“She believed people were housed here during the flood.”
Julian unlocked the chain around the gate and stepped aside.
“The property was operating as a meal preparation site under our contract,” he explained.
“We told the county it could hold drivers overnight.”
“Did it hold children?” Walter asked.
Julian did not answer until they reached the empty parking area.
“We believe it did.”
The dormitories were gutted shells with plywood over the windows.
Only the central administrative building remained weatherproof.
Inside, mold had stained the walls around a row of empty file cabinets.
Emily stopped in a hallway where faded stripes of blue paint marked doorframes.
For a moment she smelled boiled potatoes and wet wool.
Then she recognized the sensation as a memory rather than the odor of the place itself.
She had been here before.
She remembered a woman in a blue scarf kneeling beside her and telling her to be quiet.
She remembered Peter pressing the green lunchbox into her hands.
But she did not remember how she had arrived or how she left.
“Emily?” Rosa asked.
“There was a room at the end of this hall.”
“There still is,” Julian said.
The room had been stripped of furniture, leaving four screw holes in one wall and a dark rectangle beneath the window.
Emily walked to the rectangle.
“They had a chart here,” she whispered.
“A chart of names.”
Walter stood in the doorway.
“Peter wrote his name in capital letters,” he said.
“He was proud of learning them.”
Emily shut her eyes.
She saw a little boy reaching above his head with a green marker.
The image vanished when she tried to hold it.
Gideon came no closer.
“You don’t have to remember everything today.”
“I wasn’t asking for permission to stop,” Emily replied.
He accepted the rebuke.
Outside the room, Danny found a section of wall panel that did not match the surrounding paint.
He recognized the repair because he had installed similar panels in commercial kitchens.
He ran a finger along its uneven edge.
“This was replaced after the fire,” he said.
Julian asked whether they should call a contractor.
“We should call someone independent,” Danny answered.
The group agreed not to disturb it.
Emily photographed the repair and noted the building’s location.
On the drive back, she called Denise Harper to ask whether the county had records of the fire.
Denise found the inspection report and read the summary aloud.
The fire had started in an electrical junction box six months after the flood.
