by Amy Vansant
He hadn’t been on the roof for more than five minutes before the first old shark smelled blood and puttered over to offer advice.
Declan made a conscious effort to unclench his jaw and skootched a little lower on the roofline to get a better view of his audience. “Hi, Bob. You’re up early.”
“Not really.”
Declan chuckled. “I guess I should say you’re out early.”
Bob shrugged. “If that makes you happier. Whatcha doin’ up there?”
“Charlotte had a leak in her roof right before she left. I thought I’d fix it for her before she got back.”
“Oh yeah? Do a lot of roof fixin’, do ya?”
“No. Not roofs specifically...but I figured, how hard could it be?”
Bob grunted.
Declan waited a moment to see if Bob would continue peppering him with questions. When he didn’t, he clambered back to the spot above Charlotte’s bedroom. She’d said the drip hit her in the face while she was sleeping, so the trouble had to be somewhere in that area.
He peeled back a few shingles, but nothing screamed leak at him. He’d been hoping to find a gaping hole with a little sign next to it that said, “Fix me.”
After his initial inspection, Declan turned to see if Bob remained below.
He did.
Bob remained in much the same position as before, except his face now tilted toward his watch. As if he felt eyes, he looked back up before Declan could scurry away.
“Doin’ it this morning, huh?” asked Bob.
Declan nodded. “Yep. I don’t know how long she’ll be gone. She might be back today.”
“Huh.”
The silence deepened between them until Declan couldn’t stand it any longer.
“I would have started yesterday but I had to work.”
Bob nodded. “Right. I know all about that.”
Declan’s brow knit.
Huh?
Bob had been retired since he’d known him. Declan opened his mouth to ask him what he meant and then shut it again.
Nope. Don’t be an idiot.
Declan spent most of his week talking to his elderly customers, many of whom only came by for conversation. He’d developed a keen sense for when he was about to be tricked into a very long and meandering story. The wrong question at the wrong moment could open a never-ending can of worms.
Right now, he sensed he could bait every rod in Florida with Bob’s can of worms.
Declan tried to return to the roof shingles but the weight of Bob’s presence threatened to pull him down the pitch. He glanced back again. Bob had pulled up a porch chair and now sat below, staring up at him. Steam rose from the area near his hand.
When did he get a cup of coffee?
Declan scooched back down the roof. “Do you need something, Bob?”
“Nope.” He took a sip of his coffee.
Declan grimaced and climbed down his ladder to grab a few tools.
“Need to grab a few things,” he said, unsure what else he could say.
“Uh-huh.”
Bob tilted a little to the left, as if he needed a better view of Declan’s tool choices.
“That a steel hammer?” he asked.
Declan looked at the hammer in his hand. “Um, yeah?”
He assumed it was steel. He’d never thought about it.
Why would I?
“Plastic handle or wood?” probed Bob.
Declan looked at the hammer again. “Wood, I think.”
“Hm.”
Declan looked at him. “Why?”
“Oh, no reason.” Bob took a sip of his coffee.
Declan took a deep breath and headed back up the ladder. Already, he wasn’t feeling great about his progress. He’d checked inside and found the stain on Charlotte’s bedroom ceiling, and then climbed into the attic and spotted where she’d set up a bucket to catch the drip, but he wasn’t seeing anything wrong with what he was ninety-nine percent sure was the same spot on the outside of the roof. He jerked away another patch of tile and stared with dismay at what looked like perfectly intact roof.
Maybe I shouldn’t have started this.
But what could he do now? He’d already pulled away two dozen tiles. Too late to quit.
“What’s he doin’ up there?” said a voice.
Declan turned and saw Frank joining Bob in Charlotte’s driveway.
Frank looked up at him.
“Whacha doin’ up there?”
“Charlotte had a leak. I thought I’d fix it for her before she got back.”
“This morning?”
Declan took a deep breath.
Grant me the serenity...
“Yep.”
Frank nodded. “Huh.”
He walked behind Bob, and Declan heard the sound of an aluminum chair being pulled from the back wall of Charlotte’s carport. Frank dragged his seat beside Bob and sat down.
Declan stared at them.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
He returned to his work, tapping with his hammer along the stretch of plywood he’d uncovered.
Maybe I’m not lined up quite right.
He pulled away another section of tile with the back of his steel and wood hammer.
“What’s he doin’ up there?”
Declan’s head whipped around so fast he almost slid off the roof. He braced his toes to catch himself, clawing at a patch of loose black tiles with his fingers until his momentum ceased.
For a moment he clung there, panting, and then regained his feet. He peered over his shoulder to see who’d last spoken.
George, the owner of the Pineapple Port retirement community, had joined his rapt audience and at the sound of Declan nearly falling off the roof, he raised his gaze to stare at him.
“Whoa, Nelly.”
Declan’s heart still raced. It wasn’t a far drop from the gutter to the ground, but it wasn’t one he wanted to make, especially with the entire neighborhood watching. He imagined they’d all hold up score cards to judge his dismount like a bunch of Olympic judges.
