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“Very practical.”

The weak smile he gives me is full of trust.

We meet Wes and Roman at the back steps. Roman’s hair is tossed from sleep, his expression unusually stripped of charm.

Wes scans Theo once, then the house, then me. “Show me.”

Theo leads us past the back of the house toward the higher ground. Wet grass brushes my ankles. The cemetery spreads around us in silver and black, rows of stones leaning beneath moss, angel wings dark with rain, live oak branches dragging shadows across the path.

The night smells like old stone and fresh earth. Except fresh earth doesn’t belong in a settled cemetery where the ground has sat undisturbed for years. I stop before anyone tells me to.

Roman angles his flashlight toward the low rise beyond the shed. “There?”

Theo nods. “That’s the old charity section behind the maintenance shed.”

This patch of cemetery sits beneath a live oak where the roots gather around the graves like hands holding a bowl. The markers here are smaller, plainer, many half-sunk. Some have names. Some only have dates. A few have nothing but weathered stone and moss.

A shallow rectangle of sod beside the marker has been cut along one edge and peeled back, then pressed into place again. The soil beneath it is freshly disturbed, but it doesn’t look like they dug anything up. Fresh mud leads from it toward a small marker nearly swallowed by fern. Beside the shed, a few yards away, the old maintenance cabinet built into the wall stands open by a finger’s width.

Someone disturbed the records and the ground on the same night. Why? What were they looking for?

Theo goes rigid.

Wes touches his arm before he can move. “Stay.”

“That cabinet holds old burial cards, flood relocation notes, paper maps I haven’t digitized yet.” Theo’s voice sounds scraped raw. “The lock was supposed to hold.”

“It was picked,” Roman says, crouching near it with gloves and a small light. “Cleanly.”

I crouch by the small marker with cut sod. The stone has no readable name. Lichen covers the top. Mud fills shallow cuts along the face. With gloved fingers, I brush away loose dirt.

A flower appears beneath the grime. Five petals. Long, narrow, slightly curved. It’s a swamp lily. My pulse trips.

Below the flower, almost hidden where the marker meets the earth, is a faint carved curve with three tiny water lines cutting through one side. I take a photo. Then another with the flashlight angled lower. The curve catches shadow and becomes clearer.

My phone buzzes. Ezra.

I answer on speaker. “I found a marker.”

His breathing sounds rough under running water. “Does it have a swamp lily on the marker?”

I look at the stone. “Yes.”

“Curve low on the face?”

My fingers go cold inside the gloves. “Yes. How did you⁠—”

“I think I just felt you find it.” His voice thins. “It felt like scraping under my skin. It’s the same feeling as before, only this time I could see more.”

“Do you need us to come back?” Theo asks.

“No. I need answers.”

Fear rises so fast my vision pinches. I press my wet sleeve against my mouth and breathe through it. Ezra isn’t outside, but the grave still reached him.

Theo takes one step toward me and stops himself. “Pepper?”

“I’m okay.” My voice trembles. I hate that it does. “Give me a second.”