"Anna..." Owen reasoned, his hand hovering over the gear shift but not yet moving it. "I don't think that's a good idea. Hedoesn't even know you're coming down to Sanibel, let alone about the Calusa find or that we know about… things he didn’t want us to know about.” He stared at her. "I don’t know if seeing you walk into his recovery room out of nowhere while he’s groggy from anesthesia is such a good idea. It could shock his system."
"I don't care what that stubborn old fool thinks about the timing," Anna hissed, her fingers clenching into the leather of her bag so tightly her knuckles turned white. "He is in that hospital, and I am on this island. Take me to him, Owen. Now."
Owen let out a long, defeated sigh, knowing there was absolutely no changing her mind once her formidable will was set. He tapped out a rapid message to Linda on his screen:Anna knows George is in the hospital. She is insisting on coming directly there now.
He waited, his thumb resting against the glass. A second later, the phone buzzed with Linda’s reply. Owen opened the message, and as his eyes processed the final words, his dark brows shot up toward his hairline, a strange, eerie prickle of cold on his skin raised the hairs along his arms.
"What is it?" Anna asked, her voice breathless with raw worry as she watched his physical reaction. "Is he... Owen, tell me. Is George alright?"
Owen frowned, shaking his head slightly as he tried to dismiss the sudden, supernatural chill creeping up his spine. He looked up from the screen, his gaze locking onto his mentor with an expression of profound disbelief.
"Linda says we can come.” He stared at the screen with a furrowed brow. “She said George just came out of the recoverywing and is back in his fourth-floor room." He paused, his voice dropping into a quiet, intense cadence. “Linda said that as he was falling asleep from the sedatives, he muttered something strange. He told them he dreamt about you, Anna. He dreamt you were standing right by the pool site... calling his name."
Anna’s eyes widened to their absolute limits, her breath catching sharply in her throat as her hand flew to her collarbone. She stared at Owen, her lips trembling for a fraction of a second before she whispered.
"I dreamt of him... Owen,” Anna said, her voice low, “I fell asleep for an hour on the connecting flight from Atlanta. I dreamt I was standing on the beach by the hotel, the water rising, calling out for George over the sound of the surf. I was calling his name."
Owen stared at her through his glasses, a heavy, profound stillness settling over the interior of the station wagon. He was a man of science, a trained historical materialist who spent his entire life relying on physical stratigraphy, carbon dating, and hard documentation. He didn't believe in ghosts, he didn't believe in omens, and he certainly didn't believe in telepathy.
Yet, as he looked at the raw, undisguised vulnerability written across the face of the most logical woman he had ever known, he felt the unmistakable weight of a bond that seemed to stretch across fifty years of silence. A connection that time and distance had completely failed to sever. It was an absolute, terrifying certainty that made his skin prickle all over again.
He shook the feeling off, muttering a silent dismissal of the ridiculous thought as he shifted the Volvo back into drive and pulled out onto the asphalt. He pressed down on the accelerator, steering the car back toward the mainland bridges. In the distance, far beyond the sweeping curves of the bay, the heavyafternoon clouds began to part, and the shifting coastal sky turned a deep, brilliant, breathtaking shade of gold, illuminating their path as they drove toward the hospital.
DARIUS
The silence inside his private home office was absolute, but it did nothing to cool the slow burn of irritation in Darius Wayne’s chest. He stepped behind the heavy mahogany desk, tossing his linen blazer onto the leather armchair before pacing the length of the room.
He was furious. Baxter’s aggressive, boundary-crossing behavior at the diner had violated every rule of corporate chain of command, but worse than the insubordination was the sheer stupidity behind it. Darius ran a hand through his hair, his eyes narrowing as the timeline snapped into sharp focus.
It all tracked perfectly. Baxter had never shown a single shred of interest in the Sweet Blossom Bay acquisition until he was assigned to manage the Wayne Group's luxury resort project in South Carolina. That transfer had been Baxter’s ultimate redemption arc—the one final chance Darius had personally granted his cousin to atone for a series of catastrophic blunders that had nearly seen him cast out of the family firm forever. Baxter had practically begged for the move up, claiming he was ready to prove his worth. Yet the moment he arrived at theCharleston offices, he had clearly crossed paths with Dr. Debbi Wineberg and fallen completely backward into his old, desperate habits. He wasn't pushing this historical angle for the good of the company; he was performing like a trained seal to impress a calculating, dangerous woman who carried the keys to a senator's political vault.
Darius let out a harsh, tight breath and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that formed the back wall of the office. He rested his forearm against the cool pane, staring out across the glittering expanse of the bay.
The view was breathtaking. The water was perfectly peaceful, entirely undisturbed by the massive commercial machinery he usually directed, and it carried a strange, magnetic pull. It lulled you into a sense of stillness that Darius rarely permitted himself to experience. For a man who had spent his entire adult life navigating the concrete, high-velocity corporate matrix of Miami, this sleepy stretch of coastline felt oddly familiar. It felt like home somehow.
The sudden, sharp vibration of his phone against his desk broke the silence. Darius turned and looked down at the screen, his brows lifting slightly when he saw Clyde Davids' unlisted number flashing on the display.
He scooped up the device and swiped the screen, bringing the phone to his ear. "Hello, that was quick, Clyde."
"I don't waste time, Darius," Clyde’s gravelly voice came through the line, characteristically blunt. "I’m still running the deep financials on Dr. Wineberg and Owen Reed, but I’ve already verified the primary operational threat. I know exactly why Dr. Anna Caldwell boarded that flight to Southwest Florida International."
“Oh?” Darius stiffened, his gaze tracking a lone pelican skimming the surface of the water. "And why is she on her way to Sanibel Island?"
"There’s an active pool renovation project underway at Hearts Hotel," Clyde explained, the steady tap of a keyboard audible in the background. "Two days ago, the crew uncovered unlogged physical anomalies beneath the old concrete deck. Traces of a Calusa habitation layer. My contact within the state bureau confirms that nothing has been formally documented or submitted to the database yet. It’s an unverified find, but Dr. Caldwell’s presence on the island means they are preparing the initial site assessment protocols as we speak."
Darius swallowed hard, a cold knot tightening in his stomach as the reality of the threat aligned with the warnings Debbi Wineberg had laid out at the diner.
"Thank you, Clyde. Keep a close watch on the state filing desk. Alert me the second a formal cultural resource notice is generated." Darius's mind started to whirl.
"I’m already ahead of you," Clyde replied smoothly. "I'll have the full background dossiers on your secure server by tomorrow evening. I've just sent the preliminary data regarding the hotel pool findings to your private, encrypted email. Check your inbox."
"I appreciate it, Clyde,” Darius said. “We’ll speak again tomorrow."
Darius ended the call and dropped the phone onto the polished desk. His eyes drifted to the thick, faded leather binder sitting squarely in the center of the blotter. It was the master folder recovered from the highway wreckage of his parents' accidentall those years ago. It was labeled in his father's precise cursive:Sweet Blossom Bay Project.
He pulled the chair out, sinking into the leather as he opened the cover. His eyes skimmed the familiar first page, tracing the sweeping engineering lines of the grand luxury resort and mega-mall his father had mapped out before his life was cut short.
Darius let out a long, heavy sigh, his shoulders sagging under the immense weight of a decade's worth of misplaced grief.
