"That's good," I say.
"The wiring, however, is another thing." He looks at the panel, then the walls. "This is original 1962 aluminum wiring. You know that?"
"The inspection report mentioned it."
He frowns. "It's not up to current code. Not dangerous if no one's touched it — but someone has. Someone added circuits after the fact and didn't know what they were doing." He shines his light on the junction box above the panel. "This is a problem."
"How bad a problem."
He looks at me steadily. "Bad."
That sounds expensive. I lean against the hallway wall and stare at the ceiling. The water stain spreading in the plaster. Eight months of work. Three hundred speed tests, forty interviews, a real picture of what this valley is missing. All of it living on a laptop in a house with bad wiring in a town where it rains like this.
"Okay," I say. "Tell me what I'm dealing with."
He looks at me for a moment. The calculation behind his eyes updates.
"Let me do a proper look," he says. "I'll tell you everything when I know everything."
I sit on the hallway floor with my back against the wall and watch him work.
A while later, he finishes his assessment and sits up. "Full rewire," he says. "New panel, copper throughout, bring it upto code. I need to get under the house too, check the service entry, but I'd put money on it being undersized." He looks at the ceiling. "The roof issue is separate — that's a flashing repair, not electrical. But the wiring needs to happen before I can call this house safe long-term."
I look at the hallway around us. The floors I refinished. The plaster I patched. "How much."
He doesn't answer immediately. He looks at me with those pale, direct eyes and I have the feeling of being assessed without any performance attached to it.
"We'll talk about it when I've seen the full scope," he says. "I'll come back in the daylight."
He packs his tools methodically. At the door he pauses.
"You can turn the main back on. The immediate hazard is resolved. But stay out of the office until I've looked at it properly."
"Okay."
"Get some sleep."
"I will."
He looks at me for just a beat longer than necessary. Like he doesn't quite believe me. Then he goes out into the rain.
two
Ross
Icomebackatseven in the morning.
Not because she asked. I come back because the wiring situation I found last night needs daylight and a full look before I can quote it honestly.
Also because something about it stuck with me. The floors in that hallway were recently refinished. The patched plaster in the living room was her own work, not professional, but careful. Someone is trying hard to make something of this place. Something about it made me want to learn more about her.
I park on the gravel and knock. A pause. She opens the door.
She's changed clothes but has the look of someone who slept two hours — dark hair escaping a bun, sharp dark eyes running slightly ahead of the exhaustion in her face. She's a brunette, late twenties, five-four, and she moves like she's always a step ahead of the moment she's in.
"I was going to call," she says.
"I'm already here."
