Page 13 of Silent Grave

"It doesn't make sense," she said, more to herself than the others. "He disappears from one mine entrance, somehow makes it through God knows how many tunnels to emerge here, and then someone just happens to be waiting with a weapon?"

"Not a coincidence," her father said firmly. "Someone knew he'd come out here."

"But how? These tunnels are like a maze. Was someone following him, waiting for him to get out?"

Gabriel was quiet for a moment, considering. When he spoke, his voice was careful—the tone he used when he thought she might not like what he had to say. "Maybe they lured him in, like a cat playing with a mouse. Then, when he finally got out of the mines, the fun was over. Time to kill the mouse."

Sheila looked back at Tyler's body, at the peaceful expression that now seemed more sinister. Had someone lured him into the darkness, allowed him to hope he might escape, only to kill him the moment he saw daylight?

"If you're right," she said slowly, "then this wasn't some random act of violence. Someone planned this. Watched him. Waited for the right moment."

"And knew the mine system well enough to navigate it in the dark," her father added.

Dr. Zihao cleared his throat. "I'll need to do a full autopsy, but preliminary time of death appears to be early this morning, between two and four AM." He pointed to Tyler's clothes. "The mine dust is ground into the fabric. He was in there for a while, moving around. But the blood spatter is all localized here. He died where he fell."

Sheila imagined Tyler's final moments—emerging from the darkness, perhaps believing he was saved, only to face something much worse. He'd had so much ahead of him, so much to live for. And now those dreams had been crushed—not just for him, but for his family and friends as well.

Sheila thought of Tyler's mother, who would never get to embrace her son again. Never get to hear him talk about college and future plans, marriage and children and a career and all the exciting possibilities that had once been ahead of him. The very thought of all that had been lost turned Sheila's stomach sour.

She crouched near his outstretched hand, brushing aside dirt to reveal a faint outline in the earth. A symbol drawn just beneath his fingers.

"What is this?" she murmured.

Her father stepped closer, frowning. "A cross, by the look of it."

"Did he draw it in his final moments?"

Gabriel studied her carefully. "You're forgetting something."

She waited for him to explain, but he didn't. He was testing her, letting her figure it out on her own.

"Angela," she said, frowning as she recalled their conversation with Tyler's mother. "She said Tyler was agnostic."

Gabriel nodded. "So either, in his last moments, he reverted back to an earlier belief—"

"Or his killer drew the cross," Sheila said. "And judging by the dirt on the tip of Tyler's finger… the killer made Tyler draw it."

CHAPTER SIX

He watched from the tree line as they examined Tyler Matthews' body, cataloging every movement, every reaction. The sheriff and her father were thorough—he had to give them that. They noticed details others might have missed, like the cross he'd made Tyler draw. A final act of contrition, though Tyler had fought against it until the end.

They don't understand yet, he thought, adjusting his position behind a thick pine. But they will.

A few stray snowflakes fell around him, catching in his beard, melting against his skin. He barely felt the cold anymore. Years of working these tunnels had changed him, hardened him against discomfort. The same tunnels where his father had locked him as punishment, leaving him alone in the darkness for days at a time.

"Builds character," Frank would say afterward, unlocking the heavy chain that secured the entrance. "A real man faces his fears."

Yes, his time in the darkness certainly had built character, though perhaps not the kind of character Frank had intended, as he must have realized in his final moments. But that was nature's way: survival of the fittest. Not God's way, perhaps, but it was a fallen world, a shadow of what it was supposed to be.

Putting aside these thoughts, he watched as the coroner examined Tyler's head wound. Did the coroner have any idea what had dealt the blows?

The item itself—a shovel passed down to the man from his father—lay cleaned and oiled in his workshop now, ready for the next time he needed it. Everything in its place, his father had taught him. Keep your tools maintained.

He remembered Tyler's final moments with perfect clarity. The boy had lasted longer in the darkness than expected—two nights of wandering the tunnels, calling out for help, slowly losing his grip on reality. The man had followed him the entire time with his night-vision goggles, a silent predator watching Tyler's descent into terror.

There, in the darkness, he had tested Tyler. And Tyler had been found wanting.

When Tyler finally found an exit, the dawn light had nearly blinded him. He'd fallen to his knees, weeping with relief. It was short-lived, however. Soon, the darkness found him again—for good, this time.

---