Chapter 10 - The Inventory of Ghosts
The North Knoxville archive building had been constructed in an era when manufacturing was proud of its brick and mortar. The ceilings were sixteen feet high, supported by massive, cross-braced yellow pine beams that had cured for nearly a century. Dust motes danced in the shafts of winter sunlight slanting through the high, arched clerestory windows.
Hannah stood in the center of the vast, echoing space, holding Ellie in a front carrier strapped securely against her chest. She was wearing work boots, heavy denim, and a high-visibility vest that the site supervisor had handed her at the door with an uneasy glance at the baby.
Ethan walked five paces ahead of her, accompanying a woman in her late forties with severe spectacles and a clipboard—Diane Vance, the architectural project manager.
“The original water lines were copper, three-quarter inch,” Diane was saying, pointing up at an exposed chase near the northern wall. “They haven't carried pressure since the early nineties. If we’re putting in seven changing stations and an industrial bottle-sanitizing kitchen, we need a dedicated two-inch main cut into the municipal line out on Elm Street.”
“Authorize the street cut today,” Ethan said. “Pay the municipal rush fee.”
Hannah cleared her throat.
Both Ethan and the architect stopped, turning to look at her.
“The street cut is fine for the kitchen,” Hannah said quietly, her voice echoing slightly in the vastness. “But the layout Diane showed me on the blue sheets puts the infant crib room right against that northern exterior wall.”
Diane frowned, glancing down at her drawings. “That’s where the natural light is most consistent, Miss Miller. Northern exposure prevents glare.”
“It also faces the prevailing winter wind off the ridge,” Hannah said, walking slowly toward the wall and pressing her bare palm against the exposed brick. “Feel this. This brick is three wythes thick, but there’s no cavity insulation. If you put fourteen steel cribs two feet away from this surface, the radiant cold will pool on the floorboards like water. Even with baseboard heating, an infant six inches off the ground will be sleeping in a forty-degree draft.”
Diane blinked. She stepped over to the wall, placed her hand against the masonry, and paused. Her expression softened from professional irritation to sudden respect. “She’s right. The thermal bridging will pull the heat right out of the perimeter.”
“Where would you put them, Hannah?” Ethan asked. His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his dark overcoat, his eyes fixed on her with absolute attention.
“The southeast corner,” Hannah said, pointing across the wide expanse of dusty floorboards. “That wall shares a partition with the old boiler annex. It stays twenty degrees warmer even with the heat off, and the morning sun comes through those high windows. Plus, the fire exit leads directly out into the courtyard with the cedar trees, not onto the truck loading ramp.”
Diane rapidly made three notes on her clipboard with a graphite pencil. “It shifts the rough-in plumbing thirty feet, but it saves us twelve thousand dollars in specialized wall insulation. Good catch.”
Hannah looked down at Ellie, who had reached out one tiny, mittened fist to clutch the bright yellow strap of the safety vest. “It’s just common sense. When you don't have heat, you learn which corners of a room hold onto yesterday’s sun.”
Ethan walked over to where she stood. Diane moved off down the hallway to consult with a structural engineer examining the roof trusses, leaving them standing together in the quiet center of the cavernous room.
“You’ve never managed a sixty-man contractor crew before, have you?” Ethan asked softly.
“Never managed anyone but myself,” she admitted. “And Ellie. And mostly she manages me.”
“You managed to tell my senior architect she was wrong within four minutes of walking through the door.”
“Because she was looking at an AutoCAD blueprint, Mr. Whitmore. She wasn't picturing a six-month-old with an earache waking up because the wall beside her head felt like a block of ice.”
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Ethan looked at her, his expression unreadable. For a brief second, his eyes dropped to the small silver rattle she had tucked into the side pocket of the carrier—the rattle he had handed her two nights before in his dark office.
“That is precisely why you are on the payroll,” he said.
