“School.”
Nathan’s face changed.
“Running?”
“Eventually.”
“Sports?”
“Maybe.”
“Normal life?”
Reeves sighed.
“Stop making recovery sign a contract.”
I smiled.
Nathan glared at me.
Apparently someone else had already told him that sentence.
Good.
Then one afternoon, Thomas came to find me.
Not Nathan.
Me.
That was unusual.
“You asked me to tell you if anything else looked wrong.”
“Yes.”
“I found something.”
“What?”
He handed me an old service invoice.
Before the air-quality system was installed.
Three months
before the twins became ill.
A basement renovation.
Waterproofing.
New wall treatment.
“What am I looking at?”
“The product.”
He pointed.
Commercial sealant.
Solvent-based.
Applied beneath the east wing.
Directly below the boys’ rooms.
My stomach tightened.
“Could that smell travel upstairs?”
“Maybe through old chases.”
“Why wasn’t it in the environmental report?”
“The basement was excluded because air samples were normal after shutdown.”
“Did anyone test building materials?”
