Three days passed in a state of suspended animation. Liana went through the motions of her life—attending lectures, working on her thesis outline, making small talk with classmates—but her mind was elsewhere, fixed on the pending connection between Adam Wright and Dr. Aris Thorne. The silence from Adam was unnerving. Had he looked into Riverside View on his own and found nothing? Had he dismissed her as a conspiracy theorist? Or was he, as Clara had warned, already digging a story that would bury her?
Her dreams offered no new guidance, only fragmented, unsettling images: the stained basement wall, but flooded with dark water; the ledger with her father's name, now with the pages blank; and occasionally, the distant, worried face of Adam Wright, seen as if through a rain-streaked window. Her subconscious was clearly preoccupied.
On the fourth morning, her phone finally buzzed with an unknown number.
"Liana? It's Adam. I have Thorne. He's… intrigued. But he doesn't do favors. He wants to see what you have. All of it. Can you meet tonight? Neutral ground."
Liana's heart hammered against her ribs. "Tonight? Where?"
"The Foundry Café. On the riverfront, near the old industrial yards. Seven o'clock. It's quiet, and Thorne likes the irony of the name." There was a pause. "Bring everything. And be prepared for skepticism. He's a scientist."
"I will be," Liana said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.
"See you then." The line went dead.
The Foundry Café was a converted warehouse space, all exposed brick, steel beams, and the warm glow of Edison bulbs. It was indeed quiet on a weeknight, populated by a few students with laptops and couples having murmured conversations. Liana arrived ten minutes early, clutching a folder containing copies of the Jenkins notes, the city permit with her father's name, the damning memo, and her photos of the basement stain. She felt like a whistleblower in a spy novel, which was both absurd and terrifying.
Adam saw her first. He was seated at a corner table with a man who could only be Dr. Aris Thorne. Thorne was in his late fifties, with a full head of steel-grey hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and sharp, discerning eyes that missed nothing. He wore a practical waxed canvas jacket over a sweater, and his large, capable hands were wrapped around a mug of black coffee.
Adam stood as she approached. "Liana. Thanks for coming. This is Dr. Thorne."
Thorne didn't smile, but gave a brief, polite nod. "Ms. Marek. Adam says you have a structural concern rooted in historical fraud. I am inherently suspicious of such claims. They are often the province of litigants with dollar signs in their eyes. Or," his gaze sharpened, "of people with personal axes to grind."
Liana sat, placing the folder on the table. "It's not about money. And the axe… is family-shaped. But the concern is physical, not emotional." She opened the folder and pushed the first document across the table—the photocopy of Harold Jenkins's handwritten notes from October 18, 1994.
Thorne put on reading glasses and studied the page intently, his lips moving slightly as he parsed the hurried script. He spent a full two minutes on it, then looked up. "Jenkins. I knew of him. Competent. Cautious. For him to write this… it signifies genuine alarm." He pointed to the phrase 'compressive strength far below spec.' "Do you have the original independent test report he mentions?"
"No. I believe it was destroyed. Or buried deeper than these notes."
"Likely." Thorne took the next document—the city permit and inspection certificate. "J. Marek. Your relation?"
"My father."
Thorne's eyes flicked to hers, assessing, but he made no comment. He then read the memo authorizing the material substitution. "Mix Design B-2. A cost-saving measure disguised as a technical revision." His tone was cold, professional disdain. Finally, he examined the photographs. He spent the longest time on the shots of the basement stain, using his phone as a magnifying glass to study the crack pattern.
"These were taken through a dirty window," he stated.
"Yes. The basement is locked."
"The staining pattern is consistent with chronic moisture ingress from the foundation. The radial cracking suggests ongoing stress, possibly differential settlement." He put the photos down and leaned back, steepling his fingers much as Clara had done. "Circumstantial, but compelling. The documents establish motive and means for a structural defect. The photographs show symptoms consistent with that defect. It is a plausible hypothesis."
"Is it dangerous?" Adam asked, speaking for the first time since the introductions. He'd been watching Thorne's reactions closely.
"Potentially. Without core samples, sonic testing, a proper analysis of the rebar corrosion, I cannot quantify the risk. The building may stand for another fifty years, slowly degrading. Or a combination of factors—a saturated water table from river flooding, a minor seismic event—could trigger a localized failure. A corner of the building could slump, causing major cracking, rendering parts of it uninhabitable. A progressive collapse is less likely but not impossible if the foundation is as poor as Jenkins feared." He spoke dispassionately, but the words were chilling. "People live there?"
