Chapter 10 - THE EMPTY GRAVE
Laura’s mother had been buried at Hillside Cemetery twenty-two years earlier.
At least, Laura had believed she had been buried there.
They reached the cemetery shortly before midnight.
The gates were locked, but Reeves used an emergency access code from the police system. They followed a stone path through rows of silent graves until Laura found the Harper family plot.
Elaine Harper’s headstone stood beneath an old cedar tree.
Someone had recently disturbed the ground.
Laura knelt beside the grave.
“The Registry already came here.”
Celia examined the soil.
“Not recently. Several months ago.”
A cemetery vehicle approached from the lower path.
Reeves signaled for them to hide behind the maintenance chapel.
The driver stepped out.
It was Owen Kade.
He carried a shovel and a flashlight.
Laura emerged.
“You have a habit of appearing near graves.”
Owen stopped.
Reeves moved behind him and took the pistol from his coat.
Owen looked at Celia.
“You should not be with her.”
Celia answered coldly.
“You should not have used my husband’s voice.”
“I never did.”
“We heard the recording.”
“You heard what Vale wanted you to hear.”
Laura stepped closer.
“Did you remove the cassette from my mother’s grave?”
Owen’s expression softened.
“There was no cassette.”
“Mark believed she gave me a recording.”
“She did.”
“Where is it?”
Owen looked at the headstone.
“Your mother was not buried here.”
Laura felt the cemetery tilt around her.
“I attended the funeral.”
“You attended a closed-casket service arranged by Andrew Vale.”
“My mother died in a fire.”
“A fire Vale ordered after she tried to destroy the Registry.”
Laura shook her head.
She remembered smoke, neighbors gathered in the street, and a police officer holding her back while flames consumed the house.
She also remembered Andrew Vale standing beside her father at the funeral.
“What happened to her?”
Owen removed a folded document from his coat.
It was a death certificate for Elaine Harper.
The document had been canceled three days after her funeral.
“Elaine entered the Registry,” he said.
“My mother is alive?”
“She was alive twelve years ago. That is the last confirmed record I found.”
“Why didn’t Mark tell me?”
“He only learned the truth before the crash.”
Celia examined the canceled certificate.
“Who authorized her new identity?”
Owen pointed toward the signature.
Daniel Reed.
The supposedly dead creator of the Echo Registry.
Owen explained that Elaine had hidden the master phrase inside Laura’s own childhood voice.
The cassette in the music box was only a decoy. The real recording had been submitted as evidence after the house fire.
It was stored under an emergency call Laura had made that night.
“I called the fire department,” Laura said.
“You also repeated something your mother told you,” Owen replied. “The dispatcher believed it was meaningless.”
Reeves understood first.
“Emergency calls are archived permanently.”
Owen nodded.
“The original is stored inside the city communications center.”
A branch cracked in the darkness.
Reeves turned.
A shot struck the headstone.
Everyone dropped behind the grave wall.
Men moved between the trees.
Owen pointed toward an underground family vault.
“There is a service tunnel beneath the chapel.”
They ran as more shots struck the stone nearby.
Inside the tunnel, Owen locked the metal door behind them.
Laura faced him in the darkness.
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Then give me one reason not to leave you here.”
Owen held up a second document.
May you like
It was a current employee file from the city communications center.
The night supervisor’s photograph showed Laura’s mother.
