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chapter 46

last update Huling Na-update: 2025-10-19 22:11:58

it was. For so long, Angela’s memory had been a private, painful wound, then a banner for a war. Now, it could simply be a beautiful part of our story, a touchstone of love, not loss. LJ, with the unerring instinct of the child who had become our son, had understood that before we did.We turned back toward the house, its windows glowing like warm amber in the twilight. Inside, the scent of garlic and rosemary from the dinner we’d cooked together still hung in the air. LJ was at the kitchen table, his physics textbook open next to his laptop, a scene of such normal teenage domesticity it made my heart ache with a gratitude so profound it was almost a pain.

“The framing project is a go,” I announced, slipping my jacket off.

He looked up, a grin spreading across his face. “Cool. I found a place online that does shadow boxes. We can use that blue fabric from the foundation’s art supply as a background. It’ll look like the sky.”

Arthur clapped him on the shoulder. “Project manager material
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    The silence after hitting ‘send’ was louder than any sound. We stared at the screen, at the confirmation email that our dossier had winged its way into the encrypted inboxes of Apex Venture’s board members. The adrenaline that had fueled the all-nighter evaporated, leaving a hollow, jittery feeling.“Well,” Arthur said, rubbing his eyes. “We’ve either just committed career suicide for you and me, or we’ve thrown a grenade into the boardroom.”“A grenade made of pie charts and police reports,” I muttered, my stomach churning.Lanc poured four fingers of whiskey into a coffee mug. “To crazy bastards.”We drank. It burned.The wait was agonizing. Pryce’s injunction hearing came and went. The judge, swayed by the public sentiment and the “pending historical review,” denied the immediate injunction but set a tight deadline for the archaeological survey. It was a punt, not a victory. Pryce’s lawyers left the courtroom looking sour. He didn’t look at us.Life on the surface went on. Lanc’s c

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    The letter proposing a joint-funded archaeological survey was a work of art. Arthur drafted it, I polished the prose, and Lanc signed it with a flourish that nearly tore the paper. We sent it to Pryce, the county, and, crucially, to the same local reporter who’d broken the “history halts harmony” story.The response was not a letter. It was a visit.Two days later, as I was elbow-deep in flour for a new batch of “strategic morale” pies (apple-ginger, this time), a black town car purred to a stop outside. Carson Pryce emerged, alone. He didn’t come to the door. He stood in my driveway, looking at the house with the detached interest of a geologist surveying a rock formation.I wiped my hands on my apron, heart hammering, and walked out onto the porch. “Mr. Pryce. To what do I owe the… surprise?”He turned his cool gaze on me. “A conversation. One that doesn’t require an audience, a grizzled archaeologist, or a homemade pastry.”“The pies are a side effect, not a requirement,” I said, l

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    The letter proposing a joint-funded archaeological survey was a work of art. Arthur drafted it, I polished the prose, and Lanc signed it with a flourish that nearly tore the paper. We sent it to Pryce, the county, and, crucially, to the same local reporter who’d broken the “history halts harmony” story.The response was not a letter. It was a visit.Two days later, as I was elbow-deep in flour for a new batch of “strategic morale” pies (apple-ginger, this time), a black town car purred to a stop outside. Carson Pryce emerged, alone. He didn’t come to the door. He stood in my driveway, looking at the house with the detached interest of a geologist surveying a rock formation.I wiped my hands on my apron, heart hammering, and walked out onto the porch. “Mr. Pryce. To what do I owe the… surprise?”He turned his cool gaze on me. “A conversation. One that doesn’t require an audience, a grizzled archaeologist, or a homemade pastry.”“The pies are a side effect, not a requirement,” I said, l

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    The sixty-day reprieve settled over us like a layer of fine, radioactive dust. It wasn’t peace; it was a tense, ticking quiet. Miranda became a woman possessed, her lab a fortress of core samples and seismic maps. We funded her extra lab assistant with a clandestine bake sale so epic it should have its own documentary.Lanc, meanwhile, worked double-time. With his own site finally moving, he raced against the shadow of Pryce’s postponed behemoth. “I need to have roofs on, windows in, before his planning commission hearing,” he grumbled one afternoon, hunched over blueprints at our table. “Make mine a fait accompli. You can’t contextually dwarf what’s already standing.”“He can if he buys the families out from under you before they move in,” Arthur said, not looking up from his laptop where he was composing letters to every state-level environmental agency he could find.“Cheerful,” Lanc shot back, rubbing his eyes. “Always so cheerful.”The first sign that Pryce was using his sixty da

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