Chapter 3: The Crypt of Secrets
Oakville Memorial Park was a haunting landscape of iron gates, weeping willows, and towering granite obelisks veiled in thick fog.
Ethan smashed the SUV through the rusty wrought-iron chain at the side entrance, the metal tearing with a screech that sounded like a dying animal. The vehicle slid to a halt on the muddy gravel path near the Mitchell family mausoleum.
“Stay close,” Ethan said, pulling a heavy flashlight from the glove compartment. I gripped the semi-automatic pistol I had taken from Megan, my knuckles white.
Rain poured down, soaking through my silk wedding dress within seconds, turning the ivory fabric into a heavy, cold shroud. We sprinted down the narrow cobblestone path toward the marble crypt where my father had been laid to rest eleven months ago.
behind us, tires squealed as the black private SUV crashed through the same broken gate.
“They’re here!” I hissed, pushing Ethan toward the mausoleum’s heavy bronze door.
The lock was an old double-cylinder deadbolt. I reached into my torn dress pocket and pulled out the brass key I had snatched from Megan’s purse.
“Please work,” I prayed under my breath, inserting the key.
Clack.
The heavy lock turned. Ethan slammed his shoulder against the bronze door, shoving it open just enough for us to squeeze inside before dragging it shut behind us.
The mausoleum was freezing, smelling of wet limestone, stagnant air, and wilted flowers. In the center stood my father’s polished granite sarcophagus, bearing his name: RICHARD MITCHELL — 1958–2025.
“Marcus said the second key was here,” Ethan said, sweeping the flashlight beam across the carved walls. “Where? Behind the plaque?”
I approached the sarcophagus, my heart hammering against my ribs. I remembered the last conversation I had with my father in his study, three weeks before his sudden death. He had been staring at his old bronze pocket watch, looking tired and frail.
“Lauren,” he had said, taking my hands, “when the time comes, remember that a foundation isn’t built on what you see above ground. It’s built on what you hide beneath the stone.”
“Not behind the wall,” I whispered, kneeling in the cold dirt at the base of the sarcophagus. “The foundation.”
I shone my own small penlight along the bottom edge of the granite monument. There, hidden beneath a decorative carved acanthus leaf, was a small, concealed keyhole—not for a traditional key, but a magnetic contact point.
“Ethan, hand me my wedding ring,” I blurted out.
He blinked. “What?”
“My ring! Dad designed it! He had a custom jeweler in San Francisco craft it out of tungsten and white gold!”
Ethan quickly slipped off the band he had placed on my finger just hours ago at the altar and handed it to me.
I looked at the inside of the band. Microscopic magnetic ridges were inlaid along the metal. I pressed the face of my wedding ring firmly against the hidden contact point at the base of the granite slab.
HUMMMMM.
A low, mechanical click echoed through the stone crypt.
A panel on the front face of the sarcophagus slid open six inches, revealing a reinforced steel interior compartment. Inside lay a black Pelican hard-case and a heavy, silver-plated flash drive.
“Got it!” I gasped.
Suddenly, the mausoleum’s bronze door burst open with a deafening bang.
A beam of high-intensity tactical light blinded us.
“Don’t move,” a harsh, authoritative voice commanded from the entrance.
Standing in the doorway was a tall man in a dark tactical coat, holding a silenced pistol equipped with a laser sight. Beside him stood Megan. Her face was bruised, her expensive wedding outfit ruined, but her eyes burned with pure, unadulterated malice.
“Hello, little sister,” Megan sneered, stepping inside out of the rain. “I see you found Dad’s little treasure box.”
“Megan, stop this!” Ethan yelled, standing in front of me again. “The police know! Marcus called the authorities!”
“Marcus is currently being fished out of the San Francisco Bay,” the man in the tactical coat said coldly. “I am Captain Vance, head of security operations for Apex Capital. And you two are trespassing on private asset recovery territory.”
Megan walked closer, taking the black hard-case out of the open granite compartment before I could reach it.
“You always were Dad’s favorite,” Megan said, her voice shaking with bitter rage. “He gave you the trust, the family house, the love. And what did he give me? Forty hours a week of managing payroll, dealing with subcontractors, and digging him out of financial debt while he built his secret little empire!”
“He was trying to protect us, Megan!” I yelled, staring at the silenced barrel pointed at Ethan’s chest. “He built this trust to keep us safe from these people!”
“He built it for you!” Megan shrieked. “He didn’t trust me! He knew I wanted to sell the telecom network to Apex! So he locked me out!”
“Because Apex is a mercenary front!” I shouted back. “They harvest private civilian data and sell it to foreign surveillance firms! Dad realized what they were doing and tried to pull out!”
Megan stared at me, a cruel, cold smile creeping across her lips. “I know what they do, Lauren. And I don’t care. They paid me fifty million dollars for access. All I needed was your biometric ring to authorize the final server transfer.”
She looked down at my hand. “Hand over the ring, Lauren. Or Vance puts a bullet through your new husband’s knee.”
Vance adjusted his grip on the silenced pistol, aligning the red laser dot directly onto Ethan’s kneecap.
“Give it to her, Lauren,” Ethan whispered, his face sweating despite the cold. “It’s not worth your life.”
I looked down at the tungsten ring in my palm. Then I looked at the silver flash drive still hidden inside the dark recess of the sarcophagus—the one Megan hadn’t noticed because her eyes were glued to the Pelican case.
I took a step forward, raising my hand as if to extend the ring toward Megan.
“Smart girl,” Megan mocked, reaching out her gloved hand.
Instead of handing her the ring, I jammed it into the exposed electrical wiring inside the sarcophagus compartment—short-circuiting the emergency backup battery Dad had installed.
SPARK!
A blinding flash of blue electrical arc-light exploded from the stone base, blinding Vance’s night-vision goggles and illuminating the crypt in a strobe of fire.
“Shoot them!” Megan screamed.
Vance fired blindly into the dark—POP! POP!—the bullets embedding themselves into the ancient marble walls.
Ethan tackled Vance into the crypt wall, sending the tactical flashlight crashing to the floor. I grabbed the silver flash drive from the open vault, lunged toward Megan, and slammed the heavy brass mausoleum key directly into her shoulder.
She screamed in pain, dropping the Pelican case.
I grabbed the handle of the case, grabbed Ethan’s arm as he kicked Vance away, and dragged him out into the pouring rain, slamming the heavy bronze crypt door shut behind us and jamming a steel crowbar through the handles to trap them inside.
Orther Post
FRAMED AT THE ALTAR: The $2 Million Betrayal
6
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