The wrecking ball hit, sending a shockwave through the Calloway Estate foundation, cracking the east wing wall like an eggshell. Ryan raised a fist for the crew to stop while plaster dust wafted in the afternoon light. Something was wrong; the beams had disintegrated too easily and as if the house had purposefully been designed to collapse.
Lena stepped across the tape, boots crunching on debris. "These support columns..." She rubbed a finger along the jagged edge of the broken wood. "They're filled with newspaper. This whole wing was just a facade."
Ryan pried the rusted door behind the ruined drywall. The smell hit them first—decay, damp earth—with a hint of something chemical. The beams of their flashlights met in a tiny skeleton all curled in a fetal position; torn pieces of a lace christening gown still hung on the ribs.
Overhead, Sophie's drone buzzed, its camera light blinking red as it live-streamed to her true crime followers. "Holy shit," her voice crackled in their earpieces. "That's a child."
Ryan knelt, his gloved hand hovering above the tiny skull. His thumb brushed something metallic: a tarnished locket, its chain fused against the collarbone with time. It sprang open, echoing Lena's gasp along the concrete walls.
Inside was a picture of her grandmother at age twenty, tear-stained and hollow-eyed, rocking a newborn. The inscription read: For M, who carries our sin.
Lena's fingers trembled as she turned the locket over. A muffled click sounded as the backplate gently slid open to reveal an aged scrap of paper with an address scrawled on it: St. Agnes Orphanage, 113 Harbor Road.
(Cliffhanger: The locket's chain suddenly snapped, revealing underneath a rusted key with tape still stuck on it and newly glued.)