Chapter 26: The Pod

Six guards came off the wall and started down the aisle toward me.

"Remove this woman," Lydia said. "She is mocking the dead."

The guards were ten steps away when the thin old elder in the front row lifted her cane.

She did not raise her voice.

"No one touches her until I have looked."

The guards stopped.

They looked at Lydia, then at the old woman, who had served three Alphas and outranked everyone in the room who was not wearing a crown.

Lydia's hands curled against her white dress.

"Elder, with respect, this is a cruel trick."

"Then it will not hurt to check," the elder said.

Marla stood up in the third pew.

She walked to the front with her canvas bag, looking straight ahead, and her chin was wobbling.

She had been crying since the elevator, and she had promised she would not.

"I'm Dr. Quinn," she said. "I'm Dr. Brennan's executor. I buried that pod myself, and I know its seal."

She put her hand flat on the plate marked HAZEL.

"Open it."

"You have no right," Lydia said.

"The executor has every right," said the elder. "Open it."

Marla punched in a code on the side panel, and the lid hissed.

Two guards lifted it back.

There were four canvas sacks inside, heavy with sand.

Under them lay a white lab coat, folded.

The silence in the cathedral lasted a long moment.

Then a woman in the middle rows gasped out loud.

"That's a joke," someone said. "That's a body bag full of dirt."

The elder walked up the steps to the pod, leaning on her cane.

She lifted the coat in both hands, bent her face to it, and breathed in.

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