Floodin out, p.1
Floodin' Out, page 1
FLOODIN’ OUT
REAL ESTATE RESCUE COZY MYSTERIES, BOOK 7
PATTI BENNING
SUMMER PRESCOTT BOOKS PUBLISHING
Copyright 2023 Summer Prescott Books
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying, or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.
* * *
**This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Also by Patti Benning
Author’s Note
Contact Summer Prescott Books Publishing
CHAPTER ONE
Flora Abner had been planning to sleep in that Saturday morning, but a loud yowl, a crash, and the sudden influx of morning light made her sit bolt upright in bed at the tender hour of just seven o’clock.
“Amaretto! What’s gotten into you?”
Her fluffy white Persian cat delicately untangled herself from the curtain that was now on the floor, along with the curtain rod. The cat must have tried climbing the sheer fabric, probably in a mad attempt to catch a bird that flew by on the other side of the window.
“You’re going feral,” Flora moaned and she flopped back down and pulled a pillow over her face. The damage had been done, though. There was no going back to sleep, not after the shot of adrenaline that brought her to wakefulness.
A dip on the bed told her the cat had jumped up. Soon, small paws started kneading her rib cage. Without looking, she extended her hand to stroke the cat’s spine. Amaretto had grown up as a lazy, spoiled apartment cat. Now that they lived on a few rural acres in the small town of Warbler, Kentucky, the cat had discovered a wild streak Flora didn’t know she had.
“Fine, I’m getting up,” she grumbled when the cat butted her head into her hand. “You’re not getting breakfast this early, though. If we start that, you’re just going to keep waking me up at seven every day. You can wait until your regular time.”
She got out of bed and opened her door, shuffling out into the living room. It was too early for the sun to be fully up, but gray dawn light streamed in through the window behind the couch. The grassy field across the road from her house looked quiet and peaceful, with mist filling the space before the trees began.
There was something quiet and almost magical about early mornings out in the countryside. Her annoyance with Amaretto faded quickly, though she had to fight back a yawn as she shuffled out of the living room and down the hall to the first-floor bathroom.
She was still sleeping in the tiny third bedroom on the first floor that she had claimed as her own when she first moved into the house. Now that both of the upstairs bedrooms had been repainted and their hardwood floors had been refinished, she knew she should move her own bedroom up there soon. With a full bath and more space, it would serve to make her mornings easier. Plus, she would need all of her things out of the small room in order to finally start renovating it. She had made a lot of progress on her fixer-upper house in the months since she had moved here, but it was still far from being ready to flip and sell.
She pushed the bathroom door fully open, not bothering to turn on the lights as she stepped inside. Her foot splashed into a puddle of water, and she jumped back with a yelp, slapping blindly at the wall for the light switch. She managed to hit both it, and the switch for the fan, which choked and scraped its way to life. Her distracted mind made a note to replace it, but then all of her attention was focused on the horror awaiting her in her bathroom.
The floor was flooded. Water covered every inch of it and was still dripping out of the cabinet beneath the sink. The flood was beginning to creep into the hallway, darkening the old, dry floorboards she had been putting off refinishing.
A wordless noise of horror croaked out of her mouth. She hadn’t left the sink on, so a pipe must be leaking, and it was getting worse by the minute.
“Okay,” she said out loud, trying to calm her panic. “I need to think. The longer I wait, the worse this is going to get. I just… I need to turn the water off. Yeah.” She stood there for a second longer, slowly realizing that she had no idea where the water shut off was.
“I need Grady,” she decided after a moment. She rushed back into the bedroom, passing Amaretto where she was perched on the back of the couch, looking out the window. The cat’s rude early-morning awakening was a blessing in disguise, because this mess would be even worse if she had slept in for another couple of hours like she was planning.
She grabbed her phone from where she had left it on the nightstand and, with a glance at the time, quickly dialed Grady’s number. He didn’t have a cell phone, so the only way to contact him was by calling his landline number. He had to be at the hardware store soon to open it by eight, but it was still early and he didn’t live very far away, so she thought he would probably both be awake, and still at home.
She felt a rush of relief when he answered with a concerned, “Flora?”
“It’s an emergency,” she said. “Sort of. One of the pipes in the bathroom is leaking and there is water everywhere. How do I shut it off?”
“Go down to your water heater in the basement,” he said. “There should be a lever –“
“Hold on, need to grab the flashlight. Give me two seconds.”
She hurried to the basement door, which was in the hallway between the kitchen and the living room, and pulled it open, taking a flashlight down from the shelf just inside of it. She flicked the switch for the single, dim bulb then started down the stairs.
