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“Mr. Templeton,” Jimmy Perez begins a few minutes later, holding out his hand.
“It’s Troy, Jimmy,” I remind him as we shake. “How are you?”
“I’m okay.” Somehow, that sounds less than convincing as he pulls on the blue shoe covers over his boots. His eyes widen a touch as he straightens.
“Jimmy,” I say, half turning, “this is my . . . my Clara.” Wife is gonna take a little more practice.
“Hihowareya.” The words string together before his attention swings back. “I’m sorry to turn up like this, but I just got off the phone with one of the boys.” His tone isn’t what I’d call reassuring, especially as I realize the noise hasn’t started back up.
“The look on your face tells me this news is coming at a price.”
“You’re not wrong, I’m sorry to say.”
“Hit me with it.”
“You have a leak. A bad one. Caused by a fault in the roof membrane—it’s probably been like that for months.”
“Sounds bad.”
“Real bad. Your whole ceiling deck on that side of the property is saturated.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Like I said, this isn’t a new problem, just newly discovered,” he says in the contractor version of It’s not my fault. “Water’s been soaking into the insulation, dripping down into wall cavities. You’re looking at a major rot issue. You’re lucky you don’t have black mold.”
“Lucky.” The word jumps from my mouth like I’m amused. I’m anything but as I press my hand to my chin as I process what this means. But you can fix pretty much anything if you throw enough money at it.
“Two of the terraces need to come up.”
“And the shower?”
“And the shower,” he agrees, fighting a smile.
“Haters gotta hate,” I grumble. “I love that outdoor shower.”
“The good news is we found the leak before it compromised the whole ceiling structure. It doesn’t seem to have spread to this side of the place, but the door will need to be sealed properly. It’s gonna get messy.”
My eyes glide to the plastic covering.
“You can’t go through there,” he says immediately. “It’s off limits. Too dangerous.”
Clara murmurs, drawing closer to my side. “We can’t use the rooms at all?”
“Believe me, you won’t want to. Not when we start ripping everything out.”
“What does that mean?” Her eyes seem to plead as she looks up at me.
“Walls, the ceilings. Joists,” Jimmy says, but that’s not what she’s asking.
Fuck, this place just got a whole lot smaller for me and my new roommate. One bed. One couch. One bathroom.
“Should we get a hotel?” she says quietly.
“No.” My answer is sharp and a little ugly. But I’m going nowhere.
“I just got a text from Chelsea. The deal went through.”
What she means is there’s no altering the timeline now. Shit, I need to get back to the office and tell them before the news breaks. “We’re not moving out.”
