Dusty, Adam, and Louisa murmured their agreement, but Victoria stood apart from them, her arms folded.
“Wait a sec, guys,” she said. “We don’t know that it’s safe. We should wait for Andreas.”
“I vote we risk it,” Joy said. “Dusty here can take charge, let us know if anything is on the verge of collapse over there.”
Skye hesitated. There was something undeniably enticing about the empty house. Not even Andreas had been granted accessto it yet. She had already crept around its perimeter on several occasions, trying in vain to peer through the boarded windows. Both the front and back doors were padlocked, so it was unlikely that Tigri had managed to get inside.
“You don’t have to come,” she said to her mother.
“What, and miss all the fun?” Her brows lifted slightly. “What was it your father used to say? ‘Nae chance, lassie.’ ”
The sweetness of the remark disarmed Skye, and she managed only a nod. The two of them fell into step behind the others.
“I might run back for my camera,” Adam said.
“Why don’t you just get the damn thing surgically attached?” Victoria said snippily.
“Oh dear,” Cassandra said in an undertone to Skye. “I see it isn’t only the earthquake causing cracks to appear today…”
“Mum,” Skye hissed, increasing her pace. “They’ll hear you.”
“I’m only saying what I see.”
It was one of her go-to lines. Skye had grown up hearing it on repeat.
“Your mam’s only a nitpicker because she cares,” her dad would say. Skye disagreed. The cruel-to-be-kind persona her mother had cultivated had always baffled her. Why, if you truly cared about someone, would you go out of your way to tear them down? It made no sense.
They reached the empty house and paused outside. It was a single story, with dirt-streaked once-white walls. Two front windows were set between the entrance and a built-in nook, where a pile of rotten logs was stacked. Unlike the other dwellings on the hillside, there was also a terrace area with open sides and a wood-paneled roof that had long since been eroded by the elements.
Joy tried the front door.
“Locked,” she said over the rattle of the padlock.
“We’re back here,” Theo called, sticking his head around the side of the house. “You’re not going to believe what we’ve found.”
Dusty went first. Skye picked her way around cracked pots and shrubbery, offering her mum a hand as they scaled the low wall that encircled the rear garden. There was Tigri, nonchalantly washing himself in the shade of a fallen lime tree. A large hole had opened up below the exposed roots, and George was peering into it, eyes wide behind his glasses.
“The earthquake must have felled it,” Theo said. “It was still standing the last time I came this way.”
“What’s down there?” Louisa asked. Skye had a feeling she already knew. Another grave, it had to be. She took a moment to prepare herself, though her mother had no such qualms. Crouching beside George, Cassandra let out a low whistle.
“Definitely human,” she said with authority. “And looks to be intact.”
“No way!” Adam tripped in his haste to take a photo, and Skye hurried out of shot.
Not that it mattered much anymore.
“We’d better call the police,” Louisa said, though she made no move to do so.
“I’ll do it then, shall I?” Victoria said, stalking off in the direction of the house.
“Dad,” George piped up, “when the police have finished looking at the skeleton, do you think they’ll let us keep the skull?”
Theo took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes.
“Probably not,” he said evenly. “I don’t think you should get your hopes up on that one.”
Skye moved closer to the grave. What was it Andreas had told her? That a body should be buried with its feet facing east? Taking out her phone, she switched on the compass function, movinguntil the dial was pointing in the right direction. That was strange. This person, whoever it was, had been positioned facing not east but northwest. She didn’t pause. Her thumb hovered for only a second before it tapped Andreas’s name.