“Whatcha doin’ up there?” asked George.
“Fixing the roof,” muttered Declan as he clambered to his former spot, higher up the pitch.
Maybe they wouldn’t talk to him if they couldn’t see him.
“Started this morning?” asked George, raising his voice to be sure he was heard.
Declan winced. “Yep.”
“Huh.”
George took a post standing behind Frank and Bob. He had his own mug of coffee.
Declan tried to focus on the roof.
There must be wood under the wood.
That was it. Some inner seal was leaking. A second layer. He cursed himself for not spending a little more time YouTubing roof-fixing videos. He wanted to pull out his phone, but he hated the idea of the three old men down there catcalling him for using technology. He could hear them now. “Whatcha doin’, Future Boy? Lookin’ up how to do it on the Interwebs?”
It wouldn’t end there.
“We never had videos when we were young. When we had to fix something we just fixed it. We were born knowing how to fix a roof because back then men were men!”
Declan glanced down at his fan club. He wanted to scream at them he could field-strip an M16 rifle in less than thirty seconds—maybe slightly over blindfolded. The roof confounding him didn’t make him less of a man.
Roofs are different.
But that would sound very, very desperate.
Don’t let them rattle you.
Somewhere, George found a chair of his own. He guessed it had been shared by the other neighbors who’d shuffled in to join the group, because he sat in an identical beach chair.
Frank waved. Bob looked at his watch and then smiled up at him.
Sonuva—
Declan stood, and seeing the sheet of plywood he’d uncovered wasn’t quite as big as he feared, he stabbed the back of his hammer under the seam and jerked it up. It felt manly, anyway, hearing the
nails giving way. Hopefully, he’d earned the approval of his peanut gallery below—
Attic.
Oh no.
All he could see was attic and pink insulation. There was no second leaky layer to explore.
Hm. That’s not good.
He glanced down at the group. They blinked back at him.
“Think I found it,” he said. He cringed, hating he felt the need to lie.
“That’s good,” said Bob.
“Any minute,” said Frank.
Declan frowned.
Did Frank say ‘any minute?’ What did that mean?
A gust of wind caught Declan off-guard and he threw out his hands to catch his balance. His grip loosened on the hunk of plywood, and it snapped back into place, dislodging a chunk of roof tiles, which slid down the roof, teetered in the gutter for a second, and then tumbled to the ground not far from the men gathered below.
“Sorry,” called Declan as he dropped to his butt, head low enough the men couldn’t make eye contact with him anymore.
Something about the skyline caught his attention.
Is it getting darker?
He’d come out at first light, assuming it would get easier to see as time ticked by. But now, it felt as though—
For the first time, he saw the deep, gray storm clouds headed his way. Another gust of wind ruffled his hair and he heard the low rumble of thunder.
A storm was coming fast.
Declan heard a scraping noise and stood to stare down at the men. They folded up their chairs. Frank and Bob disappeared beneath the carport to return their seats to their places. The neighbor Declan didn’t know was already half way across the street, a beach chair tucked under each arm. George pointed toward home.
Bob reappeared and looked up at him, grinning.
“Did you know there was a storm coming?” asked Declan.
Frank walked by and waved without looking at him.
“Yep,” said Bob.
“You all did?”
“Yep.”
The wind whipped up again and Declan had to lower his hands to the roof, his butt in the air, like the backend of a horse costume, sans costume.
“None of you thought it might be nice to tell me?” he called over the grumble of thunder.
The world grew even darker.
“What?” asked Bob.
“I said none of you told me there was a storm coming!” The first of the rain pelted his skin.
Bob, nearly across the street and a few steps from his own safe, dry home, turned and grinned, waving. He cupped his hands around his mouth.
“What fun would that be?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Thank you for getting me out of jail.”
Charlotte offered Angelina a sheepish smile from her rocking chair overlooking the Intracoastal waterway behind the hotel. To their right, a large swath of preserved land served as home to the pair of osprey circling above them, both searching for an afternoon snack swimming through the water below. It was four o’clock, and the sun still shone enough to keep the biting mosquitos and no-see-ums at bay.
Angelina sat in her own rocking chair with Harley curled on her lap. The hotel concierge-slash-woman-of-mystery seemed pensive, which, for the short time Charlotte had known her, didn’t seem to be one of her more common emotions.
Charlotte chalked it up to Siofra’s potential return. Or maybe Angelina always sat on the back porch at the end of the day and watched the sun dip below the palm trees. She hoped the woman wasn’t mad at her. Had she overstepped a boundary asking for help with the police? Should she get her a thanks-for-keeping-me-out-of-prison gift? What was the perfect present for the woman who sweet-talked you out of jail time?
Do they have a Hallmark card for this?
Angelina’s head snapped up as if Charlotte had just finished speaking, though it had been a minute or two. “No problem. I don’t usually have to bail out people until the third or fourth date, but my pleasure.”
Charlotte snickered. Angelina’s mind had clearly been elsewhere; she didn’t seem angry at her. The woman’s joke repeated in her head and, second time around, one of the words struck Charlotte as odd.
