Chapter 2 - The Stolen Key
Ethan felt the cold, hard press of the gun barrel against his throat. His heart hammered so fast it felt like a trapped bird beating against his ribs. But beneath the suffocating terror, a hot, bright spark of anger flared.
His mother was sitting up in the shattered casket, her eyes wide with frantic, maternal agony, tears carving clean tracks through the dust on her cheeks. She was shaking her head violently, pulling at her zip-tied wrists, trying to scream through the silver tape.
*Think, Ethan. Think,* he told himself, echoing his mother’s words from countless nights before.
“Richard,” Detective Miller said slowly, stepping down the center aisle with his gun trained on Richard’s chest, his hands steady, his voice low and soothing. “It’s over. Look around you. There are fifty witnesses. The building is surrounded. Put the gun down, let the boy go, and we can talk about this.”
“Talk about what?!” Richard sneered, slowly dragging Ethan backward toward the private side door that led to the funeral home’s preparation bay and loading dock. “You don't know what she did! You don't know what she found!”
“I found your ledger, Richard!”
The voice was muffled, but clear enough to make everyone freeze.
Claire had managed to hook her fingernails under the edge of the duct tape. With a brutal, agonized jerk, she ripped the tape free from her skin, gasping in ragged, desperate breaths of fresh air.
“He forged my medical records!” Claire shouted, her voice raspy and raw. “He’s been poisoning me for three months! The offshore accounts—he transferred the entire estate!”
Richard’s face contorted in rage. “Shut up, Claire!”
“He paid the coroner!” Claire pushed herself fully out of the broken casket, her legs unsteady, tumbling onto the altar carpet. “He paid Dr. Evans to sign the death certificate!”
The crowd gasped. Detective Miller’s eyes narrowed into slits of pure steel. “Richard. Lower the weapon.”
Richard knew he had seconds before Miller took a shot.
Instead of surrendering, Richard reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small electronic key fob, and jammed his thumb against the button.
*BEEP.*
A heavy, automated steel fire door slammed down from the ceiling behind the altar, bisecting the chapel with a deafening metallic thud.
The heavy steel barrier cut off Detective Miller and the screaming crowd, trapping Richard, Ethan, and the bruised, crawling form of Claire in the secluded altar bay.
“Mom!” Ethan yelled.
May you like
Before Claire could reach them, Richard dragged Ethan backward through the side service door into the dark, tiled hallway of the mortuary basement, slamming and locking the heavy oak door behind them.
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