The Homewreckers(3)

His voice echoed in the high-ceilinged foyer. No answer. He shrugged and stepped inside. The interior of the house was a marvel of Victorian excess. Several different decades’ worth of wallpaper layers were in the process of being stripped away to the bare plaster walls. Overhead, an enormous chandelier dripping with dusty crystals and frosted glass globes swung from a ceiling decorated with crumbling but intricate plaster ornamentation.

“Place is a money pit,” Mo muttered, but the contrast between the before and after could be amazing. He walked toward the back of the house. Looking up, the view was of ceilings with gaping holes; underfoot were floors of oak parquet laid in a herringbone pattern, nearly obscured with decades of blackened varnish.

“Nice.” He kept walking, passing what had obviously once been a bathroom. The old penny tile floor was filthy, and the only remaining fixture was a claw-foot bathtub filled with fallen plaster fragments. Exposed pipes poked up through the floor.

At the end of the hallway he spied the wide opening to what would obviously be the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, studying the scene. It had high, water-stained ceilings and walls that had also been stripped to the studs. The floor featured layers upon layers of linoleum, some of which had been peeled all the way down to the subfloor.

Mo took a couple of steps into the kitchen and suddenly, the world seemed to crumble beneath his feet. He heard wood splintering and reached out, in vain, to try to break his fall. Then, darkness.

The last thing he remembered hearing was an outraged voice screeching, right in his ear, “What the hell?”



* * *



Hattie scooted on her butt as far under the house as she could, looking for the source of the broken pipe. She thought she was now directly beneath the kitchen, but it was damp and dank, and her flashlight beam picked out a maze of corroded cast-iron piping that had been dug out to expose the line.

She heard footfalls overhead.

“Cass?” But these footsteps were too heavy to be coming from skinny-as-a-rail Cass. Maybe Ronnie had a change of heart? Surely he’d know better than to walk into the kitchen where termites had laid waste to those floor joists.

Thunk. Chunks of rotted wood and linoleum and more than a century’s worth of unspeakable debris rained down onto her face. Followed by a body. A large, living body, which landed directly on top of her.

“What the hell?” she shrieked.

In the dim light she could see that the body was a man.

“Uuuhhhh,” he moaned. His face was beside hers, and he looked dazed.

“Get offa me,” Hattie said through clenched teeth. With effort, she managed to roll him sideways, until he was lying flat on his back in the muck beneath the house.

She heard footsteps again. “Hattie?” Cass’s head poked through the hole in the kitchen floor. She pointed the beam of the flashlight at her friend, and then at the prone body of the intruder, who was groaning and also trying to sit up. “Who’s the guy? And what the hell is going on down there?”

“Damned if I know,” Hattie said. She held out a hand to her best friend. “Come on. Get me outta here. Ronnie was right. The pipes are toast.” She pointed at the stranger. “And so is this guy. Call the cops. Looks like we trapped us a scrap bandit.”





2

The Proposal




Hattie looked down at the guy sprawled on the kitchen floor. Some women might have found him attractive. He wore black designer jeans and a black open-collared shirt, which told her he wasn’t local, because nobody with any sense wore all black in the sweltering heat and humidity of a Savannah summer. Currently he was splattered with muck and scowling up at her like she was the intruder instead of vice versa.

Cass prodded Mo’s leg with the toe of her boot and glanced over at Hattie, who was brushing chunks of gunk out of her hair. “Doesn’t look like my idea of a scrap metal thief.”

“You’re right,” Hattie said. “For one thing, it looks like he’s got all his own teeth. For another, he’s dressed too nice.” She played the flashlight over Mo’s ruined tennis shoes. “Day-um, girl. Check it out. These Nikes cost like, six hundred dollars.”

“Maybe he stole them,” Cass mused.

“Cute,” Mo said, suppressing a groan as he got back on his feet. “Hilarious. You two must be a smash hit at the comedy clubs around here.”

He glanced down at himself and sighed. Both arms sported jagged, bleeding scratches. His clothes were filthy and the Nikes were caked in mud. Or something like it. He groped the back of his head with his fingertips and felt a knot raising. Maybe he was concussed? It was that kind of day.

“The front door was standing wide open,” he lied. “How was I supposed to know this place is a death trap? I could sue you for maintaining a criminal nuisance.”

“And we could call the cops and have you locked up for trespassing,” Cass shot back. “Right, Hattie?”

But Cass’s best friend was studying the guy’s face. She’d definitely seen him before, the dark hair brushing his shirt collar, the olive complexion that went with the hair and eyes, aggressively thick eyebrows, and one of those trendy not-beard beards. He’d been staring down at his phone, but she was sure he had been listening to her conversation with Tug.

Hattie snapped her fingers. “Hey. You were sitting at the table next to ours at Foxy Loxy this morning. And obviously eavesdropping on my conversation.”