Realization dawned as I remembered the object Scylla had found during the dig today. All my fears about the identity of the skeleton had completely wiped it from my mind. Henry’s constant rants about GSAF data tapping suddenly rang in my ears. Yeah, I definitely did not want to discuss removing a classified object from GSAF property on the internet.

Ok, I texted back, I’ll be right over.

Chapter 10

Mom hadn’t minded when I asked her if I could skip dinner to go over to Tamara’s house, which was pretty impressive. Cena was the most sacred meal of the day at our house—Mom always was trying out new recipes with projects from her garden, and if she was going to go to the trouble of making it, we were going to go to the trouble of eating it—so I figured that she probably still felt bad about today and was going easy on me. “Just make sure you’re home by nine,” she said, which was an astounding lack of instructions from her, especially on a school night.

I certainly wasn’t going to complain. Especially not after the day I’d had.

“Hey,” Tamara said as she answered the door. “How are you doing? Is everything… you know, okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” I replied. My voice echoed off the high ceiling of the entrance hall. A sleek black chandelier hung over my head, its clear crystal globes reflecting pink from the sunset glinting through the tall windows over the front door. “Erick said the skeleton was too old to be a, um, recent murder victim. He almost thought it looked fossilized, which is even crazier than the other idea.”

Tamara shut the door thoughtfully. “That whole torquing dig site is crazy. That’s why I called you over. Come here.”

She bustled through the arched doorway on her left, leading into the living room. I followed her and stopped dead in my tracks. Henry was sitting on the white sofa next to Scylla, who held the mystery object from the dig in her lap.

“Oh, great. What are you doing here?” I grumbled.

“I called him,” Tamara interrupted. “I wanted everyone in this together. It’s more important than whatever stupid thing you’re arguing about this week. Look.”