Under the Altswood Sky (The Altswood Saga #2)

Chapter 5 - Metal

Chapter 5 - Metal

Dad chucked a pile of paper in my direction.

I looked over the lid of my laptop, peeved to be disturbed from my internet surfing, peering at the stack that had landed on my legs.

"Am I finally being promoted to teenage detective sidekick?"

Dad scoffed.

"Try again," he said. He threw a pen too, which I attempted to catch, but epically missed. It landed on my keyboard, typing a row of gibberish.

"Incident report," I read, grabbing the paper stack. "Why am I filling in an incident report?"

"I need you to write down everything about your little adventure yesterday." Dad moved around the lounge in a frenzy, shuffling about the files he had laid around the coffee table.

I scratched at the skin under my blue wig, where it was brushing my chin uncomfortably. "Shouldn't you be interviewing me to fill this in?"

"You can do it," Dad said. "Make a duplicate for Annabelle as well." He disappeared up to his office and promptly returned again with another box of files in his arms. "It's only a minor report. It'll save me the time and you know the protocol."

And clearly, he needed all the time he could afford. Though the early morning was fading into noon now, Dad had been bustling around the house since 6AM, digging out all the information he could find about the maintenance of the psych ward.

Since I told him about the roof yesterday, he had sent two teams to the hospital: one to figure out why the entrance to the roof wasn't anywhere on the building's blueprints, and one to determine who had access to it.

"Should I start forging your signature on all my school forms too?"

Dad shot me a glare.

I grinned, clicking the pen. "Kidding."

I filled in the lines methodically, using my best handwriting, until I got to a section on the fourth page.

"Physical descriptions?" I recited to Dad, who was emptying all the boxes onto the floor. Our carpet had been swallowed by paper.

"As in, what did the roof look like?"

I pulled a face. "It looked like a plain old roof."

"Was it actually old? Or moderately new?" Dad clarified. "Did it look like someone had been cleaning up? Were there any indications of activity?"

"It just looked like a regular roof," I said, tapping the pen on my leg. "But I guess that means it was kind of clean for an abandoned area."

Dad paused. "That's curious, isn't it?" He reached for a nearby manila folder. "The staff said that the roof has been blocked from access since renovations seven years ago."

"There is no way it hasn't been accessed for seven years," I said, scoffing. "There was no dust."

I remembered running my finger along the barrier—there was nothing there that would hint at seven years of decay.

"Did you wipe any surfaces down while you were up there?"

I shook my head. "Of course not. We looked around, picked up the piece of plastic, and left."

Dad gestured at the incident report. "Note that down."

As I wrote, he collapsed down on the adjacent couch and pulled out his phone. "Listen to what just came in," he said, opening his email. "Forensic chemical examination has detected traces of bleach along the walls from as recent as a week ago."