Crown's Vengeance, The by Andrew Clawson Page B

direction.”
    She had pulled out her cell phone and turned it into an impromptu flashlight. Parker did the same, the brilliant LCD beams illuminating their dirty surroundings. Dust motes filled the air as they searched the two outside walls which would have existed in Revere’s time. Every movement brought a further onslaught of the gray allergen, a light mist of dirt and debris. Ten minutes later, each of them was filthy and hot.
    Parker sneezed again. “They need some air-conditioning in here.”
    Erika rubbed the sweat from her face as she looked around, eyes narrow.
    “These other two walls weren’t here two hundred years ago, though they look like they’re that old. The only other options are the floor or the ceiling.”
    Parker’s light flashed overhead.
    “Do you really think he’d hide something in the ceiling? I doubt Hamilton would be able to get in a hidden compartment easily if it’s fifteen feet above him.”
    “Then the floor it is. Help me move some of this junk.”
    In front of him sat the pile of folded chairs, stacked up to his chest. As he pulled on the top one, it caught. Frustrated and sweaty, Parker tugged the chair roughly. It was stuck.
    “The hell with this.”
    He ripped it backward. Another jerk, and the chair suddenly came loose. Parker tumbled to the floor along with the entire stack of chairs, each one clattering to the ground with a wooden crunch, taking out anything in their path. From beneath the disaster he’d just created, Parker already knew she would be pissed.
    “I’m sorry, it was an accident.”
    Erika’s persistent coughing was the only reply.
    During the fall, he’d lost his phone. Cursing under his breath, Parker scrambled to his feet, which sent an avalanche of chairs into the space he’d recently vacated on the storeroom floor.
    “Well done. Any person within a mile must know we’re inside this closet.”
    In the room’s far corner, a glimmer of light poked through the detritus. Faced with the obstacle course he’d created, Parker clambered over several of the cursed chairs, banged his knee on a stray doorknob in the process.
    Why in the world was an extra door stored in here?
    Finally he reached his phone. Here he was surrounded by brickwork on either side. This corner was where the two original walls met, likely the very bricks set by masons when the building was originally constructed. His phone was lying on the ground, a faint aura of barely visible light. As he bent down to retrieve the device, he was forced to stretch over a tiny bench that lay upside down.
    “Got you.”
    Arm stretched as far as it would go, his fingers scraped the phone’s protective cover as he pulled. There were gaps between each board in the floor, which had apparently warped over the course of several hundred years. As his hand closed around the phone, the bright light illuminated where the two walls met. His eyes were drawn to the spot. Parker pushed himself up but stopped short when he focused on the bottom row of bricks.
    There was a design etched in one of them. So faint he wasn’t sure it was there.
    Parker leaned in closer to the wall, literally in the far corner. One hand brushed a thick layer of dust from the brick’s surface. As a mermaid shimmers into view through the water, two letters came to life before his eyes.
    P R
    “Erika, get over here.”
    “Would you please be quiet?” she hissed. “If you keep shouting, the cops will be here in a second.”
    “Get over here right now.”
    Even though he whispered, she must have sensed the urgency in his voice. Fallen chairs clattered as she moved his way.
    “What’s so important?”
    He illuminated the two letters, his fingers tracing them as she watched. Parker looked up just as her mouth dropped open. For once, she was speechless.
    “I think I know what these letters stand for.”
    Her voice finally returned. “That’s a perfect clue. If anyone ever saw it, they’d think that was a builder’s mark, similar to