Buyin' Trouble, page 1
BUYIN’ TROUBLE
REAL ESTATE RESCUE COZY MYSTERIES, BOOK 13
PATTI BENNING
SUMMER PRESCOTT BOOKS PUBLISHING
Copyright 2024 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 stared at the keys on the table in front of her, hardly able to believe the long, frustrating process of buying a house was over.
This was it. She was officially a homeowner. Again.
“Congratulations, Ms. Abner,” the closing agent said. “Enjoy your new home. Do you have any further questions?”
It was a busy day at the title company, judging from the people who had been waiting in the foyer when she and the man she had bought the house from, Mason Mitchell, arrived. She had the feeling the closing agent was trying to politely encourage her to leave, so she decided to put off her little mental celebration until later. She snatched up the keys and the folder of paperwork she would have to take home and store somewhere safe, and rose to her feet. Across the table, Mr. Mitchell did the same, and followed her out of the room.
The past few weeks had been a whirlwind of activity, between her aunt purchasing and gifting the first house Flora had planned on flipping back to her, and a myriad of meetings with banks and real estate agents as she transferred the money she owed her aunt for the loan she had received two years ago, and started the process of buying her second house to flip.
But now, finally, all of that was done, and she could focus on the brand-new project in front of her.
And what a project it was.
The cozy farmhouse that was now her forever home had been a breeze to fix up in comparison to the little yellow house she had just purchased. She was glad she had started easy, but she hoped she hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew this time around.
“Ms. Abner?”
She turned around on the sidewalk just outside of the title company. Mr. Mitchell was standing behind her. He was an older man, in his sixties or early seventies with a shiny bald patch on top of his head and kind blue eyes, and he had sold her the house for a rock bottom price, so she was more than happy to chat with him for a few minutes if that was what he wanted.
“You can go ahead and call me Flora,” she said. “Thank you again for everything.”
“I’m just glad the house is going to end up in good hands.” He sighed, his gaze going distant. “I never should have let things get as bad as they did. If there’s one piece of advice I could give to the younger generations, it would be to treasure your memory while you have it. I can’t tell you how many times I thought I scheduled a repair only to realize too late that I’d let it go too long. You’ll take care of the place, won’t you?”
“I’ll get it looking better than ever before you know it,” she promised.
“That’s what I want to hear.” He nodded at her, then glanced behind her. “I think that’s Jonah, my son, so I’d better go. Don’t want to keep him waiting. You have a nice day now, Flora.”
She heard the sound of a car pulling up along the curb before he finished speaking, and turned around to see a dusty tan sedan with its windows rolled down. A man about her own age with long, dark blond hair pulled back into a pony tail was leaning across the front seat, looking at her through the passenger window.
“Are you the lady that bought the house?” he called out. She nodded, and he gave her a big thumbs up. “Good luck with it! I grew up there, before my dad let it get all run down. Maybe when you finish repairing it, I could pop by for a tour?”
“Sure,” she said. “It might be a while, but I’ll try to remember to look you up.”
He grinned, then shoved the passenger door open for his father and stopped leaning so far over. Flora watched as the two of them pulled away. She hoped she could do the house justice for them. It was going to be a lot of work, but in a year or two, it would make a lovely home for someone. The town of Warbler, Kentucky would have one less run-down wreck of a house. She might not be changing the world, but breathing new life into houses felt like a worthy goal.
The new house was inside the town limits of Warbler, unlike the farmhouse. Nestled on a residential street near the outskirts of town, it was smack dab in the middle of the block, with houses on all sides. It had yellow siding, which would be cheery once she cleaned it up a little, and a fenced in back yard. Both the front and the back yards were horribly overgrown, and there were even plants growing in the gutters.
The short blacktop driveway was cracked and filled with weeds, and the door to the detached garage hung crookedly, stuck shut. Two of the windows on the first floor were broken and boarded over.
The house was an eyesore. It looked like it had been abandoned for years, which wasn’t far from the truth. It had also been cheaper than a new car to buy, and Flora could already envision how it would look when she was done with it.
Still, as she sat there in the driveway, looking up at the house she now owned, she felt a tingle of doubt. Had she gotten in over her head?
No. She might be part-owner of the local hardware store, but that was just a side job. Flipping houses was her career, or what she wanted her career to be, at least. She might have to spend every waking hour working her fingers to the bone to get this house how she envisioned it, but by golly, she was going to do it.
A light knock on her truck’s window made her jolt. She had been so lost in her contemplation of the house that she hadn’t even noticed the man approaching. He had shaggy grey hair and a stained t-shirt, but his smile was friendly, and Flora rolled the window down.
“How can I help you?” she asked politely.
“Are you the new owner?” he asked, nodding at the house.
“I am. How did you know?”