The dim bulb wasn’t enough to illuminate every corner of the basement. If she was being honest with herself, she didn’t like the basement very much. It was dark and dusty, and creepy. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but if her house had a ghost, this was where it would be.
“All right, I’m at the water heater,” she said. “Now what?”
“There should be a lever on one of the pipes going into it. The handle might be red or yellow–“
“I see it. Should I pull it?”
“Yes. That should be the water shut off for your house.”
She pulled the lever, making sure it was fully closed. Then she turned and rushed back upstairs, splashed into the bathroom, and pulled open the cupboard doors. One of the pipes underneath the sink was wet and dripping, but it wasn’t actively leaking anymore.
“That worked,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much.”
“Do you know where the leak is coming from?”
“Well, the joint on one of the pipes is corroded. Underneath that joint everything is wet. I’m guessing it came from there. Do you think I should call someone? Is this something I can fix myself?”
“It should be an easy enough fix,” he said. “You’ll need some supplies. I’ll pick some stuff up while I’m at work, and come over to help you with it after the hardware store closes. If it’s not very busy, I’ll ask Mr. Brant if I can leave early so you don’t have to spend all day without any running water. I’ll call you either way and let you know.”
“Thank you,” she said with feeling. “You are a lifesaver, Grady.”
She said her goodbyes to him, then snapped a quick picture of the mess in her bathroom to send to Violet along with the message, Might have to delay our plans, had a house related emergency this morning.
They had been planning to meet for brunch and do some shopping together. Even though Flora didn’t have strict working hours, she still tried to take one day a week completely off from working on the house. She needed the time to have fun guilt free, and being locked up in her house all day, every day could feel suffocating.
Once that was done, she started pulling everything out from under the sink. The towels she kept under there were soaking wet, and all of her extra toilet paper was destroyed. Luckily she had some more towels upstairs, and some that were sitting in the dryer, freshly washed. She would have to get everything dried off as quickly as possible to hopefully avoid any water damage to the floor.
Her phone buzzed with an incoming text message and she paused to read it. Oh no. Do you want help cleaning it? I can grab some coffees and head over.
I’d kill for a latte right now, but don’t feel like you have to help. I’m mostly just going to be drying everything off.
Violet responded almost as soon as she had sent the message saying, I’ll be there in 20 minutes!
Feeling a little better now that the emergency was under control and she would probably end up still having a nice day with her friend, she took the sopping wet towels outside to wring them out, then hung them over the porch railing to dry before going back in to take the towels from the upstairs bathroom and start drying everything.
“Hello?” she said, putting the call on speaker so she could continue to mop up the rest of the water under the sink.
“Hey,” Grady said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get off early today. My boss still isn’t here. I’ll talk to him about it when he comes in, though. Could you get a measurement of the pipes for me? What are they made out of? Usually it’s PVC or copper. It might be red or blue pex piping if it’s had work done recently.”
“It’s copper,” she said. “And I can try to measure it, let me go find a measuring tape.”
She got the information Grady needed, and ended the call with him so she could check for text messages from Violet. She frowned, getting a little worried. It had been almost forty minutes since her friend’s text message, and it wasn’t like Violet to be late.
Once she was done in the bathroom, she went into the kitchen to feed Amaretto breakfast, though she forewent making herself her normal morning cup of coffee since Violet said she was bringing some over. She was going to have to do a load of laundry today, since all of her towels were wet, and she couldn’t take her usual morning shower since she didn’t have any water. It was a bad start to the day, but she hoped things would improve soon.
Her phone rang again, interrupting her reverie. She saw Violet’s name on the caller ID and was quick to press the button to accept the call.
“Hey. Everything all right?”
When her friend answered, her voice was choked with tears. “I need you to come pick me up. I’m on the main road between your house and town, about a mile away from that cemetery.”
Worry surged through Flora. “What happened?”
“I… I hit someone with my car. He’s dead. The police are here. My car is totaled and they said I need to get a ride.”
Flora’s stomach dropped. “I’ll be right there,” she promised, then ran towards her front door.
CHAPTER TWO
Flora was so flustered she almost forgot to grab her purse on her way out. She slammed the door behind her without even pausing to lock it, and got into her truck, glad that she had finally fixed the driveway because she backed out so quickly, the old potholes probably would have wrecked her suspension.
