Eleanor looked down at her hands, her fingers tracing the edge of the mahogany desk. A shadow crossed her face—not of shame, but of an ancient, unhealed grief that had been carried in silence.
“His name was Thomas,” Eleanor whispered softly. “Thomas Miller. He was a master stone mason. He worked for the historical restoration crews in Berks and Lancaster counties, rebuilding the dry-stacked fieldstone walls on the old farms.”
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Arthur leaned forward slightly, his sharp eyes assessing every nuance of her tone. “What happened to Thomas?”
“Three years ago, in the autumn of twenty-two,” Eleanor said, her voice tightening, “Thomas was working on a bridge restoration project over the Conestoga River. The general contractor—a firm out of Philadelphia called **Kensington Commercial Infrastructure**—was rushing the schedule to beat the winter freeze. They didn’t shore up the southern abutment according to the engineering specs. They used sub-grade gravel backfill to save twelve thousand dollars on the municipal subcontract.”
