Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 62923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
“Did you or your men put this here?” Ryder asked again, more anxious this time. He wasn’t sure if it was Remi’s desperation rubbing off on him or if it was something else. Either way, he suddenly felt like somebody’s life did hang in the balance.
The man shook his head. “It shouldn’t be there.” He looked around at his men, who’d all gathered around them at this point, and they each shook their heads, indicating they didn’t have a clue how it had gotten there. “It wasn’t there yesterday. I’m sure of it.”
“Get some shovels,” Ryder ordered. “We need to start digging.”
“Shovels won’t work, man. We’ve compacted this dirt so tight that it will take a bulldozer to move any of it.”
Ryder looked down at the tube. “Not this spot,” he said. “Somebody moved some dirt last night. They may have run a compactor over it, but it’s not going to be set like the rest of the foundation. Get the shovels.” Ryder stood up and pulled Remi with him. “You stand over there, Remi,” he pointed toward the Jeep. “You got us here. Let me get him out, okay?”
“No…I can’t leave,” Remi whispered. “I think that if I left…something bad would happen. Let me stay, okay? I’ll get out of the way.” He took a couple steps back and offered Ryder a weak smile. Remi looked queasy, like he was about to pass out again. He swayed on his feet. “You’ve got to hurry, Ryder. He’s getting weaker. I feel it.”
Ryder turned and found a shovel shoved up in his face. The contractor he’d argued with held one, too. The man said, “Let’s do this.” He pushed his shovel into the dirt and frowned. “You’re right, copper. Somebody’s moved this dirt since yesterday.”
“Be careful,” Ryder ordered as he pushed his own shovel into the dirt. “We don’t really know what we’re up against.”
“It’s a glass casket with the tube coming out of it. It’s glass because the man wanted him to see as he covered him up with the dirt,” Remi mumbled softly. “It’s a thick glass, though. Nothing happened when he compacted the dirt last night after he finished burying him. Just be careful with the pipe; it’s the only way he’s getting air.”
“Why isn’t he screaming?” Ryder asked as he tossed a shovelful of dirt aside. Ryder knew that if he were buried alive and there was a tube there for breathing, he’d be screaming his lungs out.
“Something’s in his mouth. He can’t scream. That was part of the fun,” Remi answered softly. He swayed on his feet again, but that time he fell to the ground. “Hurry,” he managed to whisper before passing out.
Chapter Three
Ryder’s captain leaned across the interrogation table and said, “No…seriously, Livingston; tell me something I’ll believe this time. How did you and your friend know the Waylon kid was buried there? Come on, Livingston. You can tell me. We’re on the same team.”
Ryder rolled his eyes. He’d been on the other side of the interrogation table enough to know his captain was currently trying…and failing…at the whole ‘good cop’ thing. Ryder had a feeling they were officially no longer on the same team. From the moment he’d pried the lid off Jason Waylon’s makeshift coffin, he’d officially been considered on the wrong side of the law. Of course, he didn’t really blame his captain; he wouldn’t have believed him either.
They’d pulled Jason out of the ground with only minutes to spare. Regardless of the tube that had been installed to allow oxygen to flow into his grave, Jason had still nearly suffocated. There’d been a ball gag in his mouth and secured tightly behind his head. His arms and legs were shrink wrapped to the point that he looked like a mummy, but with clear wrappings instead of white. Between the ball gag, shrink wrapping, being buried alive, and the sheer panic, Jason had nearly died before they could dig him out of the earth. The panic…dear God, the panic that young man must have endured. From his grave, he had heard when the men arrived with their equipment. He could hear the concrete truck when it arrived at the construction site—the beep, beep, beep as it backed up. The man, the one who wrapped him and then buried him, had explained in explicit detail how the workers would show up the next morning…how they would back their concrete truck up to the foundation site…how they would slowly, but surely, cover up the tube that allowed oxygen to get to him. He’d even ventured a guess on how long he’d live in his tomb before he died. Would the concrete seep through the tube and harden across his nose or would he slowly suffocate in the darkness?
To make the situation even more eerie than it already was, the mansion being built over the spot chosen for Jason’s grave belonged to the Waylon family. Ryder wasn’t sure if the connection was that the Waylon family was involved with the abduction and attempted murder of their oldest son or if the spot had been chosen simply to feed the person’s lust for cruelty. Maybe it was supposed to be his own little dark secret—that the family home sat atop Jason’s grave.