Chapter 1

1: 1

My new neighbor was a renovation influencer with a few hundred thousand followers.

She ignored the blueprints I'd drawn, decided to turn her three-bedroom into a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree, column-free great room, and live-streamed herself sawing through the rebar inside a load-bearing wall.

I killed it right there, and she came at me holding up her phone, face twisted, screaming into the camera,

"You just want to scare me so you can charge me a hundred grand for inspection and reinforcement!"

She promised the neighbors free floor-plan makeovers and smart locks, and the property management company, terrified of her fans, waved that statement around and let the work continue.

The whole building crowded me, telling me to stop holding up everybody's renovations.

Only an old maintenance worker quietly handed me the original drawings and the wall-cutting footage. I filed a risk notice immediately and moved out with my mother.

A month later, she held her housewarming open house.

Nobody expected the building to suddenly crack open, the elevator to jam dead, more than a dozen people cramming into the one bathroom where the load-bearing wall hadn't been touched.

I led the rescue team and got everyone out, and then I found the old maintenance worker, the one who'd left the evidence for me, sealed inside the warped equipment room by her.

1

The saw had barely touched the rebar when I slammed the main breaker off.

Rosemary Hughes rushed at me with her phone up, face vicious.

"Jacqueline Fox, are you insane? A hundred thousand people are watching this stream. Who are you to shut down my job?"

I pointed at the two rows of vertical bars exposed in the wall, furious.

"Because this is a load-bearing wall! Cut any more and the load path across the whole wall changes. When it cracks, let's see what you do then!"

When she bought the place, she'd hired me to draw the structural remodel. The plan clearly kept both side walls of the living room and only allowed removing the soundproof partition in the middle.

But on the third day of construction, she penciled both load-bearing side walls into the demolition zone herself, calling it a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree, column-free great room.

Now all three load-bearing bars had been cut, and the entire wall was on the verge of failing.

Her boyfriend, Jeffrey Walker, came out of the dining area and slapped a stamped statement down on the island.

"Ha. Some designer. I already read it. This wall's twenty centimeters thick. Even if we take it out, it won't have any real effect on the building."

I glanced at it.

No calculations, no test results, and the signature was just some renovation consulting firm.

"This piece of paper doesn't prove anything. You really cannot remove a load-bearing wall!"

Jeffrey's face darkened.

"Engineer Fox, old buildings have structural margin. Losing one stretch of wall won't collapse anything. Besides, this is our home. We tear down whatever we want. And you'd better not con people just to score a hundred-grand inspection-and-reinforcement fee!"

The neighbors bought their nonsense, angry enough to lay hands on me.

I looked at them, and for a second I was just tired.

"She's smashing her own wall, but it affects the whole building. If the load-bearing wall really goes, every one of us suffers!"

Rosemary quickly turned to the camera.

"I do low-cost dramatic renovations because I don't want ordinary people getting scammed. Don't let her scare you, neighbors. It's just one wall. How could it possibly matter that much? Here's what I'll do. Any neighbor who supports me continuing the work, I'll redo your floor plan for free, and I'll draw ten names to get smart locks."

The hallway came alive at once.

Someone asked if the kitchen could be opened up, someone wanted her to look at a balcony side wall, and even the ones who'd been wavering started pushing me to move aside.

"It's her own place. Since when do you get to decide? If you're scared something'll happen, get lost and stop holding us up."

The property manager, Bryce Perry, read Jeffrey's statement and actually told the electrician to turn the power back on.

I blocked him.

"The rebar is already cut. This site has to be sealed off. You're in property management, don't you know how important a load-bearing wall is?"

Bryce shook my hand off.

"She's an influencer with over six hundred thousand followers. Blowing this up does the complex no good. And she's got a statement too, so quit making trouble where there isn't any."

"When something happens, are you taking responsibility?"

His face went dark.

"Watch your mouth. A little situation like this, what could possibly happen!"

No matter how hard I pleaded with them, the neighbors didn't take a word of it to heart.

There was nothing else to do. I photographed the damage to the load-bearing wall and posted the original blueprint in the residents' group chat.

"Construction at unit 16-East has deviated from the original design. There is unauthorized cutting of load-bearing structural members on site. Immediate work stoppage recommended."

The message barely went out before Rosemary kicked me from the residents' group chat.

She lifted a hammer and crowed into the camera.

"Today, for everyone who's ever been scared by a renovation con artist, I'm going to smash this wall down for you all to see."

I didn't try again.

On my way down, Leo James chased after me and quietly pressed a document folder into my hands. He sighed.

"A load-bearing wall, I know you can't touch it. But what can you do when they're paying? Engineer Fox, these are the as-built drawings. I'll send you the wall-cutting video later too. You be careful."