Chapter 3

3: 3

3

The words were barely out of Leo's mouth when another dull thud came from inside the elevator.

I stepped up to the crack and measured it. Almost two millimeters wide now.

"Shut the elevator down right now, then get everyone off the fifteenth and sixteenth floors."

Leo had just pulled out his radio when Bryce's voice barked through it.

"Shut it down for what? The repair crew doesn't come until tomorrow. You kill the elevator now and the residents will file complaints!"

I grabbed the radio.

"Look at where we are, and you're still worried about complaints. The load-bearing wall just got cut and the elevator doors are already misaligning, and you still want people riding it?"

Bryce recognized my voice and started swearing at once.

"Jacqueline Fox, you're already packing to move out. Quit coming back here and running your mouth! Elevators glitch all the time. Stop scaring people!"

He wouldn't shut it down. He even sent the cleaners to smear filler over the crack.

I sent the photos and the wall-cutting video to the neighborhood council office. They ordered the property company to stop the construction, but Bryce answered them with Jeffrey's statement, calling it nothing more than a renovation dispute.

That night I moved my mother into a rental near my office.

Rosemary shut off her livestream too and had the workers cut the rest of the wall out overnight. The moment the authorities showed up at her door, she locked it. The moment they left, the wall saw started up again.

Over the next two weeks, the pillar-free living room changed by the day.

The six-meter stone island went in. So did a three-hundred-pound chandelier.

She even used my original blueprints to livestream a rant about the five ways design engineers scam you out of your money.

Jeffrey's renovation waitlist stretched out three months.

Jennifer tore down her kitchen wall. Cliff knocked out the side wall of his balcony. Wherever a crack showed up, Rosemary had the workers slap mesh cloth over it and argued right back.

"Old buildings crack all the time. You just patch it and move on."

A month later she'd climbed over me straight into fame, a big-name renovation influencer, and she announced a housewarming open house on the spot.

Brands shipped over free drinks. Bryce even hung a banner by the elevator.

"Old-Home Renovation Showcase. Residents Welcome."

The night before the open house, Leo sent me a photo.

The crack in the stairwell was wide enough to slide a credit card into now. Neither of the two units on the sixteenth floor could get their doors to close.

He sent a voice message too.

"I told Bryce to cancel the event. He says the brands are already here and canceling means paying penalties. He told me to patch the crack first and deal with it after tomorrow's over."

I called Rosemary right away.

"You'd better cancel tomorrow's event. If something goes wrong, you can't carry that kind of liability."

She let out a scoff.

"Nobody watches your videos, so now you want to ride off my open house? Jacqueline Fox, you show up and cause trouble, I'll send my followers to camp outside your office."

The next afternoon her livestream started right on schedule. More than twenty neighbors packed the living room, taking turns posing at the island.

Rosemary held up a glass and pointed at the gutted space.

"Look, everyone. Take out two walls and the place gains a couple hundred square feet just like that. Somebody said it would crack within a month. Well, my chandelier's already up, and the house is doing just fine."

The comment feed was flooded with people asking for the contractor's contact.

I stared at the screen. Behind her, the sliding door was drifting to one side on its own.

The next second a sharp crack came from under the island, and a floor tile split down the middle.

Leo charged into frame, frantic.

"Everyone out! The stairwell crack just got bigger!"

Rosemary shoved him aside.

"Today is my big day. You keep spouting nonsense and I'll have the property company fire you!"

The words had barely left her when the chandelier lurched hard.

A string of dull cracks ran through the wall, and a diagonal fissure shot from the floor straight up to the ceiling.

The livestream toppled to the ground.

Someone screamed. People shoved toward the door. Then the signal cut out entirely.

Minutes later, the residents' group chat and my phone went off nonstop.

"Engineer Fox, the elevator's jammed! The sixteenth-floor door won't open and there are people inside!"

"There's gas in the hallway. Get back here and save us!"

Bryce's wife called too, cursing the second I picked up.

"You knew this would happen, so why did you move out with your mother? You've just been waiting to watch us go down, haven't you!"