“Hmm.” She nodded. “So, he saw the walls like this?”
“Yes.”
She moved to another section of the wall, stepping over smaller chunks of plasterboard and running her gaze along the exposed cavities. She crouched down near the base of one wall, studying the framing. She plucked something off the floor. “There are foil remnants in here.” She looked up at me. “Do you think someone packed something into these walls?” She straightened slowly, those blue eyes landing on me with the force of a heatwave.
“How the fuck should I know?”
“You said you were here a few months ago.”
“Yeah. So what? The walls were fine when I came here. They were like this when Cassidy came here.”
“Could Frank have done this?”
“I just said I don’t know, Sapphire.”
“Right. Hmmm.” She nodded, tapping her pen against her chin.
She studied me for a long moment. If she thought I was lying, she was doing a damn good job of not showing it. And if she was acting like she didn’t know what had been in those walls, she was doing an even better job of that.
She turned back to the stripped walls, arms folded, her mind clearly working. “If something was hidden in these walls, then someone went to a lot of trouble to hide it behind new plasterboard, then painting it all to match.”
“Why do you think something was hidden in the walls?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Only because I can’t figure out why someone would pull the sheets off.”
“Maybe they planned to renovate?” I said.
She looked at me again.
I said nothing.
She strolled into the kitchen area and used her pen to poke around the scorched remains.
Her silence was chewing me up, and I couldn’t hold back. “You said there was something weird.”
She clicked her finger. “Yes.” She used her pen to point at the pile of chalk she’d run her shoe through. “The chalk dust seems to be on top of the ash.”
I scowled. “What?”
She strolled to the back of the room again. “See here. If these walls were already stripped before the fire, the chalk dust would be below the ash, not the other way around.”
Oh fuck.
“Well, shit. I don’t know. Cassidy and Xavier were stuck here for two days before we rescued them. Maybe they shuffled the dust around when they moved those boards.”
“Hmm. Yes, maybe.” She nodded like she agreed.
Her expression told me she bloody well didn’t.
“Okay.” She shoved her notepad into her pocket. “Let me have a look around outside, then you can take me to the next spot.”
I groaned.
Her eyebrows rose. “You got a bellyache or something?”
“No, I don’t have a bellyache. I have work to do, Sapphire.”
“Don’t we all.” She walked past me and out the door.
