Chapter 50 - The Fifth Coffin
The celebration ended as twilight painted the ridge in deep shades of violet and gold. Our guests had departed down the winding mountain road, their car horns honking merrily in the distance.
Ben and I stood on the porch of the small cedar cabin we had rented for the weekend, watching the stars pierce through the indigo sky. He held a glass of cider in one hand, his other arm wrapped securely around my waist, my head resting against his shoulder. For the first time in my life, the silence felt peaceful.
Then, the vibration began.
My phone, resting on the small cedar table beside the porch swing, buzzed sharply against the wood.
Ben glanced down, frowning slightly. "Who’s calling you at nine o'clock on our wedding night?"
I walked over and picked up the phone. The caller ID displayed an unlisted number with a Philadelphia area code.
I answered, placing the phone to my ear. "Hello?"
"Emily. It’s Agent Ross."
Her voice was entirely different from the warm, relaxed tone she had used at the chapel four hours ago. It was tight, strained, vibrating with a cold, terrifying urgency that instantly made the hairs on my arms stand up.
"Ross?" I said, gripping the phone tighter. "What happened? Has Arthur—"
"Arthur is still in federal custody," Ross interrupted, speaking in rapid, hushed tones. "It’s Blackwood Orchard, Emily."
Ben immediately stepped toward me, his protective instincts flaring as he saw the change in my face. He leaned in, listening close to the receiver.
"What about the orchard?" I asked, my heart beginning to hammer against my ribs. "The environmental team was supposed to finish soil remediation this afternoon."
"They were," Ross said, the sound of heavy wind and distant diesel engines crackling through the line. "Two hours ago, the heavy excavation team began breaking up the primary bedrock beneath the 1978 bunker to install the drainage culverts for the memorial park."
Ross paused. A heavy, sickening silence hung between us.
"Agent Ross, what did they find?" Ben demanded into the phone.
"Beneath the limestone bedrock... there was a deeper cavity, Emily," Ross said, her breath shuddering into the microphone. "A reinforced steel storm cellar that wasn't on Arthur’s architectural blueprints. It dates back to 1965. Thirteen years before the Sterling family was killed."
The world seemed to tilt on its axis.
"A storm cellar?" I whispered. "Whose storm cellar?"
"We just breached the door twenty minutes ago," Ross continued, her voice dropping to a grim, horrified cadence that made the blood run cold in my veins. "There were five containers inside. Sealed lead-lined vaults."
"More victims?" I asked, nausea clawing at my throat. "From before seventy-eight?"
"Four of them are old, Emily. Skeletal remains from the mid-sixties. We believe they belong to the previous township supervisors who vanished during the highway land acquisitions."
Ross stopped. I could hear the sound of someone shouting in the background, followed by the metallic screech of an iron hatch being pried open.
"And the fifth vault, Agent Ross?" Ben asked, his voice dead and dangerous. "What’s in the fifth vault?"
"The fifth vault isn't from the sixties, Ben," Ross whispered, her voice cracking with pure disbelief. "The seal on the fifth container was poured less than seventy-two hours ago. The concrete is still damp."
My breath seized in my lungs. My fingers went completely numb.
"Who is in it?" I choked out.
"We just cleared the lime from the viewing window," Ross said, her words dropping like lead weights into the dark night. "Emily... the dental work doesn't belong to any cold case file. And the ring on the left hand is an exact match for the heirloom sapphire your father gave your mother on their wedding day."
May you like
Ross took a sharp, agonizing breath before delivering the final blow.
"Eleanor Miller didn't die of cancer in that hospice ward three years ago, Emily. The body Arthur had cremated was a stranger. Your mother... she was placed into this vault on Tuesday."
