Chapter 13 - The Empty Crypt
Rain hammered the marble mausoleums of St. Jude’s Cemetery like a volley of lead bullets. Floodlights illuminated the Vance family plot, casting long, monstrous shadows across the freshly dug pit of wet clay.
Julian stood at the edge of the grave, his trench coat soaked through, oblivious to the freezing mud coating his leather shoes. Leo was safe back at the manor under an armed guard of twelve ex-Delta contractors, but Julian’s mind was anchored six feet beneath the earth.
The heavy hydraulic crane groaned as it hoisted the lead-lined mahogany casket from the mud. The chains clanked loudly in the stormy night. Two cemetery workers lowered the dripping box onto a wooden pallet set up under a tarp.
"Mr. Vance, you don't need to watch this," Henderson warned, standing at Julian’s shoulder with an umbrella. "If the remains were preserved, after three years it will not be something you want burned into your memory."
"Pry it open," Julian commanded without blinking.
A forensic investigator wedged a crowbar under the sealed lid. The metal screws screeched in protest as the seal was broken with a loud *crack*. A smell rose from the casket—not of decaying flesh, but of dry cedar wood shavings, damp soil, and synthetic plastic.
Julian surged forward, shoving the investigator aside, and threw back the heavy lid.
The floodlights spilled into the casket’s velvet interior.
There were no bones. There was no decaying burial gown.
Resting on a silk pillow was a lifelike silicone mannequin with Clara’s features painted across its hollow face. Stuffed inside the mannequin’s hollowed-out torso were hundreds of plastic bags filled with medical waste: empty vials of high-grade sedatives, prenatal IV bags, and surgical clamps stamped with a serial number from a facility in Zurich, Switzerland.
And taped directly across the dummy’s chest was a burner smartphone.
The moment the light struck the phone’s optical sensor, the screen flared bright blue. The speakers crackled to life, playing a digital audio file at full volume, echoing through the empty cemetery.
"Julian," a voice mocked through a voice distortion filter. "You spent three years playing the grieving widower, while Marcus collected Clara's eggs like prize-winning livestock. The harvest is complete. But if you want to see the mother of your children draw another breath, you will burn Vance Global to the ground by midnight tomorrow."
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The phone clicked, and the screen flashed a single image: Clara Vance, strapped to a mechanized hospital bed inside a white, sterile room, with an oxygen mask over her face and a massive, full-term pregnant belly wired to heart rate monitors.
***
