I shouted to Jack, hoping my voice would carry through the stone.
“I’m still here,” he shouted back.
They’d put him in the middle crypt and Mickey and Flynn in the far right. Jack’s voice came from the left of me, meaning I was probably in head first.
“The spiders!” Flynn shouted. “The spiders. Let me out!”
Talk about a bad trip.
There was some ventilation to help with moisture, but the oxygen supply would dwindle soon. CO2 would build up rapidly, leading to a blackout. I guess that was a better way to go than starving to death in here. It wasn’t going to be pretty when the need for a bathroom break arrived.
Cuffed behind my back, I managed to reach my hands around and fish out my keys from my pocket. They hit the concrete as I fumbled for the handcuff key. My fingers scraped for them. When I finally had it between my fingertips, I managed to get the tiny key into the slot and unlock the cuffs.
My wrists swung free, but there wasn’t much room to move around.
I dug my cellphone from my pocket. The glow of the screen lit up the chamber.
With hope, I looked at the screen.
No signal.
Hope dashed.
The reinforced concrete walls of the crypt acted as a Faraday cage. Combined with the concrete, it blocked the signal.
I shimmied toward the mouth of the crypt and kicked the marble faceplate. It was only half to 3/4 of an inch thick.
A dozen heavy kicks rattled my shins. A dozen more, and the stone chipped around the rosette screws. A few more, and the brittle marble snapped and fell away. It crashed against the ground with a clank.
A gust of fresh air rushed in.
I shimmied out of the crypt and grabbed the cordless drill that had been left behind. It buzzed as I unscrewed the faceplate of Jack’s crypt, then helped him climb out.
“Thanks, brother. I appreciate it. That was a little on the cramped side.”
I released his cuffs, then proceeded to free Flynn and Mickey.
Flynn’s eyes were wide like saucers. “Now that was some messed-up shit.”
I helped them both out of the narrow chamber and cut away their zip ties with a pocket knife. They both filled their lungs with panicked breaths. The confinement had been intense for them, burning through oxygen twice as fast.
We may have been alive, but Mickey had a look of sheer despair on his face. There was nothing to negotiate with. No money. Pedro would most likely kill Kendra.
I called Isabella and asked her to track all cellular devices that had pinged the tower from the mausoleum.
Her fingers tapped the keys, and a moment later she said, “I’ve got four burners, apart from your phones.”
“Where are they now?”
She gave me the address as we hustled out of the mausoleum.
The four of us weaved through the tombs and hopped into the Revenant. Jack fired up the beast and banked a U-turn. The EV all-terrain vehicle barreled through the cemetery. We made it out before they locked the main gates.
We raced back to the marina at Diver Down. The thugs had taken our weapons, and I thought it best to drop off the psychonaughts before we engaged the hostiles.
Jack found a place to park, and we hurried back to the boat. I told Mickey and Flynn to stay put while we prepped our gear. We grabbed pistols, extra magazines, AR-15s, tactical vests, and anything else we thought we might need.
Isabella had tracked the money to a house on Pelican Crest—not the one in Stingray Bay. The one in Jamaica Village. Most people didn't often confuse the two.