She took off down the dirt road, spitting gravel behind her, and turned onto the main road that led into town. It was a long, country road full of twists and turns. She felt sick at heart knowing that Violet had hit someone. Someone had lost their life, and her friend’s life would never be the same. Horrible guilt gnawed at her as she drove. If she hadn’t texted Violet, her friend wouldn’t have been out driving so early, and none of this would have happened.
The scene of the accident was impossible to miss. Flashing lights, two police cruisers, an ambulance, and Violet’s car with its crumpled hood were all pulled up along the opposite side of the road she was driving on.
She went a little further and pulled as far onto the shoulder as she could, leaving her hazards on as she got out of the truck. After looking both ways to make sure she wouldn’t be the next victim in a car accident, she rushed across to the other side. She recognized Officer Hendricks talking to Violet by her car and hurried over to them.
He gave her a grim nod as she approached. Her friend was wiping her eyes with a tissue, and she looked more broken than Flora had ever seen her.
“Thank you for coming, Ms. Abner,” Officer Hendricks said. “I think it might be best if you keep your friend company for a while. This has been very traumatic experience for her.”
Of course it has, Flora thought. Accident or not, she was responsible for someone’s death.
“I’ll stay with her for as long as she needs me too,” she promised. “Violet, are you hurt?”
Her friend shook her head. “I’m fine. But that poor man…”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Officer Hendricks told her kindly. “There was no avoiding it, and your presence here means we have some leads to go on, at least. If no one was on the road when it happened, our chances of finding the culprit would not be good. Remember what the paramedics told you, though. You should get a medical checkup today, if possible. You might not feel any injuries right now, but you will be sore later. This was a high-speed collision, and invisible injuries such as whiplash are highly likely.”
A sedan came up the road from town, slowing to a crawl as it went by them. Flora saw Natalie peering over at them through the sedan’s window. She had no idea where the other woman had been so early, but her neighbor’s eyes widened when she saw Flora. Flora did her best to ignore her as Natalie slowly continued on her way, focusing instead on what Officer Hendricks had said.
“I’m confused. I thought Violet –“ She broke off, not wanting to say something that might upset her friend further, even if it was the truth.
“I will let her tell you the full story when she’s ready, but to clarify, the victim was already deceased when her car struck him. We have reason to believe it was a homicide, and are going to be proceeding as such, but your friend is not in any legal trouble at the moment.”
That was a relief, but also extremely confusing. Last time Flora checked, dead men didn’t spend a lot of time walking down the road.
“Can we go?” Violet asked, her voice breaking. Her eyes darted toward something in front of her car, and when Flora followed her gaze, she saw a body covered in a white sheet. Debris from Violet’s car was scattered down the road.
“Of course,” Flora said. “Do you need anything out of your car?”
Violet grabbed her keys and her purse, and Officer Hendricks nodded in farewell as they walked past him. Flora did her best to focus on her friend’s well-being for now. Questions and answers could come later. A man might still be dead, but she felt deeply relieved that Violet hadn’t been responsible for it – no matter how puzzling the explanation was.
She made sure Violet was buckled into the passenger seat before she put her truck back into drive and turned off the hazards. “Do you want to go home?”
Violet shook her head. “Can we go to your house? I don’t want my neighbors to see this and wonder what’s going on. I need some time to calm down first.”
“Of course,” Flora said. She pulled further down the road so she could use someone’s driveway to turn around, then headed back past the accident scene and toward home.
“You should call Grady,” Violet said unexpectedly as Flora turned onto her street.
“He’s at work,” Flora said. “If you want him to come over –“
“It’s not that. The person… the person I hit was Mr. Brant.”
Grady’s boss. Flora inhaled sharply, her fingers tightening around the steering wheel. She remembered Grady telling her earlier that his boss wasn’t in yet.
“Are you sure?”
Violet nodded. “It was him. I thought there might still be a chance he was alive, so as soon as my car stopped I got out to check.” She took a deep breath. “I was driving to your place, and there was this rusty old red truck ahead of me, and the tailgate kept rattling every time it went over a bump, and then suddenly the tailgate fell open and his body fell out. It happened right in front of me. There wasn’t a chance for me to stop, and I must’ve been going at least sixty miles an hour. The truck sped off as soon as it happened. It was horrible. The paramedic said he’d already been dead for a while but before they got there, I thought I might’ve killed him.”
Mr. Brant was dead. It felt unreal to Flora. She hadn’t known the elderly man well, but she had seen him almost every single time she went to the hardware store. He had been half deaf, and she’d had to shout her greetings at him, and he was little grumpy sometimes, but he had been a fixture here in Warbler. He had a daughter who lived in town, for goodness sakes.
