My stomach tightened a little. “And?”
“And then someone from the city came back later and told me my house might be in a danger row.
Might.
That’s the word they used.”
“Danger row?”
I stared at her. “Then why didn’t you say that before?”
“Because they told me not to start a panic until they confirmed which houses were affected.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yes,” she said.
“That’s why I’m leaving.”
I looked at the half-packed car. “Leaving for where?”
“My sister’s.”
“You really think it’s that serious?”
She shut the trunk harder than she needed to.
“I think if the city uses the word ‘might’ enough times, somebody gets hurt.”
Then she pointed at my front door across the street.
“If that marker comes back, don’t remove it. They’re using it to tag houses the night crew still has to check.”
“Why tape?”
“Because people with clipboards make stupid systems.”
That almost got a smile out of me. Almost.
Then she said, quieter, “Your car was gone yesterday afternoon, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.
Grocery store.”
“They may have logged you as not at home.”
Something cold went through me. “Linda—”
She got into the car.
“I told the worker you still live here,” she said through the open window. “I told him twice.
I’m not waiting around to see if that reached the right person.”
Then she drove off.
That night I checked my front door before bed. Fresh tape. Same gray strip.
Same place.
I left it there. Not because I suddenly believed everything.
Because I didn’t like how much of what she said lined up with that stupid bedroom door that wouldn’t latch anymore. When I bought it, the inspector said the place had been patched and altered so many times nobody could tell what was original anymore.
Old plaster.
Old pipes. Floors that creaked in all the usual places. I never thought twice about any of it.
Around 2:30 in the morning, I was awake in my recliner when I felt a low hum through the floor.
At first I thought it was a truck passing somewhere far off. Then the glasses in the cabinet trembled.
Softly. Steadily.
I stood up.
Outside, a line of utility trucks rolled onto the block with their lights dimmed. Men and women in reflective jackets got out and started setting up portable work lamps along the curb. No sirens.
No shouting.
Just fast, controlled movement.
