Chapter 7 - HANNAH'S HOUSE
Hannah Carter arrived furious.
Not at Thomas.
At Mark.
“Mom had keys to your house too and you never noticed?”
“I found out yesterday.”
“Great family.”
Then Diane told her the truth.
Hannah’s house had an old Carter Residential upgrade involving attic ventilation and insulation.
Internal file:
RECHECK REQUIRED.
City archive:
PASS.
Was the house currently unsafe?
No one knew from paper alone.
NorthVale arranged a licensed independent inspection with Hannah’s permission.
Not Cal.
Not Diane.
The result:
No immediate hazard.
One outdated vent configuration should be updated during ordinary maintenance.
Nothing catastrophic.
Hannah laughed bitterly.
“So Mom could have called me.”
“Yes,” Mark said.
Diane whispered:
“I thought you’d panic.”
Hannah stared.
“Our family needs a new sentence.”
Then the inspector found something useful.
A small service card in the attic.
Thomas’s handwriting:
REVISED 4/18 — OWNER NOTIFIED.
Hannah frowned.
“I was the owner.”
“You bought it later,” Diane said.
The owner in 2018 had been someone else.
NorthVale located the prior owner.
He remembered a repair.
Remembered signing something.
The city file simply lacked the corrected follow-up.
That meant Hannah’s discrepancy was administrative, not evidence of Thomas falsifying final condition.
One house cleared.
Then the independent review moved to two other addresses with homeowner consent.
Same result at one:
paperwork gap,
work acceptable.
At another:
a minor correction had been made years ago but never logged.
The pattern became less sinister.
Diane had assumed every discrepancy might hide misconduct.
Some hid nothing more than messy documentation.
Then East Ridge 214 was reviewed.
The Harper family still owned it.
They were angry to learn the old case was being reopened.
Their home had been corrected eight years earlier.
No current defect.
Then the city archive produced a timestamp.
Thomas uploaded the completion certificate at 4:52 p.m.
The inspector’s correction notice came at 5:31 p.m.
Thirty-nine minutes later.
Thomas submitted too early.
Why?
A rebate deadline closed at five.
If he missed it, the homeowner would lose a $2,400 incentive until the next funding cycle, possibly months later.
Thomas sent the certificate before final confirmation because he believed the correction would pass.
It did.
That was wrong process.
His motive was not stealing the rebate personally.
It was preserving the homeowner’s eligibility and his project completion rate.
Diane stared at the report.
“He told himself the outcome made the timing harmless.”
Mark looked at her.
“Like you told yourself fixing things made entering houses harmless.”
She closed her eyes.
The family resemblance was not flattering.
Then Sarah found one more legacy email.
Thomas to Diane:
I need you to keep the Harper mess away from the kids. Mark especially sees everything in black and white.
Mark laughed without humor.
His father had intentionally hidden the incident from him.
Then another email:
If anything happens to me, destroy the rough books after warranties close.
Diane stared.
“What rough books?”
She had never seen that phrase.
Mark asked:
“Could the black bag be what he meant?”
“No.”
The bag was hers.
Then Cal said quietly:
“Thomas had another archive.”
Everyone turned.
A set of spiral notebooks kept in the locked cabinet at Carter Residential’s old warehouse.
The warehouse had been sold.
The cabinet had not.
May you like
According to Cal, it was still in storage under NorthVale control.
If the rough books existed, they might reveal whether Thomas’s early certificates were isolated mistakes or a deliberate operating habit.
