The boy wept desperately at his mothers grave, insisting she was still aliveno one paid attention until the police stepped in.
In early May, people began noticing a child visiting the cemetery. He was around ten, no older. Day after day, he went to the same grave, sitting on the ground, leaning against the cold stone, and crying out to the sky:
“Shes still alive! She isnt here!”
Visitors watched with pity, assuming he was grieving deeply, unable to accept her loss. In time, they thought, hed come to terms with it.
But weeks passed, and the boy kept coming, rain or shine. The caretaker, tired of the daily cries, finally called the police.
A young officer arrived, approaching the boy gently.
“Hey,” he said softly.
The boy startled, looking up with a thin, tear-streaked face and eyes far older than his years.
“Do you know how to tell if someones breathing underground?” he asked.
The officer was taken aback.
“No thats not something a child should think about.”
“They said my mom fell asleep while driving. But she was never tired. Never!” the boy muttered. “And they didnt let me say goodbye”
The officer studied the gravethe earth still fresh, unsettled. Nearby lay a shovel.
“Who told you that?”
“The people she worked for. A man with a gold ring and a woman who always smiles, even when angry.”
“Do you know their names?”
The boy gave them, and the officer wrote them down. Something in his voice stayed with the policeman, who reported it to his superiors.
Soon, an investigation began. They learned the boys mother, Anna, was an accountant at a major pharmaceutical firm.
A week before her alleged accident, shed vanished from work. Her employer claimed she was exhausted, then dead. The death certificate was signed by the company doctor. There was no wakethe coffin stayed closed, no autopsy performed.
The officer demanded exhumation. The coffin was empty.
The case became federal. More details emerged: Anna wasnt just an accountant. She had gathered proof against the companydocuments, recordings, money trails, illegal schemes. She planned to take it to prosecutors, but someone found out.
And then came something even the boy didnt know.
Anna hadnt crashed. Her death was stagedby the police.
The day she brought her evidence, they already had pieces of other cases tied to the same company. They made a quick decision: Anna entered witness protection.
To keep executives from suspecting a leak, they faked her death. The coffin had been empty all along.
All evidence went to court, but the boy was kept in the dark to protect the operation.
He only knew one thing: his mother wasnt dead.
And he was right.
Three months after the trial, once the case was closed and the guilty arrested, Anna stood at the door of her old home.