He did this every day, correcting as many of the mistakes as he could himself, and making copious notes with exact instructions on what was to be done the following morning so that no time would be wasted while he had to accompany the men from place to place, giving them verbal instructions. But for the most part, the work was perfect — the men had long since discovered that Alan Rogers would allow nothing to slip by, and that he would not appreciate having to pay their wage while they corrected their own mistakes. It hadn’t hurt that Alan had let it be known that the bonus for early completion would be divided equally among the workers, rather than going directly into his own pocket.
His inspection of the first floor completed, he mounted the stairs to the mezzanine.
Up here, although ahead of schedule, the work had not progressed as quickly as it had downstairs, but that was only to be expected. No one expected the mezzanine to be open by Labor Day.
Still, it was coming along faster than he’d dared hope, and the subdivisions were all but completed. Now the lowered ceiling that would cap the shops was being installed. Though to the casual observer that ceiling would appear to be supported by the walls it surmounted, it was actually being suspended from the spiderlike struts that held up the roof of the building itself. Almost ten feet would separate the false ceilings of the shops from the intricate ironwork above them, and from the main concourse on the first floor, all the old strutwork would be clearly visible, framing the new skylight in the center.
Alan gazed up at the skylight, admiring it once more. Though it was massive, it appeared to be light as a feather, the effect of lightness achieved through the artist’s use of pale greens and blues and almost pastel reds and oranges.
Then, as his eyes scanned the intricate glasswork, he suddenly frowned.
One of the panes, near the base of the dome, appeared to be cracked.
He hesitated, started to make a note of it, then wondered if perhaps he was mistaken. It might not be a crack at all — it could be nothing more than an imperfection in the glass, magnified by the angle of the slowly setting sun.
He moved closer, but even then he couldn’t make the crack out clearly. Glancing around, he saw a ladder propped up against the strutwork, left there by one of the workmen for use again in the morning.
Alan moved quickly to the ladder, and a moment later was up in the ironwork, moving carefully out above the concourse toward the dome.
He’d never been afraid of heights — indeed he’d always rather enjoyed them — and before he moved all the way out to the center of the roof, he looked down. As always, the distance between floor and ceiling was amplified by the angle of viewing it from above, but for Alan there wasn’t even the slightest feeling of dizziness or tightening in his groin. He glanced around the empty building, enjoying the new perspective on his work, then moved confidently onward toward the dome.
When he was directly beneath the spot where he thought he’d seen the cracked glass, he looked up, but the angle was far too acute. The pane in question was almost invisible, extending almost straight up from where he was.
He leaned out, his full weight suspended above the floor below by the strength of his fingers alone.
Still, he couldn’t quite see the pane. But if he stretched upward, reaching with his left hand, perhaps he could feel it.
He clutched one of the crosspieces tight in his right hand, and groped upward with his left.
His fingers touched the cool surface of the glass, and carefully explored it.
Nothing.
He reached further, his left foot leaving the iron beam on which he stood.
And then, with only one foot on anything solid, and only his right hand checking his balance, it happened.
Time seemed to stop as the small piece of wrought iron in his right hand suddenly cracked in his grip, then gave way.
Instinctively, he looked down.
The distance seemed to telescope away from him, the floor, forty feet below, receding quickly into the distance. Now, for the first time in his experience, the dizziness of heights came upon him, he felt an almost sexual tightening in his groin, and a sudden wave of fear washed over him. His entire body broke out in an icy sweat.
What was happening to him wasn’t possible.
The ironwork had all been examined, the badly rusted pieces replaced weeks ago.
And yet, somehow, this piece had been missed. This very piece on which he had depended today.
His fingers, acting independently from his brain, clutched desperately at the broken piece for a moment, then, too late, dropped the fragment and reached for the solid bar that was suddenly just out of his reach.
He felt himself teeter, and slowly arc away from the I-beam.
Then he was plunging downward, his eyes wide open, his arms stretched out as if to break his fall.
He opened his mouth, and screamed.
It was the scream that jerked Beth back into the present. For just the smallest instant she was sure it was Amy’s scream, that last, horrible sound as she’d died, but then Beth knew it was more. For a second she could still hear it, even now that the vision was gone, and she was once more alone in the cool darkness of the room behind the stairs.
And then the scream was cut short by a loud thumping noise, followed by the kind of empty silence that Beth had never experienced before.
The silence of death happening suddenly, unexpectedly.
She sat frozen, and slowly the silence was intruded upon by her own heartbeat.
“Daddy?” she whispered softly. Even as she spoke the word, she knew instinctively there would be no answer.
She rose slowly to her feet. The pleasant cool of the room had shifted to a bone-chilling cold, and she reached down without thinking, picked up the blanket, and wrapped it around herself.
She moved slowly toward the door, but then hesitated, something in her not wanting to leave the safety and isolation of the little room, wanting rather to stay there in the darkness and isolation, as if that alone could protect her from whatever waited for her outside.
But she had to go out, had to go and see for herself what had happened.
She slid the door open just far enough to slip through, then slid it closed again behind her. Then, using the flashlight to guide her even though she knew the steps by rote, she crept out from under the stairs and started upward.
She could see him as soon as her head came above floor level.
He lay in the center of the mill, beneath the stained-glass dome. Sunlight, streaming in from one of the high side windows, illuminated his body, and motes of dust danced in the air above him.
He was very still, lying facedown, his arms outstretched as if he was reaching for something.
Beth froze.
It couldn’t be real.
She was imagining it. Or she was seeing something else, something out of the past like the things Amy had shown her.
It wasn’t her father on the floor. It was someone else — someone she didn’t know—
As she forced herself to move slowly forward, she kept repeating it to herself.
But then she was there, standing beneath the dome, her father’s body at her feet. Beneath his head, a pool of blood had formed.
She knew it was real, and that she wasn’t going to wake up.
She felt her body go numb as her mind tried to reject it all. But that was impossible. He lay there, no moving, not breathing, with the stillness that only death could produce.
