Page 52 of A Cobbled Conspiracy

“Fair enough.”

We were just beginning to straighten our clothes when the sound of running footsteps on gravel made us both freeze. Through the tinted windows, I could see someone approaching the car.

“Shit,” I muttered, frantically trying to make myself presentable.

“Leo! Dominic!” Penny’s voice called out, sharp with excitement and urgency. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you two!”

I quickly finished getting dressed and emerged from the car, trying to look like we’d just been having a private conversation rather than working out our conflicts through physical intimacy.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, hoping my flushed appearance could be attributed to the argument rather than what had actually happened.

His cotton candy scent was sharp with adrenaline, and his usually bright demeanor was replaced by something that looked like shock. “You have to come see this. Something’s happened at the demolition site.”

“What happened?” Dominic asked.

“I don’t know exactly, but they’ve stopped the demolition completely. They called Sheriff Hawkins. There are police cars coming.”

Dominic and I exchanged glances, our personal conflict temporarily set aside in the face of whatever new crisis was unfolding.

We followed Penny across the park toward the pharmacy, joining the crowd that had swelled to nearly a hundred people. The demolition equipment sat silent, and I could see several workers standing in a cluster, talking in hushed tones with expressions that suggested they’d encountered something far outside their normal experience.

“What did they find?” I asked Margaret Tang, who was standing at the edge of the crowd with her phone out, apparently live-tweeting the morning’s events.

“Nobody knows for sure,” she said, not looking up from her screen. “But the excavator operator called his supervisor, who called the city inspector, who called the Sheriff. Something about structural irregularities in the foundation.”

Dominic moved closer to me, his protective instincts engaged by the crowd and the unknown situation. Through the bond, I felt his heightened alertness as he scanned for potential threats.

“There,” Penny said, pointing toward the pharmacy’s exposed foundation. “You can see where they broke through.”

I pushed through the crowd with Penny and Dominic flanking me, drawn by the same curiosity that had everyone straining to see what the excavation had revealed. As we got closer, I could see the exposed foundation where the excavator had broken through what appeared to be a sealed section, revealing a dark hollow space beneath the building.

My craftsman’s eye automatically analyzed what I could see of the foundation work. I didn’t know much about brickwork, but the mortar joints showed signs of careful finishing.

Someone had definitely sealed this space on purpose.

Before I could answer, one of the police officers who’d arrived on scene approached with a powerful flashlight. “We’re going to need everyone to step back while we investigate what’s in there.”

I started to back away, but I was close enough to see when the flashlight beam illuminated the interior of the hidden space, and what I saw made my blood run cold.

Human skeletal remains, positioned as if they’d been placed there deliberately rather than buried accidentally. Even from this distance, I could make out the deteriorated remnants of clothing and, more distinctly, the gleam of metal that could only be a shoe buckle.

“Everyone back!” the police officer commanded, suddenly taking charge with practiced authority. “This is now a potential crime scene.”

The crowd began to murmur and shift, but I found myself unable to move. My attention was fixed on that buckle, on thedistinctive shape and ornate design that I’d been studying and trying to replicate.

“Leo?” Dominic’s voice seemed to come from very far away. His hands were on me, pulling me away from that dark hollow space. The crowd pressed closer to the barriers, everyone straining to see what the excavation had revealed. Around me, voices rose in speculation.

I gripped Dominic’s arm, my hands shaking as the full weight of the discovery settled over me. My grandfather’s buckles. A hidden makeshift grave beneath the pharmacy.

“Dominic,” I whispered, my voice barely audible above the crowd noise. “I think I know who that is.”