Chapter 1 - THE VOICE UNDER THE DIRT“Sheriff’s dispatch,” the woman’s voice said through the plastic-covered phone beneath the soil. “We have your location. Keep him talking.”
For the first time in two days, Mark looked afraid.
His fingers stopped inches from my shoulder.
“What did you do?”
I kept my mouth against the straw and stared up at him.
Behind him, Diane stepped off the porch.
Mara stopped laughing.
“What is that?” Diane demanded.
Mark dug frantically at the loose dirt near my shoulder until the freezer bag appeared. He ripped the phone free.
The emergency call was still connected.
He tried to end it.
The dispatcher’s voice came again.
“Sir, deputies are already on the property.”
Red and blue light washed across the privacy fence.
Everything happened at once.
Mark stood.
Diane screamed that this was a misunderstanding.
Mara kicked over her lawn chair trying to reach the back door.
Then someone pounded on the side gate.
“Sheriff’s office!”
Mark looked at me.
For one terrible second, I saw calculation return to his face.
“Tell them you agreed to this.”
I said nothing.
“Elena.”
His voice softened.
That voice had once convinced me he loved me.
“Tell them this was a family exercise.”
The gate burst open.
Two deputies entered with a third officer behind them, followed almost immediately by firefighters and paramedics.
Nobody needed me to explain what they were looking at.
A thirty-two-year-old pregnant woman was buried in wet backyard soil up to her shoulders.
My lips were split.
My face was sunburned.
Insects crawled over the mud around my neck.
And my husband was holding the phone I had used to call for help.
Deputy Aaron Cole drew Mark away from me while another officer ordered Diane and Mara to keep their hands visible.
Mark started talking immediately.
“She did this voluntarily.”
Deputy Cole looked at me.
“Ma’am, did you consent to being buried here?”
“No.”
It was the first full word I had spoken in hours.
Mark’s mouth snapped shut.
The paramedics would not simply pull me free. They were worried about what prolonged compression and dehydration might have done to my body. Firefighters removed the soil carefully while medical staff stabilized my neck and monitored my breathing.
When they finally lifted me onto the stretcher, pain exploded through both legs.
I screamed.
Mark turned toward me.
“See? She’s hysterical.”
Deputy Cole looked at him with an expression I will remember for the rest of my life.
“No,” he said. “She’s injured.”
As they rolled me toward the ambulance, I grabbed the paramedic’s wrist.
“My baby.”
“We’re checking both of you.”
“The recordings.”
Deputy Cole walked beside the stretcher.
“We have the phone.”
“There are more files.”
“We’ll preserve everything.”
I closed my eyes.
Then Mara shouted from the porch.
“You don’t understand! This is how our family handles things!”
Deputy Cole stopped.
Slowly, he turned around.
“What did you say?”
Mara’s face changed.
Diane whispered sharply, “Shut up.”
May you like
But it was too late.
Because after two days of trying to teach me obedience, the Langford family had finally started teaching the sheriff’s department who they really were.
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