"Yes," Liana said. "Including an elderly original tenant who complains of constant damp and noises in the walls."
Thorne nodded slowly. "The 'whisper in the walls.' Old buildings talk. Usually, it's just thermal expansion. Sometimes, it's a cry for help." He looked from Liana to Adam. "What is it you want from me?"
"An assessment," Liana said. "A professional, independent evaluation of that basement, of Lot B's foundation. To know the truth of its condition now."
"Access will be the problem," Thorne said. "The management company will not grant it without cause, and cause would alert them, giving them time to obfuscate or perform a superficial, cosmetic repair."
"What if we didn't ask?" Adam interjected quietly.
Both Liana and Thorne looked at him.
"I'm not suggesting breaking and entering," Adam clarified. "But if, say, a concerned tenant—an original tenant with chronic damp issues—were to request a second opinion from a private engineer during a scheduled maintenance visit… and if that engineer happened to bring an assistant…" He looked at Liana.
It was risky. It relied on Edna's cooperation and timing. But it was a plan.
Thorne considered it. "The ethical line is thin. But the potential public safety issue is tangible. My primary duty is to safety, not to property management bureaucracy." He made a decision. "I will need to see the tenant's apartment to correlate the internal symptom with the external evidence. And I will need access to that basement. If you can arrange the apartment visit, I will handle the rest. I have… instruments that can take readings through a locked door, to start. But a visual inspection inside is ultimately needed."
"I can talk to the tenant," Liana said, thinking of Edna's wary but talkative nature. "I think she'll agree."
"Do not tell her the full history," Thorne warned. "Only that you are a researcher who noticed the stain and are concerned. It is the truth, and safer for her. This information, in the wrong hands, could cause panic or retaliation."
They agreed on a tentative plan for the coming Saturday morning, when building management was known to be sparser. Thorne would meet Liana near Riverside View, posing as her thesis advisor coming to see a "case study in persistent damp." Adam would not be present; his face was becoming known, and his presence might raise more flags.
As the meeting broke up, Thorne gathered the copies. "I will keep these. For the record." He shook Liana's hand, his grip firm and dry. "You have done careful work, Ms. Marek. Unpleasant work. I am sorry it involved your family."
After Thorne left, Adam lingered, sipping his now-cold coffee. "He's the real deal. If he says it's a problem, the city will have to listen."
"Thank you," Liana said, the words feeling inadequate. "For setting this up. For believing me."
Adam looked at her, his earlier professional demeanor softening into something more curious. "The bridge… that wasn't about dropping your keys, was it?"
The question hung between them. Liana met his gaze. The café's warm light softened the sharp angles of his face. She saw no malice there, only a deep, searching intelligence. She had trusted him this far.
"No," she admitted, the word a release of pressure. "It wasn't."
"You knew something was going to happen."
She nodded, looking down at her hands. "I… have a sense for these things. Sometimes."
He didn't press for details, for explanations that would sound insane. He simply absorbed the confession. "And this?" He gestured to the folder Thorne had taken. "Another 'sense'?"
"A stronger one," she whispered.
He was silent for a long moment. "Then we'd better make sure this one has a better ending."
They walked out together into the cool night air. The riverfront path was deserted, the water a black ribbon dotted with reflected city lights.
"Can I walk you to your bus?" Adam asked.
"It's okay. I like the walk."
He nodded, but fell into step beside her anyway. They walked in companionable silence for a block. "For what it's worth," he said finally, "I think you're incredibly brave. Most people spend their lives avoiding difficult truths. You seem to walk straight into them."
The unexpected praise brought a sudden, hot sting to her eyes. She blinked it away. "It doesn't feel brave. It feels like the only option."
"That," he said, "is the definition of it."
He left her at the entrance to the busier downtown streets, with a promise to be on standby on Saturday. As Liana rode the bus home, the weight of the upcoming operation settled on her. It was one thing to research in archives, another to orchestrate a clandestine engineering inspection. The stakes felt higher, more immediate.
But for the first time since the dream of the archive, she didn't feel alone. She had an engineer who saw the truth in the cracks. And she had a journalist who, for reasons she didn't fully understand, was choosing to walk beside her into the whispering dark.
