Chapter 2 - What Linda Was Afraid They Would Find
Linda spent the night at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for smoke inhalation.
Claire and Sophie went with Ryan to a hotel in Green Hills.
None of them slept.
Sophie woke every forty minutes asking whether the ceiling was falling.
By sunrise, Ryan had moved her mattress onto the floor between his and Claire’s beds.
The mansion remained surrounded by fire tape.
The main structure had survived, but the west hallway and portions of the second floor were badly damaged.
A fire investigator met Ryan there that afternoon.
The fire had not started in the sunroom.
It appeared to have begun inside the wall near an older electrical section serving the west wing.
Ryan immediately remembered Linda’s words.
Don’t let them tear open the west wall.
He asked the investigator whether that meant anything.
The man gave him a measured look.
“We’re opening whatever we need to open.”
Ryan did not argue.
When Linda called from the hospital that evening, he asked directly.
“What’s in that wall?”
Silence.
“Mom.”
“It’s an old house.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“The wiring has always been temperamental.”
Ryan stood beside the hotel window.
“How temperamental?”
“You know how old your father was about repairs.”
Thomas Callahan had been dead four years.
Ryan had spent most of his childhood watching his parents preserve appearances while postponing expensive problems.
The roof.
The plumbing.
Taxes.
His father believed anything still functioning did not need immediate attention.
But Ryan had renovated much of the mansion after buying out his sister’s share of the estate.
He had assumed electrical work was included.
“Was there a problem you knew about?”
Linda exhaled.
“I’m tired.”
“Mom.”
“I nearly died tonight.”
“So did Sophie.”
That ended the conversation.
Linda hung up.
Claire had been standing behind Ryan.
“She knew something.”
Ryan looked at her.
“I don’t know that yet.”
Claire’s expression hardened.
“Your mother told firefighters not to open the wall while our daughter was coughing behind glass.”
Ryan wanted to defend Linda.
Habit made the words rise automatically.
Then he remembered Sophie’s face.
“I’m going to find out.”
The next morning, the investigator called.
Behind the burned drywall they had found evidence of older heat damage.
Not from that night.
From before.
May you like
Someone had covered it.
And according to the investigator, whoever did it would have known there had already been a serious electrical problem.
