“What’s happening?” she asked Cash. He opened his mouth, but she pushed past him, needing to see the kitchen for herself.
“Maggie!” he called after her. “Don’t.”
She tore past James and Timmy, who were standing outside the kitchen with grim faces.
Gasp! “My kitchen,” she moaned. Besides the hole in the wall she knew about, the kitchen sink was sitting in front of the stove, the countertop leaned against the cabinets with her good dish towels between the two to protect the wood, and there was a gaping hole where she used to wash platters. The old fridge had been pulled away from the wall, the contents emptied and the drawers pulled out. It was unplugged, and the happy humming noise that had once filled the quiet was silenced. She wrapped her arms around it and held on. “The monster.”
Cash came in, took one look at her, and deflated. “I know it looks bad, but we can have it back together in no time.”
“Did he find anything?” she asked, stepping back from the fridge and patting it lovingly.
“Not in here.”
Maggie whipped her head around and waited for the bad news to hit her in the face.
“Come on. I might as well show you the worst of it.”
“What could be worse than this?”
Cash motioned for her to follow. Maggie caught up to him and held his hand. He had the skills to fix all this, but that didn’t mean he felt good about having to tear apart his work.
They went to the bathroom that she and Cash shared at the end of the hall. “Remember the banging pipe?” he asked.
She nodded. The dumb thing would hammer on the wall every time she wanted hot water.
He pushed open the door and waited for her to step inside.
“It looks like a crime scene.” She lightly stepped over the toilet, which had been removed and laid on its side. The sink was in the bathtub, her towel under it. The cabinet here was pulled back and the wall demolished. The boards inside glistened, probably because of her shower this morning. “Is it safe?” She pulled her tee shirt up over her nose.
“It’s fine. There’s a little mold, probably only started growing when we moved in. I don’t think anyone used this shower before us. It’s not toxic. He checked with his machine thing.”
“And that makes this place uninhabitable?” she pressed, needing to know what was going on.
“It shouldn’t.” Cash’s jaw ticked. His phone rang, and he answered without looking at the number. “Cash here.”
“I just heard the news,” came the voice over the speaker.
Maggie was close enough to hear the conversation happening, and she tuned in.
“Who is this?” Cash asked.
“Mr. Mark Murdock, from the Moose Creek city offices. I must say, shut down because of mold is a bad stroke of luck.”
Cash’s eyes flashed with anger. If Mr. Murdock could see him, he’d run for his life.
He continued. “Fourteen days for remediation. Tsk tsk. That would put you behind schedule. You know, I could take the property off your hands now and save you the trouble.”
Maggie bit her tongue to keep the swear words from escaping. “I’d like to show him trouble,” she said low, moving closer to Cash.
He winked. “Would you say you knew my granddaddy well, Mr. Murdock?”
“Probably better than you, son.”
“Would you say he was a stubborn man?”
There was a light chuckle. “That’s putting it nicely.”
“Let me put this as nicely as I can.”
