But the lady had vanished into the crowd. Brenda hailed a cab outside the station and headed to the cemetery. She was haunted by the encounter throughout her ride and couldn’t understand why Harper had acted so strangely.

“Ma’am…we’ve arrived,” the cabbie said as he pulled over at the cemetery gate, jolting Brenda out of her thoughts.

The silence was haunting as Brenda searched the row of graves for Christopher’s resting place. A wave of emotions washed over her when she found it. She broke into tears as she brushed her trembling hands on Christopher’s tombstone.

Disbelief surged through Brenda when her gaze shifted to the neighboring grave.

The epitaph etched on the headstone horrified her.

In Loving Memory of Harper. S.

January 8, 1995 – December 3, 2020

Forever cherished, Forever missed.

Rest in peace.

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“Oh my God…Harper passed away last week and nobody told me?” Brenda gasped, unable to believe her eyes.

A haunting question immediately loomed in her mind: “If Harper is dead, then who was the girl at the subway?”

Brenda snapped out of her thoughts when she heard someone raking dry leaves. The cemetery’s groundskeeper was working nearby. Brenda approached him and asked if he could tell her about Harper’s funeral.

The guy lit a cigarette and sighed, exhaling a puff of smoke into the air. “It took place last week. It was strange… There weren’t any mourners, just the funeral service employees. They brought the coffin, buried it, erected a simple headstone, and left. It wasn’t even a proper funeral.”

“Did anybody visit her grave after that?” Brenda frowned.

“Not that I know of, Ma’am,” he replied. “I work here all day and live on the grounds. I keep watch over the cemetery all the time and haven’t seen anybody visit that woman’s grave.”