“It’s not your land, Marcus,” I said, catching my breath as Blake and I reached the clearing.

Lydia Crane stepped forward, her boots squelching in the mud.

“Mr. Mercer, I am Lydia Crane from the county counsel’s office,” she said.

She held up a laminated document, her voice steady despite the storm.

“I have an emergency stop-work directive,” she said.

“This is an active investigation into illegal grading on a historic burial site.”

Marcus scoffed, wiping rain from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“It’s an empty hill,” he said. “The graves are on the other side of the ridge.”

“The survey was falsified, Mr. Mercer,” Lydia said. “We have the state archaeologist’s preliminary report right here.”

The bulldozer engine died, leaving only the sound of the rain and the idling police cars.

In the sudden quiet, we could hear the metal tracks of the machine settling into the mud.

Blake walked over to the edge of the freshly cut trench.

“Look at this,” Blake said, pointing down.

I walked over and looked into the trench, the flashlight on my phone cutting through the dark.