echoed on the stairs above. Then came the sound of Garrett’s voice, whistling a soft, familiar classical tune as his polished dress shoes clicked down the concrete steps.
He wasn't in Harrisburg. He had come home early.
Panic threatened to paralyze me, but pure survival instinct took over. The sub-basement had no windows and only one primary exit. To the left of the embalming table was a narrow recessed alcove housing the central air filtration compressors and empty casket shipping containers. I slipped behind a stacked pair of oversized bronze caskets, pressing my back flat against the cold concrete wall, clutching the manila folder and the digitalis vial against my chest.
Garrett stepped into the room, holding his leather briefcase and a bottle of expensive champagne. He walked straight to the desk, set his briefcase down, and hummed as he checked the temperature gauges on the cold crypts. He pulled open the drawer, reached for his ledger—and then stopped dead.
The empty plastic sleeve on the blotter caught his eye. His humming cut off instantly.
I watched through the four-inch gap between the bronze caskets as his face transformed. The warm, gentle expression he wore in public vanished, replaced by an
expression of cold, predatory rage. His eyes swept across the floor, noticing the wet footprint my shoe had left near the threshold.
‘Lauren?’ Garrett called out, his voice unnervingly calm and polite. ‘Darling, are you down here?’
He reached into his overcoat, pulled out a snub-nosed .38 revolver, and slowly began walking toward the embalming bay. ‘You really shouldn't be wandering around the cellar, sweetheart. The floorboards are terribly unstable.’
He was ten feet away from my hiding spot, his footsteps slow and deliberate. In five seconds, he would round the corner of the caskets and see me cornered against the wall.
My eyes landed on the high-pressure embalming fluid flush valve mounted on the compressor wall right above my head. The tank was pressurized to ninety pounds per square inch and filled with concentrated, pungent arterial formaldehyde. I reached up with trembling fingers, gripped the brass lever, and yanked it downward with all my strength.
A deafening roar erupted as a high-velocity stream of toxic, stinging chemical fluid sprayed directly across the alcove, hitting Garrett squarely in the face and eyes. Garrett screamed in agony, dropping the revolver as the concentrated formaldehyde burned through his corneas and filled his throat with
caustic fumes.
He stumbled backward, clutching his blinding eyes, choking and swinging his fists wildly. I bolted from behind the caskets, scooped up his dropped revolver from the floor, and sprinted toward the steel exit door.
‘You won't make it to the highway, Lauren!’ Garrett roared, coughing violently as he clawed at his burning face. ‘My father has the gates locked! You belong to this house!’
I hit the emergency release paddle on the steel door, burst through into the furnace room, and tore up the cellar stairs into the ground-floor chapel. As I reached the front foyer, Donald Vance was walking through the double doors, holding a pair of heavy iron gate keys.
He saw the chemical burns on my cardigan, saw the revolver in my shaking hands, and saw the manila folder clutched under my arm. His eyes widened as he reached toward his waistband.
‘Step away from the door, Donald!’ I screamed, leveling the revolver directly at his chest, cocking the hammer back with a sharp, unmistakable click.
Donald froze. For a second, the seventy-year-old patriarch calculated his chances. But seeing the sheer, unhinged fury in my eyes, he slowly raised his hands and stepped aside onto the Persian