Chapter 15 - THE EMPTY GRAVE
They reached California before dawn.
The cemetery looked violated rather than peaceful.
Elena's grave stood open beneath floodlights.
The coffin was gone.
Giovanni found Sofia Bellini's abandoned car near the maintenance road.
Inside was a bloodstained glove and a receipt from an industrial cold-storage facility forty miles away.
Luca called the police anonymously while Giovanni refused to wait.
They drove to the warehouse in two vehicles.
The building was dark except for one loading bay.
Inside, rows of refrigerated rooms stretched into shadow.
They found the coffin in Unit 17.
Its lid had been opened.
Elena was still inside.
Giovanni nearly collapsed from relief and rage at the same time.
Dr. Chen was there too, tied to a chair but alive.
She explained that Vale's men forced her to locate the metallic object on Elena's scan.
Before they could remove it, the warehouse alarm sounded.
Sofia appeared behind the glass observation window.
She held a remote detonator.
"Nobody leaves with that capsule."
Giovanni shouted that Elena had trusted her.
Sofia's face twisted with grief.
"Elena trusted everyone until she learned what your family did to mine."
She admitted Vale had recruited her after Giovanni's father bankrupted her parents through one of the shell schemes.
Then she pressed a button.
Steel fire doors slammed shut around Unit 17.
A timer appeared above the refrigeration controls.
Dr. Chen said the capsule had been inserted professionally before Elena's final hospital admission, meaning Elena had planned for the possibility of death.
Giovanni hated hearing the word planned beside his wife's death.
He realized she had been saying goodbye in small ways he mistook for ordinary tenderness.
That memory nearly broke him before Sofia's voice came through the glass.
May you like
Five minutes.
And the temperature began to rise.
