Chapter 4 - The Grave That Held No AnswersThe old church stood on a hill overlooking the Chicago River, its stone walls blackened by decades of soot. The city had grown around it, swallowing the quiet streets and burying the cemetery beneath new buildings, but the church itself had survived.
Rhett had visited his father's grave every year on the anniversary of the fire.
He had never suspected the answer to his father's death was buried beneath his feet.
“You're not coming inside,” he told Isa as the car stopped beside the cemetery gates.
She looked at him as if he had announced that the rain was forbidden to fall.
“The key is mine.”
“And you have two cracked ribs.”
“I can walk.”
“You can barely breathe.”
“Then I shall breathe angrily.”
Anton, sitting in the front seat, looked determinedly out the window. Rhett almost smiled. Almost.
He stepped out and opened Isa's door himself.
“Stay close to me.”
“I'm not one of your soldiers.”
“No. My soldiers listen when I tell them not to walk into danger.”
She climbed out without accepting his offered hand.
They entered through a side door whose lock Rhett opened with a narrow tool from Anton's kit. Inside, moonlight filtered through stained glass. Rows of wooden pews faced a marble altar, and the air carried the faint smell of damp stone.
Isa led him to a small chapel at the rear.
“My father brought me here when I was a child,” she said. “He told me that secrets weren't always buried because they were shameful. Sometimes they were buried because the truth would hurt the wrong people.”
“Did he tell you where to find the ledger?”
“No. He gave me the key the night before the fire.”
“Why didn't you use it before?”
“Because I was sixteen, my brother had disappeared, and a man who worked for your family threatened to put me in the same grave as my father.”
She stopped beside the altar and pointed to a square of stone beneath a brass candle stand.
Rhett knelt and examined the edge. A narrow keyhole was hidden beneath the stand's base.
Isa handed him the key.
It turned with a dry click.
The stone slab lifted to reveal a narrow compartment. Inside lay a sealed envelope, a small digital recorder, and a photograph of three men standing outside the warehouse eight years earlier.
Rhett recognized his father.
He recognized Conrad.
The third man was Elias Voss.
Alive. Smiling. One hand resting on Rhett's father's shoulder.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a date and four words.
The night everything changed.
Rhett opened the envelope.
The letter inside was written in his father's familiar, angular handwriting.
Rhett, if you are reading this, I failed to protect you from my own brother. Conrad has been moving money through the construction companies and using our name to purchase loyalty from men who should never have been allowed near our family.
I discovered his plan too late. He knows I have the original records.
There is something else you must understand. Elias is innocent. Whatever happens at the warehouse, do not believe the story Conrad tells you.
The letter ended there.
Rhett read it again, then a third time.
“What happened that night?” he whispered.
Isa picked up the recorder.
“I think your father left us the answer.”
Before she could press the button, a voice came from the chapel entrance.
“Put it down.”
Anton spun around, gun raised.
A dozen armed men stood among the pews. At their center was Conrad Valon, wearing a charcoal coat and carrying a black umbrella despite standing beneath a roof.
He looked almost disappointed.
“Rhett,” he said. “I asked you to bring me the key.”
“You asked me to hand over evidence of a murder.”
Conrad glanced at Isa.
“Isadora. Your father was a stubborn man. I hope you haven't inherited that particular flaw.”
Isa's fingers closed around the recorder.
“You killed him.”
“I did what I had to do to protect the family.”
“Which family?” she demanded. “Yours?”
Conrad sighed.
“Give me the recorder and the photograph. You and your brother can disappear somewhere warm. I will even provide enough money for you to begin again.”
Rhett stepped in front of Isa.
“You don't get to bargain with her.”
Conrad's expression hardened.
“You still think this is about the girl?”
He lifted one hand.
The armed men raised their weapons.
“This is about the throne, Rhett. And your father died because he forgot who was supposed to sit on it.”
A gunshot rang out.
The stained-glass window above the altar exploded.
Anton returned fire, and the chapel erupted into chaos.
Rhett grabbed Isa, pulled her through a narrow doorway behind the altar, and slammed it shut as bullets struck the wood.
They descended a steep staircase into the church's ancient crypt.
At the bottom, Isa stumbled. Rhett caught her before she hit the stone floor.
“You're hurt again.”
“I'm beginning to think that's your only observation about me.”
“It is the only one I can afford right now.”
He pushed open a rusted service door leading into the cemetery.
They emerged beneath the trees just as a second car screeched around the corner. Anton was already waiting behind the wheel.
Rhett shoved Isa into the back seat and climbed in after her.
They escaped with the photograph, the letter, and the recorder.
But as the church vanished behind them, Isa looked down at the recording device.
“There is something you should know,” she said.
Rhett turned toward her.
“What?”
She pressed the playback button.
A man's voice filled the car.
It was Rhett's father.
And the first sentence he spoke was the last thing Rhett had ever expected to hear.
“If Conrad has succeeded, my son will believe that I ordered Elias Voss killed.”
A burst of static followed.
Then his father continued.
“But the person who signed that order was standing beside me.”
Rhett's blood turned cold.
Because his father named the person next.
May you like
And it wasn't Conrad.
It was Rhett himself.
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