Chapter 21: The Ninth Crossing

Su found the first well because Arthur Lindqvist had hated an unfinished map. She laid his transparent overlay across the old harbor survey and shifted it until the vanished shoreline matched the modern streets. Eleven colored rings settled over parcels Ashwood had purchased through its holding companies. The blank centers did not match property lines. They matched water. Hollis leaned over the conference table, reading glasses low on his nose. "Cisterns?" "Some." Su traced the oldest ring an inch above the film. "Springs, public pumps, two buried creeks. Whatever the city built over." At the edge of the table, Mo studied the marks in silence. The bandage beneath his jaw had bled through during the night. He had refused a larger one on the grounds that the cut had already closed. The cut had not received that information. Su pointed to the 1976 ring. "The seller belonged to the Xinning…