Chapter 7 - The Empty Grave
Emily left the pumping station before anyone could stop her.
Daniel followed.
She did not object.
The cemetery stood thirty miles outside the city, surrounded by bare trees and old stone walls.
Emily had visited only once.
She had been nineteen, alone, and still recovering from childbirth. A hospital social worker had driven her there and shown her a small grave beneath a maple tree.
SOPHIE CARTER
BELOVED DAUGHTER
The dates carved into the stone were separated by less than one day.
Emily knelt in the wet grass.
Daniel stood several feet away.
“You were pregnant while you were in college?” he asked.
“My first year.”
“Who was the father?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel said nothing.
Emily looked toward him.
“I don’t mean I refuse to tell you. I mean I don’t know.”
She pressed her fingers into the cold soil.
“I woke up in a private clinic. They told me I had been found unconscious after a party. Months later, I learned I was pregnant. I could not remember what happened.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“Did the clinic have a name?”
“Larkhill Women’s Center.”
“I know it.”
Emily stood.
“How?”
“It was one of Meridian’s shell facilities.”
Rain began to fall.
Daniel crouched beside the grave marker.
“The soil has been disturbed.”
Emily stared.
The grass appeared intact, but the earth around the base of the stone was softer and darker than the surrounding ground.
“When?”
“Recently.”
Daniel called Ruiz.
Within an hour, the cemetery was sealed.
A court order followed quickly after Ruiz showed a judge evidence connecting Larkhill to the hospital attack.
Workers opened the grave shortly before sunset.
The coffin was small.
Emily stood beneath a black umbrella as the lid was removed.
Inside was a folded hospital blanket.
No body.
No bones.
No remains of any kind.
Ruiz looked toward the cemetery manager.
“Who authorized the burial?”
The manager searched old records.
“The paperwork came from Larkhill Women’s Center. The death certificate was signed by Dr. Helena Vale.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Daniel touched her shoulder.
“She may be alive.”
“Eleven years,” Emily whispered. “They let me mourn an empty grave for eleven years.”
Micah arrived with Aaron near dusk.
Emily struck him before he could speak.
Her hand cracked across his face.
Daniel stepped between them.
“You knew,” Emily said.
Micah wiped blood from his lip.
“I suspected.”
“You had my records. You watched my life.”
“I learned about Sophie six months ago.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I needed proof.”
“You needed control.”
Micah’s expression tightened.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“Everyone says that right before taking away my choices.”
Ruiz walked toward them holding a document bag.
“We found something inside the blanket.”
He removed a tiny silver bracelet.
The name ELISE was engraved on the outside.
Inside were coordinates.
Daniel entered them into his phone.
“Private property near Lake Armitage.”
Micah looked at the screen.
“That’s close to the location from Adrian’s transmission.”
Emily turned toward the cemetery exit.
“We’re going tonight.”
Ruiz shook his head.
“You are not approaching a possible Meridian facility without federal support.”
“Which federal agency do you trust?”
Ruiz did not answer.
Daniel looked toward the road.
A black sedan had stopped beyond the cemetery gates.
Its lights were off.
“Company,” he said.
The sedan accelerated.
Daniel pulled Emily behind the excavator as gunfire tore through the cemetery.
Stone shattered from nearby headstones.
Ruiz returned fire.
Micah and Aaron moved behind the grave markers.
The attackers wore masks and fired from inside the moving vehicle.
Daniel aimed at the front tire.
Two shots.
The sedan swerved, struck the stone wall, and flipped onto its side.
One attacker crawled through the broken windshield.
Emily ran toward him before Daniel could stop her.
She kicked his weapon away and pulled off his mask.
The man was young.
Barely twenty.
A tattoo marked the side of his neck.
E-21.
His eyes focused on Emily.
“Mother,” he whispered.
Emily froze.
“What did you call me?”
The young man smiled weakly.
“They said you would come for us.”
Before Emily could ask another question, he bit down hard.
Foam appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Poison.
Emily tried to clear his airway, but his body convulsed and went still.
Ruiz searched his clothing.
He found a phone displaying a live video feed.
The screen showed a girl sitting in a white room.
She had Emily’s dark hair and Adrian Voss’s gray eyes.
A digital clock counted down beneath the image.
11:59:41.
11:59:40.
11:59:39.
Text appeared across the screen.
May you like
BRING E-17 TO LAKE ARMITAGE.
COME ALONE OR SOPHIE BEGINS PHASE TWO.
