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“I feel something too. From the fires.” He made a face as if he smelled something distasteful. “I don’t like it.”
Michael expected the front porch steps to flex and shift under his weight, but the wood was strong, though he could see a few panels farther down had cracked and split—whether from the earthquake or the fire, he had no idea.
The door wasn’t even latched, the frame splintered and broken where the firefighters had broken in.
Michael didn’t want to go inside. He could see blackened walls and melted carpeting from here, and he didn’t have any desire to get a closer look.
He felt like such a wuss. Suck it up.
Tyler touched the door frame and picked at a few splinters. “We should go back up the street to Eighty-Four Lumber and get some plywood. Board this up while we’re here.” He gestured at the shattered windows. “Those, too.”
The fire marshal had said the same thing, but Michael shrugged. “I doubt there’s much worth stealing now.”
“Still. You don’t want animals in here.”
Valid point. They went back to Tyler’s truck. They were a mile down the road before Michael realized that maybe Tyler had needed a breather, too.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to get plywood and supplies, because they were driving around the barriers again less than fifteen minutes later. Michael was better prepared this time, and the nausea didn’t hit him as hard.
They stacked the plywood and materials on the front porch, and then Michael stood there, facing the front door for a second time.
This was stupid. He’d gone through this door a million times. He’d already seen the damage; it wasn’t like it would suddenly be worse.
But somehow now was different. Staring at this damaged door hammered home just how little he had left.
Nothing. You have nothing.
This was so much worse than looking at the charred bookcases. Michael put a hand on the door and pushed it open.
The foyer still reeked of smoke and melted synthetics. Light poured through the front windows, displaying all of the damage in full color. Footprints were everywhere, but Michael had no way of knowing if they were all from that first night, or if someone had been in here since.
Tyler stepped up beside him. “Wow.”
Michael pushed through. He needed to keep moving or he’d collapse into a pile of despair. His shoes crunched on grit as he made his way through the dining room—where everything was a mere shell of what had been there. Table? Chairs? Burned and blackened. One of his brothers had left schoolbooks out, and they were just as unrecognizable as the rest of the room.
When he’d been fourteen, Michael’s mother had wanted the room painted in alternating stripes of high-gloss and flat maroon paint. Michael remembered measuring and taping lines on the wall with his father before breaking out the rollers.
Now, he couldn’t have told where the stripes began or ended. Everything was just black.
Tyler pointed at the destroyed books on the table. “I hope that’s not your landscaping stuff.”
The words spurred Michael into action. “No. That’s all in the kitchen.”
Luckily, the kitchen was somewhat better. Smoke damage extended in here as well, but instead of black walls, they faced a gray haze over everything.
Almost everything: the counter where he usually kept his laptop sported a familiar-sized rectangle of clean granite, untouched by soot.
His laptop was gone. So were the two binders where he kept invoice copies and paper records.
“Fuck!” Michael slapped the countertop. A crack split and tore across the stone surface before he could stop it.
Tyler raised his eyebrows. “I’m going to assume you didn’t just misplace stuff?”
“No,” he ground out. Michael wanted to hit something. Someone. He had no idea whether his things had been stolen or if the cops had taken them for evidence against him, but he’d never be able to contact all his customers without his records.
And he’d thought he had nothing five minutes ago.
A common thief wouldn’t have taken his notes. This had to be the cops, right? He wondered if David Forrest would be able to pull strings and get his laptop back.
