Whispers of Love at Hearts Hotel (Sweet Blossom Bay #3)

Linda

She didn't move. She didn't look up. She was only distantly aware of Ray standing two feet behind her, of the smell of broken concrete and turned earth, of the late afternoon sun warming her shoulders through her blouse.

All of that was at the edge of things. At the center was the piece of fired clay in her hand and the fine incised lines running in a precise arc across its curved surface.

The outer wall of the vessel had been burnished before firing, smoothed to a finish that caught the light differently from the break edges, which were rough and pale where the clay had fractured.

The incised pattern ran in two parallel lines that curved together at one end and diverged at the other, with a series of small, deliberate notches cut between them at regular intervals.

At the lower edge of the piece, where it had broken from the larger vessel, there was a thickening of the clay wall that suggested a base junction or a foot ring.

Her heart was going at a pace she hadn't felt since the last dig she'd been on, twenty-three years ago on the coast of Collier County, when her trowel had come up against the edge of a midden that turned out to run forty feet in three directions.

“Shush,” Maggie said gently. “You know how she gets when she’s concentrating.”

“Yes, but on what?” Martin asked, and Linda briefly registered the hint of impatience mingled with curiosity in his voice. “What has she found that could impact the Wayne Group's plans?”

“Uncle Michael,” Jake called as he and Toby arrived. “What’s going on? Why is Gran in the pool?”

“She’s found something,” Maggie replied.

“Oh!” Toby said, and Linda glanced around as the nine-year-old moved next to his grandmother.

“What did you find, Gran?” Jake called. “Is it treasure? Because it can’t be dinosaur bones, as you told me there were none in these parts.”

“Maybe they just haven’t found any yet,” Toby reasoned. “I mean, really, how do they really know? They are actually just speculating if you think about it.”

“Hey, you’re right,” Jake’s voice echoed down to Linda, making her glance around and smile at the two enthusiastic and frighteningly intelligent young men. “They truly don’t know, I mean for one hundred percent sure.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of like them saying green is green,” Toby added. “How do they know it’s really green and we only think of it as green because that’s what we’ve been told it is by someone who named it.”

“Yeah,” Jake agreed. “It’s kind of nuts what we just go along with…”

“Shush,” Maggie hissed. “Linda is concentrating. You two go and have your very weird conversation elsewhere.”

“Sorry,” Jake and Toby said in unison.

“We’ll be quiet,” Jake promised.

Quiet prevailed once again as Linda crouched lower and looked at the edges of the excavation around where the piece was found.

The crew had done well. They'd stopped the moment they'd seen something that wasn't soil or root or broken concrete, and they'd left the surrounding matrix largely undisturbed.

She could see at least two more fragments partially visible in the section wall to her left.

One of them showed a curve matching the burnished exterior surface, and what might have been the edge of a third piece further down the profile, though that one was not exposed enough to be certain.

Linda’s heart thudded in excitement as she realized that this wasn't a stray piece.

A single fragment could be explained as a trade item, something carried to the site from elsewhere and dropped or discarded.

Two or three fragments from the same deposit, in the same stratigraphic layer, three feet below a concrete slab that had been poured decades ago, was a different conversation entirely.

Linda straightened slowly.

She looked at the section wall for a long moment, reading the soil layers the way she'd been taught to read them.

The broken concrete and rubble of the pool construction at the top.

Below that, a thin band of mixed soil where the original ground surface had been disturbed when the pool was put in.

Below that, an undisturbed deposit of dark, organic-rich soil that had been building up for a very long time before anyone had put a pool on top of it.

The fragments were in the undisturbed deposit. Whatever this was, it predated the hotel. It predated the pool. It predated anything the Heart family had built on this ground by a very long margin.

Linda looked down at the piece in her hand one more time and knew these patterns.

"Ray," Linda called to him.

"Yes," Ray answered.

"I need you to stop all work on this site right now," Linda told him. "Not just in this section. The whole pool area. Nobody touches anything, moves any soil, or takes out any more concrete."

"Understood," Ray said without hesitation.

"I need you to extend your perimeter fencing," Linda continued. "Push it back another ten feet on all sides from where it is now. Nothing comes in or out of that perimeter. No equipment, no personnel except your foreman and me."

"I can have that done in twenty minutes," Ray told her.

"Thank you," Linda requested. "And Ray."

