Chapter 2 - STERLING DOESN’T PRESS PLAYEveryone expected Sterling to open the projector case.

He didn’t.

That made Eleanor furious.

“You said there’s a recording.”

“There is.”

“Then play it.”

“No.”

She stared.

“You walked into my son’s funeral announcing—”

“I announced that David left instructions.”

Sterling pointed toward the DNA folder.

“You created a public confrontation involving medical and family information. I am not going to compound it by broadcasting privileged or estate-sensitive material before I confirm the conditions David placed on disclosure.”

Chloe laughed.

“So dramatic.”

Sterling looked at my ring in her hand.

“You physically removed jewelry from a pregnant woman at a funeral. I am comfortable not accepting criticism about drama from you.”

Several people looked away to hide reactions.

I almost smiled.

Almost.

Then pain tightened low across my abdomen.

My hand immediately went lower.

Sterling noticed.

“Sarah?”

“Braxton Hicks.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

That was enough.

The funeral ended badly.

No final hymn.

No receiving line.

No peaceful procession.

My obstetrician told me by phone to go to labor and delivery because of the shove, stress, and contractions.

Sterling insisted.

Before I left, I pointed at Chloe.

“My ring.”

She said nothing.

I repeated:

“Give me my ring.”

Eleanor answered for her.

“It was David’s grandmother’s.”

“No.”

Sterling said it quietly.

“I prepared the prenuptial property schedules eleven years ago. The ring was David’s separate property before marriage, but it was transferred to Sarah as an unconditional interspousal gift upon engagement. Unless someone has evidence of a different agreement, it is Sarah’s.”

Chloe looked at him.

“You remember that?”

“I bill by the hour.”

That almost made David’s cousin laugh.

Chloe finally opened her hand.

But instead of giving the ring to me, she placed it on David’s coffin.

Sterling immediately picked it up.

Photographed it.

Put it in a small document envelope.

Then handed it to my attorney-to-be, though I didn’t know that yet.

“Sarah gets it after hospital evaluation so nobody can claim she lost it.”

I looked at him.

“David chose the most annoying man in America.”

Sterling’s eyes softened.

“He said the same thing.”

That was the first time I cried.

Not at the coffin.

Not at the DNA accusation.

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At a stupid line David had once said.

Grief waits for strange doors.