopped pacing, his eyes sharp.

“Unless we change the timeline. Unless we force them to move before they’re ready.”

“How?”

“By doing the one thing they can’t control or contain. By calling a press conference. You, on camera, telling your story to every news outlet in the state. Once you’re that public, they can’t just make you disappear. Too many witnesses. Too many questions.”

“They’ll arrest me the moment I show my face.”

“Probably. But you’ll be alive. And alive means you can fight.”

He pulled out his phone.

“I know reporters who’d jump at this story. We could have cameras here in two hours. You tell your truth, show what evidence you can, and make it impossible for them to bury you without the whole world watching.”

It was insane and risky, the kind of plan that would either save my life or end it spectacularly.

“Do it,” I said.

“Call them. Set it up.”