"Yes," Ray answered.

"Not a word of this to anyone outside your crew," Linda said. "Not tonight, not tomorrow. Tell your crew the same. I'll explain everything when I can, but right now I need your discretion."

"You've got it," Ray said.

Linda looked at him.

"Thank you," Linda said.

She turned and walked back toward the earth ramp.

Michael, Maggie, Martin, Rosa, Toby, and Jake were still standing at the edge of the pool staring at her expectantly.

“Gran, is that a broken vase in your hand?” Jake asked, seeing the item cradled in her palm. “Is that what you were digging up?”

“Honey, I’m not sure what it is right now,” Linda answered. “I have to get it verified first.”

“Ah,” Toby said. “Just in case it’s Uncle George’s wreckage hiding place.”

“What is that?” Maggie asked him as Linda barely registered what he’d said, as her mind reeled.

“Mmm,” was all that escaped her lips.

“You know, when you break something you know you’re going to get into trouble for, and then you have a wreckage hiding spot,” Jake answered.

“Or it’s something old and left here by people who were here before Uncle George,” Toby suggested.

“I doubt Uncle George would hide anything beneath a swimming pool,” Michael answered with a soft laugh.

“It could’ve been a valuable Ming vase he broke,” Jake suggested. “Gran, is it a Ming Vase?”

“You two, shush,” Maggie hissed, obviously realizing Linda had barely looked up as her eyes were locked on the shard in her hand.

“If it is, it would explain why if Uncle George broke it he would bury it beneath a swimming pool,” Toby reasoned.

“Yeah, I think if we broke something like that, we’d be buried beneath the swimming pool,” Jake said. “Those are really valuable.”

“Where do you two come up with this stuff?” Maggie hissed in exasperation.

“Linda, what is that in your hand?” Martin asked, stepping around the boys.

“As I said, if it’s what I think it is,” Linda looked up at him and smiled, “possibly our salvation.”

Everyone around the pool went quiet.

“I have to make a phone call and get someone here to help me with this,” Linda said, turning and walking a few feet away from all the eyes trained curiously on her. She pulled her phone out of her pocket.

She found the contact she wanted and pressed call. It rang for a while, and she was about to put down when a deep male voice answered.

“Hello, Linda,” Dr. Owen Reed greeted her.

“Hi, Owen,” Linda greeted back, glancing at the item in her hand. “Are you busy?”

“Not particularly,” Owen said. “I’m just closing up at the historical society, why?”

"I need you at Hearts Hotel. Right now," Linda told him, excitement creeping into her voice. “There’s been a find.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. She knew Owen knew what sort, but it was the kind of pause that told her he'd heard the seriousness in her voice and was already moving.

"What have you found?" Owen asked, his voice low like he already knew what she’d suspected.

"I think you should come here and take a look,” Linda prompted. “I think it might be what we once spoke about.”

Another pause, and she could hear his intake of breath. “Where did you find it?”

“Beneath the swimming pool,” Linda answered.

"Don't let anyone into the find area," Owen said, this time without any hesitation as his voice rose slightly. "Don't let anyone touch anything. Keep the perimeter exactly as it is."

"Already done," Linda answered.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," Owen told her. "Less if the lights are with me."

"I’ll go and ensure the perimeter is being set while I wait for you," Linda said.

“I'll be there soon,” Owen replied.

The line went dead, and Linda lowered the phone.

She stood for a moment with it in her hand, the fragment in her other hand and the late afternoon sun on her face, and she let herself feel, just for a moment, the full weight of what she thought she was holding.

Not the legal implications, not the Wayne Group, not the meeting in a few days.

Just the piece itself. The fired clay with the incised lines, the seven notches which could very well be two thousand years old, give or take, and her head turned to the swimming pool, wondering what else was down there.

Then she turned around to find all eyes were still pinned on her.

"Well?" Maggie asked.

Linda glanced down at the item in her hand, and a smile lit her face.

"I’m not going to say until Owen's seen it and verified what I think this is,” Linda told them.

Maggie's eyes had widened, and her face dropped as it dawned on her. “No.” Her jaw slackened.

Michael frowned for a few seconds, and then his brow shot up. “Is that…” His eyes landed on the item in Linda’s hand.

“For the love of my sanity,” Martin hissed. “Can someone please tell the rest of us what is going on here?”