“Don’t give up yet, Doctor!” Silas grunted, wedging the shovel under the edge of the lid.
There was a loud crack of splintering wood. The long iron nails screeched as they were forced out. Silas threw his weight onto the shovel, and the lid popped open with a heavy thud.
A wave of stale air, sweat, and chemical odor hit them. Eleanor leaned over, expecting to see Robert Sterling’s polished face twisted in agony. But at the bottom of the grave lay a man she had never seen before.
He looked to be in his mid-forties, wearing a grease-stained canvas work jacket. His knuckles were raw and bleeding from clawing at the lid, and his face was drenched in sweat. The man was gasping for air like a fish out of water, his chest heaving violently.
“Good Lord,” Silas whispered, dropping the shovel in the mud.
The man in the coffin slowly opened his swollen eyes, focusing on Eleanor. He croaked through parched, cracked lips:
“I was just… unloading bricks at the site… How did I get in a box?”
Eleanor didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the man’s rough, grease-stained collar.
“Help me, Silas!” she commanded, her voice ringing with the authority of a lead surgeon.
The old man grunted, braced his feet in the mud, and grabbed the man under the arms. Together, they hauled the heavy, limp body out of the pine trap. The stranger collapsed onto the pile of wreaths. Eleanor immediately knelt beside him in the mud, pressing two fingers to his carotid artery. A frantic, thready pulse beat against her skin.
The man’s breath carried a strange, sickly-sweet chemical scent, barely detectable under the smell of cheap tobacco. *Ketamine or a heavy sedative,* her medical brain diagnosed automatically.
“What’s your name?” Eleanor patted the man’s unshaven cheek. “Can you hear me? Stay with me!”
“Steve…” he rasped, staring at the darkening sky. “My name’s Steve. I need water. My throat feels like it’s full of sand…”
Silas silently pulled off his tweed coat and draped it over the shivering man’s shoulders. Left in just his worn sweater, the old man shivered in the November wind.
“Unbelievable,” Silas muttered, adjusting his glasses. “A plot worthy of Dickens, but without the Christmas spirit. Get up, Steve. We can’t stay here. Let’s get to the cottage; I’ve got the stove going.”
They made it to the small brick caretaker’s house with difficulty. Steve’s legs were like jelly, and he leaned heavily on Eleanor’s shoulder. Every step was a struggle.
Inside, the air was warm and dry, smelling of woodsmoke, black tea, and old paper. Stacks of well-loved books lined the walls. They sat Steve on a sagging sofa covered in a flannel blanket. Eleanor poured him a mug of water, and he clutched it with trembling hands, his teeth chattering against the rim.
“Tell us what happened,” Eleanor said, sitting on a rickety stool across from him.
Steve took a few painful gulps and began to speak. His voice was raw. He explained that he’d come to Oak Creek from a small town looking for work. He had a family to feed and a sick wife. At the bus station, two men in a luxury SUV approached him. They offered him a one-day job unloading a shipment at a private warehouse. They promised him more money than he’d see in six months at home. He got in the car.
Steve lowered his head, his eyes filled with shame.
“It was warm in the car, real nice. One of them handed me a flask. ‘Drink up,’ he says. ‘It’s cold out there.’ I took a swig. It tasted sweet, like some kind of herbal liqueur. After that, everything went fuzzy. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in the dark, wood right against my face, can’t breathe. I hear dirt hitting the lid. I thought I was dead for sure.”
Eleanor closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. The puzzle pieces clicked into place with chilling precision. Robert Sterling. That smooth-talking billionaire had faked his own death to escape creditors or a looming investigation. The doctor who cleared him was the perfect fall guy. Her reputation was sacrificed to make his “death” look like a medical error. And in his place, they buried a drugged, “disposable” laborer in a cheap pine box.
“We have to call the police,” Eleanor said, standing up. “I’ll give a statement. We’ll file a report.”
The mug in Steve’s hands rattled. He shrank back into the sofa, terror in his eyes.
“No, please, no police!” He tried to stand, but his legs failed him. “I don’t have my ID—the guys at the last job site took it. They’ll say I was trespassing or trying to rob the place. They’ll lock me up, and my wife will starve!”
“Eleanor,” Silas said softly but firmly. He was looking out the window into the deepening twilight. “Steve is right. If we make noise now, the people who staged this will know they failed. Do you have any idea the kind of money involved here? They’ll erase us. It’s 2004, but some people still play by 1920s rules. I’ve lived my life. But you… you have a future.”
The old man turned away from the window. His face looked like it was carved from gray stone.
“I’ll go back out and fill the grave. I’ll put the wreaths back. Let them think their plan worked. Steve can stay here for a few days. I’ve got plenty of potatoes and canned goods. He can recover here. You, Eleanor, go home. You need to think this through.”
Eleanor wanted to argue, but she knew Silas was right. Going up against people who would bury a man alive required more than just a phone call to the local precinct. She needed proof. And she couldn’t stop thinking about Sterling’s mother, fighting for her life in the ICU because of her son’s lie. The injustice burned in her chest.
Leaving what cash she had in her wallet on the table for Silas, Eleanor stepped out of the cottage.
It was pitch black now. The frost was hardening the ground. The walk to the main road felt like an eternity. Near the cemetery gates, a single yellow streetlight illuminated the silhouette of a lone car. An old Ford Crown Victoria with a taxi light on the roof.
Eleanor pulled the door open and sank into the back seat. The cabin smelled of vanilla air freshener and motor oil. Soft instrumental music played on the radio.
“Downtown, please. 18th and Main,” Eleanor said, her teeth still chattering.
The driver turned his head. He was a large, broad-shouldered man in his forties. His short hair was salted with gray. In the dim light of the dome lamp, Eleanor noticed a jagged scar running down his left cheek, disappearing into his collar. A heavy wooden cane rested on the passenger seat beside him.
The man didn’t ask what a woman was doing alone at a cemetery at night. He just turned the heater up to full blast. A wave of hot air hit Eleanor’s legs, making her exhale sharply. The driver reached into the glove box, pulled out a pack of wet wipes, and handed them back without a word.
“Here. For the mud on your hands.”