The next two days were a study in controlled tension. Liana called Edna, using the number the old woman had called out as she'd left the window. Edna answered on the third ring, her voice wary.
"Edna, it's Liana. The researcher from the other day."
A pause. "I remember. Did you find more 'design flaws'?"
"I did, actually. And I'm worried. The stain in your basement looks serious. I've spoken with a structural engineer, a very good one. He'd like to take a look at the damp in your apartment—to see it from the inside—to understand how it connects to the foundation. No cost to you, completely discreet. It might help get the management to finally fix it properly."
Liana held her breath. She heard Edna's dog yapping in the background.
"Discreet," Edna repeated. "You mean, without those useless boys from the management office?"
"Exactly. Just an expert opinion. For your peace of mind."
Another, longer pause. Then, a sigh that crackled down the line. "Frank always said someone should listen to this old building. Alright. When?"
They arranged for Saturday morning at ten. Liana stressed that Edna should not mention it to anyone. Edna agreed with a grim chuckle. "Secrets are the only currency we have left at my age, dear."
On Friday, Liana's nerves were frayed. She found herself jumping at shadows, scrutinizing every unfamiliar face on campus. The memory of the superintendent's suspicious glare was vivid. She took a long, looping route home from the university, stopping at a pharmacy to buy batteries for no reason, just to see if she was followed. She saw no one, but the paranoia was a live wire under her skin.
That night, she dreamt again. Not of archives or bridges, but of a simple, terrifying image: a single, hairline crack appearing in the ceiling of Edna's living room. It spread with silent, inexorable speed, branching like lightning, until the entire ceiling was a web of fractures. Then, a fine dust, like powdered sugar, began to sift down. No collapse, just the silent promise of it.
She woke up clammy, her mouth dry. It felt less like a prophecy and more like an amplification of her own fear. But with her dreams, the line between anxiety and precognition was treacherously thin.
Saturday dawned grey and drizzly, a fine mist that coated everything in a cold sheen. It felt appropriate. Liana dressed in dark, practical clothes and packed a small bag with a notebook, a powerful flashlight, and her camera. She met Dr. Thorne at a pre-arranged spot two blocks from Riverside View. He arrived in an unmarked van, dressed in workman-like clothes, carrying a rugged plastic case of equipment.
"Ready?" he asked, his demeanor that of a surgeon approaching an operation.
"As I'll ever be."
They walked to the complex. The courtyard was quiet, the drizzle keeping people inside. Edna's window was open a crack, her face a pale moon behind the glass. She gave a small nod and disappeared. A moment later, the main entrance door buzzed open.
Edna's apartment was a time capsule of the 1990s, filled with doilies, framed cross-stitch, and the faint odor of mothballs and cabbage. But Liana's eyes went straight to the far corner of the living room. The wall there was visibly discolored, a large, amoebic patch of damp that had warped the wallpaper. The air felt colder there.
"This is the spot," Edna said, pointing. "They've painted over it four times. Comes right back."
Thorne was already at work. He didn't speak much, a man transformed by his task. He produced a moisture meter, running it over the wall. It beeped urgently, the readings flashing high. He took infrared photographs with a small camera, the screen showing a chilling blue-and-red thermal image where the cold, wet patch glowed like an infection. He tapped the wall with a small hammer, listening to the sound. In the damp area, it was a dull thud, not the hollow echo of the dry wall.
"Significant moisture penetration," he murmured, more to himself than to them. "The wallboard is compromised. The studs behind are likely saturated. This is not a plumbing leak. This is rising damp, from below." He turned to Edna. "The basement access for this building. Is it always locked?"
"Padlock on the outside door," Edna confirmed. "Super has the key. There's an interior door from the laundry room too, but that's usually locked as well. Fire code, they say."
Thorne nodded. "Ms. Marek, with me. Edna, thank you. You've been very helpful. I would advise… spending less time in this corner of the room for now."
His tone, though gentle, conveyed enough. Edna's eyes widened slightly, but she squared her shoulders. "I've slept through worse."
Thorne and Liana exited the apartment. In the dank, fluorescent-lit hallway, Thorne opened his case again. He pulled out a device that looked like a futuristic stud-finder with a small screen. "Ground-penetrating radar. Low frequency. It can map density changes through concrete. I can get a preliminary reading from outside the basement door."
