Chapter 3
Sarah didn't move away from the wardrobe. She stood with her shoulder against its side, one hand flat on the dark walnut panel like she could keep it closed with pressure alone.
I still had Emma on my hip. She'd gone quiet after Sarah stepped in, but her arm was up again, finger pointed straight at the base of the wardrobe where it met the patched drywall.
"Hey," I said to Sarah, low. "Let me just measure."
She didn't answer right away. Her breath was short. She glanced at Emma, then back at me.
"There's nothing back there," she said. "The contractor said he patched an old closet when he closed it up. It's just drywall now. We should leave it alone."
Emma shifted in my arms. She looked from Sarah to me, her forehead creased.
"Mommy?" she whispered. It wasn't the loud cry from before. It was small, confused, like she didn't understand why Sarah was standing in front of where she wanted me to go.
Sarah's expression softened for a second, but she didn't step aside. "Honey, it's okay. There's nothing there."
I bounced Emma once, trying to keep her steady. The tape measure was still on the floor near the red-handled crowbars. I bent and picked it up with my free hand. The metal was cold and dusty.
"You said he patched a closet," I said. "Then why's the wall deeper than it should be?"
Sarah frowned. "What do you mean deeper?"
I didn't argue. I set Emma down gently on the dusty concrete, kept a hand on her back. She stayed close to my leg, her hand gripping my pants.
I pulled the tape out and hooked it on the corner of the room, ran it along the baseboard to the side of the wardrobe. Twenty-seven inches from the corner to the wardrobe's edge. I wrote nothing down, just held the number in my head. Then I stepped around Sarah and measured the exterior side wall from the same corner to the window trim on the outside hallway. I'd walked that hallway a hundred times during the renovation, knew the thickness of those studs.
When I added it up, the interior run was short. The wardrobe was eight feet tall, maybe two feet deep. The wall behind it should have been flush with the studs I'd seen when they opened the ceiling. But the span I was getting left a gap.
Fourteen inches missing. I measured again, slower this time, the tape clicking as I pulled it taut. Same number. The space behind the wardrobe wasn't wall thickness. It was a void.
"Fourteen inches," I said quietly. I looked at Sarah. "There's fourteen inches unaccounted for between this side and the hallway."
Sarah crossed her arms. "Daniel, you're measuring wrong. It's an old house. Nothing's square. He spackled that whole section, remember? He said it was uneven."
It sounded rehearsed, the way she said it too quickly.
I crouched down without moving the wardrobe. Emma crouched with me, mirroring me. Up close, the baseboard told a different story. There was a straight, vertical spackle line about three feet from the corner, brighter white than the rest of the patched drywall. Fresh. It ran floor to ceiling behind the wardrobe's shadow, as if someone had taped and mudded a seam that didn't belong there. And at the very bottom, where the baseboard met the concrete, the dust wasn't settled. A faint, cool draft brushed the back of my hand when I held it near the seam. It lifted the fine dust in a thin, wavering line.
I didn't say anything for a second. Just breathed. I could hear Emma's breathing next to me, small and fast.
"Do you feel that?" I asked Sarah, keeping my palm low by the crack.
She didn't crouch. She stayed standing, her jaw tight. "It's an unfinished room, Daniel. It's drafty everywhere. That window doesn't even close right."
"It's not the window," I said. "It's coming from right here. Behind this line."
Emma leaned forward, her blonde hair falling over her shoulder. She put her own hand near the baseboard, then pulled it back quickly and looked up at me.
Sarah saw her do it. Her shoulders dropped a little. "Emma, sweetie, come here," she said, but Emma didn't move. She pressed closer to my side, her hand back on my pants, and pointed again at the spackle line.
The draft kept coming, steady and cool, smelling faintly of old wood and trapped air.
I stood up slowly. Sarah hadn't moved from in front of the wardrobe, and I didn't push past her. I just looked at the fourteen inches the tape had shown me, at the fresh line in the drywall, at the dust moving where no air should have been.
"Okay," I said to Sarah. I kept my voice even. "I believe the contractor patched something. But he didn't patch it to make it disappear. He patched it to hide it."
She stared at me, and for the first time she didn't have a quick answer. Her hand slipped off the wardrobe panel.
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Emma tugged at my shirt and whispered again, barely audible, "Mommy?"
We all stood there in the dim light, the tape measure extended on the floor between us, the wardrobe still flush against the wall, the cool air still seeping out from underneath.
