PART 33: THE EMPTY GRAVE
Nobody believed the note.
We had watched Ernesto’s coffin being lowered into the ground.
We had mourned him for fifteen years.
We had just heard recordings made before his murder.
But Isabella stared at those four words without blinking.
“She’s telling the truth.”
Julian shook his head.
“You saw him die.”
“I saw him collapse,” Isabella replied. “Dr. Keller took his body before the police arrived. I never saw him again.”
Adrian survived because Patricia’s bullet struck the metal recorder hidden beneath his coat. The wound was painful, but not fatal.
While paramedics treated him, police surrounded the cemetery.
Ernesto’s grave was opened before sunrise.
The coffin was still there.
The locks were broken.
Inside was the suit Ernesto had worn at his funeral.
His watch.
His wedding ring.
But there was no body.
Only another envelope.
It had been placed beneath the white satin lining.
My name was written across the front.
I opened it with shaking hands.
Inside was a letter dated three days after Ernesto’s supposed death.
If you are reading this, then Ricardo has finally discovered the truth.
I survived the poison because Isabella warned me. Dr. Keller slowed my heartbeat with medication and declared me dead before Ricardo could finish what he started.
I wanted to return.
But Keller uncovered something larger than the stolen money.
Ricardo and Patricia were only pieces on the board.
Someone else controlled them.
Someone inside the family.
Someone who knew every secret before it happened.
My eyes moved to the final paragraph.
Do not trust Gabriel.
I looked up.
Gabriel was gone.
Julian called his phone.
A ringtone sounded from inside the open coffin.
His phone lay beneath Ernesto’s empty suit.
Beside it was a fresh photograph.
Gabriel stood inside a hospital room.
Behind him, an elderly man lay unconscious in bed.
Even after fifteen years, I recognized Ernesto immediately.
On the back of the photograph was an address and a message:
COME BEFORE MIDNIGHT, OR HE DIES FOR REAL.
Then Adrian noticed something in the corner of the image.
A mirror.
Reflected in it was the person taking the photograph.
My mother.
She was supposed to be inside the ambulance.
But when we turned toward the road, the ambulance doors stood open.
The paramedics lay unconscious on the ground.
And my mother had vanished.
