As she looked to the lower one, she thought she saw something that stood out just a bit. The beam itself was a dark gray, so dark it was almost black. But almost directly ahead of her, there was a slight smudge along the base of it. The smudge was on the edge farthest away from them, so she couldn’t see it for sure. The beam had a small layer of dust on it and the smudge seemed to break the layer apart a bit.
“Pawlowski? Look at the lower beam, on the side farthest away from us. Do you see that…almost directly in the center?”
Pawlowski inched forward just a bit more and then very slowly got down to her knees. Ava’s heart froze in her chest as she watched. Pawlowski’s knees were no more than a foot away from the edge. The wind whirled and countless building and ant-sized people waited down below.
“I do,” Pawlowski finally said. “Could be nothing.”
Oh God,Ava thought as she inched even closer. Her toes were now less than six inches from the edge and when she looked down, her stomach felt like it was doing a barrel roll. It was hard to focus on that one spot along the beam, but she managed to make herself do it.
Now that she was closer to it, the smudge became a bit more pronounced. She thought it might be a footprint, but if itwas,it was pointed to the right rather than a partial print that was pointedout.In other words, it looked more like a footprint that was walking along the beam rather than one that had been positioned there to launch a body. The only issue there was the fact that there was only a single print.
The angle was all wrong for someone that had leaped to their death. Unless Perkins had decided to try his balancing act out before he took that leap.
“Did you see this?” Pawlowski asked.
Relieved to have a reason to look away from that yawning space, Ava turned and stepped further away from the edge. Pawlowski was looking down at the floor. There was a scuff mark along the unfinished concrete floor. In fact, there were two of them—both small and maybe part of the same one with a broken space along its center. Located roughly a foot away from it was a partial footprint—a boot, from the looks of it. This wasn’t anything to write home about, as there were plenty of partial boot prints scattered around through the dust—but the others were a good distance away from the one near the scuff mark. It was also pointed directly toward the open space in front of them.
“Would you go get the supervisor?” Ava asked.
Pawlowski nodded and did as she was asked. There were no smart comments or objections this time, making Ava wonder if Pawlowski was finally starting to open her eyes to the fact that there might be more to this story than met the eye.
Ava looked back to the faint footprints she and Pawlowski had left in the dust, noticing that they were a bit more pronounced than the others. She looked over to the wall that the crew had been putting up when she and Pawlowski had arrived. She estimated it to be about seventy-five feet away, give or take a few feet. And there appeared to be several sections of wall thathad recently been put up beyond it, going in the other direction. Of course, Ava was willing to admit that she knew nothing about construction and could be completely wrong.
Pawlowski came back with the supervisor. He seemed absolutely terrified that the two women were so close to the edge.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice thick with irritation. but then he apparently saw something concerning in Ava’s expression because his tone changed when he asked: “Did you find something?”
“Maybe,” Ava said. “These beams right out there…when was the last time anyone on your crew would have stepped out on them?”
“On those?” he asked, eyeing them. He took a moment to think about it and then shrugged. “I can’t tell you for sure, but I know it’s beenat leasta week.”
“So certainly not in the past two or three days?”
“That’s correct.”
“And when did you have them start working this floor?”
“Seven or eight days, I suppose.”
“Have there been many men over here, where we are right now?”
“I’m sure some have wandered around a bit here and there. But in terms of active work? No.”
“What do you make ofthat?”Pawlowski asked, pointing out to the print on the beam.
He took a few steps forward, moving with the confidence of a man that had spent a lot of time up in these heights. When he leaned forward, his face out into the open air, Ava felt her stomach flutter again.
“It’s definitely a print,” he said. “But…there’s only one. I don’t see a second foot or even a trail of where the person went.”
“Yeah, I noticed that as well,” Ava said.
“And there’s…wait. That’s not one of my guys. I can tell for certain.”
“How so?”
“All of my men wear boots. I make them…as part of just being safe. If you look at that print really closely…that looks like a flat foot. Like a dress shoe or something. You see it? Almost no tread on that thing.”
Ava did notice it now that he pointed it out. When she compared it to the ghosts of prints all around her, the difference was quite clear.