Chapter 20 - The Unopened Coffin
The flight back to the United States was spent in total, terrifying silence.
I did not drink.
I did not sleep.
I sat at the conference table of the Gulfstream with the five numbers Camden had carved into his cell wall scrawled on a yellow pad before me:
*4 - 1 - 9 - 0 - 2.*
By eight o'clock that evening, my private helicopter touched down on the misty grounds of the Alden Family Estate in upstate New York.
Dominic met me on the wet lawn, his trench coat soaked through with cold autumn rain.
In his hand, he held a heavy steel crowbar and a forensic biometric scanner.
We walked side by side toward the old stone mausoleum nestled beneath the weeping willows at the edge of the estate.
Inside the heavy iron gates, the air smelled of cold stone, wax, and ancient dust.
Arthur Alden’s white marble sarcophagus sat in the center of the vaulted chamber, dignified, quiet, and untouched.
"Where do the numbers go?" Dominic asked in a low whisper, his flashlight cutting through the darkness.
I walked to the rear of my father’s tomb.
Carved into the granite base were small brass rosettes, five in total.
I counted them from left to right: four, one, nine, zero, two.
I pressed the third brass rosette with all my strength.
A loud, grinding metallic click resonated through the crypt.
A hidden compartment beneath the marble base slowly slid open, revealing an old wooden chest reinforced with rusted iron bands.
Dominic used the crowbar to pry the rusted lock loose.
The wood splintered with a sharp crack that echoed like a gunshot in the silent tomb.
Inside the chest lay no gold, no bearer bonds, and no deeds.
There were only three items:
A miniature audio recorder with its green standby light blinking silently in the dark.
A sealed envelope containing a certified DNA heritage analysis labeled with my father’s name.
And resting beneath the documents was a framed, faded photograph of a smiling young woman holding a newborn baby in her arms.
I pointed my trembling flashlight at the photograph.
The woman was not my mother.
The woman in the picture, holding a child with Arthur Alden’s eyes, was Camden Pierce’s younger, supposedly deceased sister.
And written across the bottom of the DNA report in bold red letters was a single sentence:
*Vivian is not the biological heir.*
Before I could scream, before I could drop the paper, the heavy iron doors of the mausoleum slammed shut behind us.
The sound of a heavy padlock clicked into place from the outside.
And from the speaker of the blinking audio transmitter in the wooden chest, a raspy, familiar voice whispered into the cold darkness of the tomb:
May you like
"Did you really think the prison shank was real, Vivian?"
"Look behind you."