“Wait, you didn’t actually have to bail me out, did you?” she asked.
Angelina shook her head. “No. You weren’t officially arrested.”
Charlotte put her hand on her chest. “Whew. I didn’t think so.”
“Anyway, it isn’t me you have to apologize to, it’s Harley.” Angelina tussled the wild crop of hair sprouting from Harley’s head. “That ordeal was beneath her dignity.”
Charlotte leaned down to get eye level with the dog. “That’s true. I apologize, Harley.” At the sound of her name, the Yorkie opened the glistening black pools she used for eyes to peer at Charlotte and then shut them again.
Charlotte leaned back in her rocking chair. “What a mess. They never should have taken me to the station. They didn’t like I knew the baby was blind, but—” She raised a hand to her mouth. “Whoops. I probably wasn’t supposed to say that.”
Angelina turned. “What baby is blind?”
“The one returned to the couple.”
“The kidnappers replaced their baby with a blind one?”
Charlotte nodded. “Puts a whole new spin on the kidnapping, doesn’t it?”
Angelina clucked her tongue. “I don’t know what’s going on in the world today. Everyone is crazy.”
Charlotte glanced at her watch. “I’m going to go give my boyfriend a call. He’s probably wondering if I’ve run off to Australia by now.”
“A country originally colonized by English prisoners. Your kind of folk.”
Charlotte laughed. “You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”
Angelina grinned. “Nope.” She stood and Harley grunted her displeasure at being tucked into the crook of her mama’s arm when she’d had a perfectly good lap on which to sleep.
Charlotte wandered off the porch and down the path leading to the centermost dock to find a perch at the end of it. Feet dangling over the water, she dialed Declan.
He answered on the third ring, and instead of hearing the soothing sounds of the sixties and seventies in the background, what sounded like the squeal of an electric saw accosted her ears.
“Declan?”
“Hey, hi. How are you?” he asked, sounding flustered. The grinding noise stopped.
“Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Hm? Nothing. They’re doing some construction next door.”
“You’re outside?”
“Hm? Oh. Yep. What’s up?”
“Oh. Things have gotten complicated here.” She paused a moment, weighing the pros and cons of sharing her trip to jail and decided to come clean. “I spent the day in jail.”
“What? Did you say jail?” he asked as the sound of a saw pealed again.
“Yes, but it was a misunderstanding. We think my aunt might be coming back to this area to look into a missing baby case. It’s crazy. Someone stole someone’s baby and replaced it with a blind one.”
“Uh-huh.”
Charlotte didn’t feel uh-huh was the appropriate response to her news. The construction had to be getting to him.
“How about I call you later when you’re home and it’s quiet?”
“Right.”
“Right, what?”
“Right, uh...” Declan paused. “I’m not sure. I’m sorry. I’m a little distracted—”
“I can tell. That’s why I said I’ll call you later.”
“Oh. Yep. That would be better. It’s crazy noisy here.”
“I can hear that. Okay, so I’ll talk to you—”
“Hey, can I ask you a quick question first?”
Charlotte watched the osprey dive. “Sure. It’s not noisy over here.” Quite the opposite. The place was tranquility personified. “I can’t promise you’ll hear my answer, though.”
“I’ll put my finger in my other ear. Do old men ch
eck the weather every morning?”
“What?” As promised, Charlotte heard every word he said, but the question didn’t make a lot of sense.
“I said, do all old men check the weather in the morning? Is it a thing?”
Charlotte laughed. “Yes. It’s like a full time job after retirement. Especially in Florida where it changes every five minutes.”
Declan made a noise that sounded something like a growl and a grunt had a baby.
“Why?” she asked.
The saw wailed again, as a hammer sang backup.
“Nothing. I’ll talk to you later. Be careful. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Charlotte hung up and leaned back on her hands to watch a paddle-boarder paddle by. She waved and the woman waved back.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head to catch the last of the day’s winter sun.
Now she had three mysteries to solve. The location of her mysterious aunt, the location of the missing baby, and what the heck Declan was up to.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kim watched Josh bounce the fussy baby on his knee.
Their baby might have been blind, but this child was fussy.
No.
Worse than fussy. He was some sort of demon child.
I am being punished.
There was no doubt of that.
Josh Jr. had been sweet. She could tell he had a really good heart. And, most of all, he’d been her baby.
She felt the tears welling up in her eyes for the hundredth time and turned so her husband wouldn’t see.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Josh.
She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Nothin’. Hormones.”
Josh shook his head and handed the baby to her. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. All he does is cry now.”
She bounced Josh Jr. up and down against her chest to get him to settle.
Except it isn’t Josh Jr., is it? You terrible, terrible woman.
She walked to the window to turn her back to Josh.
Why did I do it? What was going through my head?
It was a mistake. She knew that now. She didn’t want this woman’s devil baby, she wanted her baby. It didn’t matter that he was blind. Josh would just have to deal.
She turned and glared at the side of her husband’s head as he watched ESPN, beer in hand.
