In the autumn of 1988, a young mortician named Alice took a night shift at the Lovewell Funeral Home in Jewell County, Kansas. A body had arrived that afternoon—a girl found in the Republican River, unidentified, no next of kin. Alone in the embalming room, Alice heard the first sound she could not explain: a low, rhythmic knock from inside the prep room. Not at the door. Inside. She checked the body. Nothing. The knock came again, three beats, the same pattern as a heartbeat. What Alice saw when she opened the cooler—the girl's hand pressed against the inside of the drawer, nails scratching slow spirals into the stainless steel—is not something she talks about. But she told me. And I need you to understand: the girl's jaw was wired shut. She had been dead for at least six hours before they brought her in. This is what Alice saw. This is what she heard. And this is what she did before she left the building at dawn, walked out into the frost, and never worked another night in her life.