Charlotte released a huff of her own.
“I don’t know, Abb, I don’t—”
She was about to drop to her knees and peek under the bed when something on her pillow moved.
She jerked back, staring at the spot through wide eyes.
The pillow looked clean and empty, devoid of creepy crawlies.
Did I imagine that?
She bent forward to better inspect the spot.
Nothing.
She touched the area.
It felt damp.
Water?
Her gaze rose to the ceiling above her bed.
A stain had formed on the formerly white ceiling. An amorphous brown swirl.
A leak.
Charlotte closed her eyes and tilted her face to the ceiling.
Ugh.
Great it wasn’t a snake, but how much was a leak going to cost to fix?
And worse, should I do something about it now?
Yes. That would be the responsible thing to do. Even though it was the middle of the night and it meant going through the dinky attic access and into the creepy attic. The last thing she wanted to do was climb into the attic crawlspace in the middle of the night. Attics were unknowns. There could be anything from a family of bats to the legendary Florida Man living up there, but she didn’t know how long the rain would last or how wet her bedroom might become. Again, Florida. It could be a two-minute shower or it could be the sort of thing that made Noah nervous. Checking the weather wouldn’t help—they were only right half the time. Weathermen cheerily lied to her face every day.
If she waited until morning and the rain did stop, things might dry and she wouldn’t be able to find the cause. If she blew it off and moved to the other side of the bed and it kept raining, she might wake up in a swamp.
Crap.
Thanks, Nanny, for leaving me your house, but home ownership is for the birds.
Charlotte padded into the kitchen and found a small but powerful LED flashlight in the utility drawer. Abby danced alongside her, now fully awake and excited to be on a rare nighttime adventure.
“You can’t go into the attic.”
Abby’s trotting didn’t slow, her toes tapping their own message on the tile floor. Sure I can. Why wouldn’t I? Of course I’ll come with you. You don’t even have to ask. I’m here.
In the hall, Charlotte pulled down the collapsible attic stairs and headed up. Abby watched her go, thwarted by the angle of the ladder, despite her previous enthusiasm.
Charlotte poked her head up through the square hole in her ceiling, half-expecting a rabid raccoon to jump on her face.
Nothing happened.
So far, so good.
On her left, boxes sat piled across sheets of plywood. She’d dragged those wooden planks home from the hardware supply store, each cut to the exact width of the square hole attic access. She’d needed to create a stable floor if the attic was going to be of any use to her.
On the plywood she’d stacked boxes of holiday decorations, her suitcases and a small collection of oddball things from her family she didn’t want to display but couldn’t bring herself to throw away. One really ugly lamp. An awful photo in a half-decent frame. A silver chafing dish.
What is chafing, anyway?
To her right, one strip of wood, barely wider than her foot, led off into the distance like the road less traveled. The attic’s spine pointed the way to the small window at the far end. That was the direction she had to go.
Steadying herself against the low ceiling, careful to avoid the roofing nails poking through, she walked like a Flying Wallenda down the wooden tightrope, searching for the spot that intersected with the beams above her bedroom. From there, she had to inch along an even smaller piece of wood, the two of the two-by-four, toward the area above her pillow.
She squatted and felt around, finding the pink insulation wet in that area.
Bingo.
Shining the light above her, she spotted a length of old plastic-wrapped wire with water dripping from its tip. She traced the path of the water as it led farther up the pitch of the roof. It had rolled along a beam and then diverted down the wire, sending it directly to the spot above her head.
Naturally.
She tried to look at the sunny side of her situation. If the water had found a path behind the drywall instead of dripping on her head, it could have gathered there for years until the pocket became a riot of termites and black mold—
Hold on.
The beam of her flashlight struck a strangely square edge nestled in a nest of fluffy pink fiberglass insulation.
Hm.
Dropping to her hands and knees, she inched forward until she could reach the object, plucking at it until she’d jerked it close enough to grab. It revealed itself to be a simple white shoebox. She could tell by the weight something was inside, and by the sound it made when she shook it, it wasn’t shoes.
Giving the area a once over with her light and confident the box was the only oddity in the area, she crept back to the relative acreage of the spine.
Eager to see what was in her treasure box, she opened it there.
Papers.
Nothing that looked valuable.
Shoot.
So much for finding D.B. Cooper’s money.
She put the dusty lid back on the box and carried it back to the exit. A red plastic Christmas-themed planter caught her eye. If there were ghosts in the attic, that pot was the reason. She’d killed scores of poinsettias in that pot.
Hm.
There’s an idea.
Putting the shoebox aside, she carted the planter back to the source of the leak, setting it beneath the drip to catch the water.
Problem temporarily solved.
Hurrying back to the exit, she lowered herself through the