They made their way to the back alley. The drizzle had steadied into a light rain. The padlocked door loomed. Thorne pressed the device against the concrete wall adjacent to the door, slowly moving it in a grid pattern. The screen displayed wavy, grainy lines. He stopped, zooming in. "Here. Significant voiding and moisture saturation at a depth consistent with the foundation footer. The concrete is honeycombed. It's lost its integrity."
He then took a high-resolution borescope camera, a flexible fiber-optic cable with a tiny lens on the end. He fed it carefully under the gap at the bottom of the metal door, manipulating it with a small joystick. Liana watched the monitor. The grainy, green-tinged image showed the interior: pipes, ducts, and then the far wall. He guided the camera towards the stain. Up close, it was worse. The concrete was spalling, crumbling like wet sand. Rust stains wept from within, indicating corroded rebar.
"The rebar is oxidizing," Thorne said, his voice grim. "The expansion force of rusting steel is tremendous. It's literally bursting the concrete from the inside out. This is active, progressive failure."
He retracted the camera and packed his equipment with swift, efficient movements. "We have what we need. This is a Category 2 building safety hazard. Possibly Category 1, if the corrosion is as widespread as I suspect. The building needs to be evacuated for further testing and remedial work. Immediately."
The finality of his words landed like stones. This was it. The reckoning was not a philosophical concept; it was an engineering verdict.
They were walking back through the courtyard when the superintendent emerged from Lot A. It was the same man from before. He saw them, his eyes narrowing in recognition and suspicion.
"You again. I told you, no trespassing." His voice was a low growl.
Thorne stepped forward, his authority palpable. "I am Dr. Aris Thorne, a licensed structural engineer. We have just completed a preliminary assessment of this building, Lot B, at the request of a concerned tenant. We have identified significant structural defects in the foundation constituting an imminent safety hazard. My legal and ethical obligation is to report this to the City Building Inspector's office within twenty-four hours. I suggest you inform your management company."
The superintendent's face went through a fascinating transformation: anger, confusion, then dawning alarm. He looked from Thorne's stern face to Liana's resolved one. The bluster drained out of him, replaced by the panic of a man realizing the ground beneath his feet—and his job—was fundamentally unsound. He turned and hurried back inside, presumably to make a call.
"That will set the cat among the pigeons," Thorne said quietly as they quickly left the complex. "They will scramble. They may try to get a compliant engineer to issue a contradictory report. Or they may try to discredit us. You should be prepared, Ms. Marek. Your name will come up."
Back at his van, Thorne handed her a business card. "My official report will be filed Monday morning. I will cite the historical documents you provided as context for the defect's origin. Your name will be in it as the researcher who uncovered the paper trail. There is no avoiding that now. Do you have someone you can stay with for a few days? This may become… unpleasant."
Liana thought of her mother's worried face, of Clara's sharp warning. "I'll be alright."
"Call me if you feel threatened. And call Adam Wright. He has a way of making noise that can be a useful shield." Thorne got into his van. "You did a good thing today. A hard thing."
As the van pulled away, Liana stood in the rain, the reality of what they had unleashed washing over her. People would have to leave their homes. There would be investigations, headlines, anger, fear. Her father's name would be in the news, linked to negligence and fraud. Her family's quiet shame would become public spectacle.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Adam. *Thorne called me. It's bad. Are you okay?*
She typed back, her fingers cold and stiff. *It's confirmed. He's reporting it Monday.*
His response was immediate. *I'm starting the background work on Vance and Civic Builders. The story will be ready when the report drops. It needs to be the full story, not just a building defect notice. Where are you?*
*Heading home.*
*Be careful. I'll check in later.*
The walk to the bus felt longer than ever. The grey sky pressed down. She thought of the families in Riverside View, receiving notices, packing bags, scared and confused. She had wanted the truth to stand up. She hadn't fully grasped the collateral damage of its ascent.
But then she remembered the image from her dream: the fine dust sifting down from a cracked ceiling. That slow, silent collapse had already been happening, invisible to the residents. She and Thorne hadn't caused the damage; they had merely turned on the lights.
The reckoning had begun. And she, Liana Marek, archivist and dreamer, was now standing squarely in the path of its consequences.