Nathan opened the leather folder without taking his eyes off the rent receipt in his hand.
Emily stood in the middle of the kitchen holding Noah against her shoulder.
The baby was finally quiet, one warm cheek resting against her shirt after drinking his bottle.
The silence should have felt peaceful.
Instead, it felt like everybody in the room was waiting for something to break.
The woman who had arrived with Nathan stepped beside him.
She looked to be in her forties, dressed in a dark coat over office clothes, her hair pinned neatly back despite the wind outside.
“This is Rachel Kim,” Nathan told Emily.
“She works with me.”
Rachel gave Emily a small, careful smile, then turned to the ceiling.
The brown water stain spread nearly three feet across the plaster.
Her expression changed.
Nathan placed the rent receipt beside a page from the folder.
Same address.
Same property number.
Same management company.
He exhaled through his nose.
“Emily,” he said, “the company that owns this house belongs to me.”
She stared at him.
For a second, the sentence didn’t make sense.
Nathan Wells didn’t look like a landlord.
He looked like the stranger who had bought Noah milk after receiving a text meant for somebody else.
Emily glanced around at the cracked cabinets and peeling paint.
“You own this?”
Nathan’s face tightened.
“My company does.
But I didn’t know families were living like this.”
Rachel opened another section of the folder.
Nathan continued, quieter now.
“Mercer Property Services manages several properties for us in this part of Detroit.
They’re supposed to collect rent, arrange repairs, document safety problems, and send us monthly reports.
According to the reports I’ve been receiving, this house has working heat, no active leaks, no mold complaints, and no unresolved maintenance requests.”
Emily looked toward Noah’s room.
The paint near the baseboard had turned dark weeks ago.
“Mom called them,” she said.
“A lot.”
Nathan looked at her sharply.
“About what?”
“The heat.
The roof.
The wall in Noah’s room.
The kitchen pipe last winter.”
Rachel pulled out a notebook.
“Do you know when?”
Emily shook her head.
“My mom probably does.”
Nathan picked up the stack of receipts again.
“Has anyone from Mercer been here recently?”
“A man came last month.”
“Did he inspect the house?”
Emily remembered the visit clearly.
The man had stood on the porch in a clean jacket while Sarah, still wearing her work uniform, tried to explain that water ran down the bedroom wall whenever it rained.
He had barely stepped inside.
“He looked at the kitchen,” Emily said.
“Mom showed him the ceiling.
He said repairs cost money and they couldn’t fix every little thing right away.”
