Page 7

I close the door behind me and put my phone in my pocket. The envelope of cash I picked up on the way here is tucked into the front pocket of my hoodie.

The last time I was in here, she told me not to touch her after I caught her slipping on the floor. I keep to the other side of the island. She made herself clear, and she has enough to deal with without me crowding her.

The contractor turns. He’s about six feet tall, wearing a clean button-down with the sleeves rolled up. He looks at least ten years older than me, in good shape, with gray starting at his temples.

"Dan," he says, holding out his hand. "I’m handling the repairs."

"Wolf," I say, shaking his hand.

"I know. I watch the team." He smiles. Good... at least one person in here is pleased to see me. He gestures toward the island. "We were going over what needs to come out."

The broken drywall is gone. So are the cupcakes. A wet outline stretches across the exposed ceiling above the counter, and the cabinets underneath it are standing open. Two large fans are running near the wall.

I look from the wet ceiling to the cabinets. The upstairs tub was still running when we got back down here. Nobody at that party had thought to check where all the water was going.

Her mixer sits on a towel by the sink. She’s wiped the white debris off it, but there’s a dent in the base where it landed. I helped move it out from under the light last night after Ronny shut off the kitchen circuit. She hasn’t put it away, although looking at the rest of the counter, I’m not sure where she would.

"How bad is it?" I ask.

"Ceiling, obviously. We have moisture behind the upper cabinets and underneath the flooring." Dan points to the cupboard closest to the sink. "That one’s already swelling. I won’t know the full extent until we open it up, but I’d plan on replacing the affected cabinets."

Baylor sets her mug on the counter. "And the floor?"

"We’ll lift what we need to so we can dry underneath it. I’m not putting new material over anything wet."

She nods, keeping one hand on her mug.

"How long?" I ask.

"Six weeks is a reasonable estimate."

She shoots a look up at Dan. "Six weeks? I run my cakery out of here. I can’t wait six weeks for it to be functional again."

"We have to dry it out, repair the damage, and get the replacements in. Some of that can happen at the same time. Some can’t." He looks back at Ronny. "I’d rather give you a date I can meet than tell you two weeks and keep moving it."

"Six weeks," she repeats to herself while staring down at her black-and-white checked Vans.

"I’ll know more once we’ve opened everything up. I have another team for the upstairs bathroom, so that won’t hold this up. The two rooms will have different schedules depending on the damage and what we need to order."

Ronny flips a page on his clipboard. "The bedroom and your bathroom are dry. Dan has checked the living room too. Once the kitchen is isolated with contractor plastic and we’ve confirmed the rest is safe, you can stay here during the work."

"I can live here," she says. "I just can’t use the kitchen."

"That’s right."

She looks at the island. A cardboard box beside it holds her piping bags, spatulas, and a stack of little plastic cupcake toppers. Last night, she made a pile of the things we could dry and a pile of the things we couldn’t. The second pile was bigger.

"We don’t have a vacant unit here," Ronny continues. "I checked first thing this morning. There is an apartment available at another property we manage. You could use that while this work is done."

"Where?"

He gives her the location. She takes her phone out, types it in, and waits.

"Forty-five minutes?"

"Depending on traffic," Ronny says.

"That’s without traffic." She turns the screen toward him. "My truck is here. My route is here. Serendipity’s is here. I can’t add an hour and a half to every day."