He pointed at the sign in the yard, which had changed from For Sale to Pending, and would probably change to Sold by this time tomorrow, or whenever the agent got a chance to stop by. “Don’t know why anyone else would be gazing at this garbage heap. My name’s Wyatt Cooper, I’m your neighbor.”
He waved at a house with wooden shake siding across the street with an odd assortment of garden gnomes in the yard, then held out a hand, which she shook.
“I’m Flora,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You’re a brave lady, buying this place,” he said. “You’ve seen the inside, right? It’s a wreck.”
“I know, but I’m prepared for it.”
“If you say so. Me and my wife, Willow, we’re both retired, so if you need anything, you can come on over and ask us. Are you planning on moving in right away?”
“I’m actually not planning on moving in at all,” she explained. She wished she had been able to get out of the truck before talking to him, because it was awkward to sit here and look up at him while they chatted, but he was standing too close to the door for her to open it without asking him to move. “I’m going to flip the house. I’ll fix it up and then sell it to someone who wants to live in it.”
“Sounds like a lot of hard work,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on the place for you, though. I’ve been doing it for Mason long enough, I’m used to it. I’ve chased away more than a few troublemakers. Folk see an empty house and think no one cares if they mess around inside it.”
“Thanks,” Flora said. Once again, she wondered if she was in over her head. She was prepared for the repairs, but she hadn’t even thought about having to deal with people breaking into the house. “Can I give you my number, so you can call me if there’s any trouble?”
He took his cell phone out of his pocket and they exchanged numbers. He left her with a final, cheery “Good luck!” and finally, she opened her truck’s door and slipped out. It was time to get to know her new house.
CHAPTER TWO
The house had a few positive aspects. The roof, for one. It was only a few years old, and according to the house inspector, would be good for decades to come.
The locks were another. They had been changed recently – Wyatt’s mention of break-ins might explain that, now that she thought about it – and the door opened without a complaint. She stepped through, onto bare sub-flooring.
The bones of the house were the third good thing about it. The structure was strong, the foundation was whole and uncracked, and the floors were solid.
But that was where the good traits ended. The h ouse’s interior had been gutted. The floors were bare plywood, and the walls and ceilings had been stripped of their drywall, leaving behind bare insulation and wiring. The house didn’t even have a furnace, or a water heater. The only thing that worked in it was the electricity.
She looked around the room she had stepped into. It had probably once been a living room; even if it hadn’t been, it was going to become a living room by the time she was done with it. It was a spacious room, taking up the entire width of the front of the house, with four windows – two of which looked out over the front yard, and the other two looked into the side yard on either side of the house. The two leftmost windows were boarded over.
Flora shut the door behind her and walked down the hall. A door on the right led to a bathroom. The plumbing was there, but no fixtures. It was a full bath, with room for a bathtub against the wall, with a window on it.
Opposite the bathroom was a linen closet, and further down the hall were two more doorways. One led to what must have been a laundry room, and the other led to the kitchen.
The kitchen was the only room in the house that hadn’t been completely stripped of everything, but the half-torn down cupboards and broken pieces of the counter were worse than an empty room would have been. There was a sliding glass door that led from a dining nook to a small, rickety looking back porch. In the corner opposite the sliding door were the stairs.
Flora had already looked through the house, of course, but it felt different knowing that it was hers now, so she took her time with it, inspecting the kitchen and looking into the overgrown back yard before making her way up the bare stairs. There was no railing, so she kept one hand ready to grab at the wall studs if she slipped.
Upstairs were two bedrooms and a half bath. The larger of the two bedrooms was at the back of the house, with a nice view of the yard and the big oak tree that gave the house shade, and a window that looked out over the side yard, with an old trellis beneath it. The other bedroom was only slightly smaller and looked out onto the front yard and the street. The small upstairs bathroom had a window as well, this one looking into the side yard. One of the things she liked about the house was how many windows it had. Paired with the yellow siding, she thought the house would be bright and cheerful when she was done with it... though that was a long way off.
The house had a lot of closets, too. She wandered back into the largest bedroom and opened the door that led to a walk-in closet. The switch on the wall showed her a space a little larger than the bathroom at the farmhouse. Each room had at least one closet, from the coat closet in the living room to the cupboard in what would become the laundry room. She had a suspicion the closets would be a big draw – after all, who didn’t like having plenty of closet space?
Her eyes caught on something in the back of the big closet. On the ceiling were two two-by-fours nailed over what looked like a trap door. An attic? The inspector hadn’t been able to locate the attic, and said it was possible it had been sealed off after the roof was replaced. She hadn’t given it much thought, but she had to admit she was a little curious.
She examined the boards, then went back downstairs to her truck to grab a hammer to pull the nails out. She grabbed a step ladder too, and carried the tools back up the stairs, feeling a thrill at the thought that she was officially starting work on the house. Sure, she was doing this mostly out of curiosity, but it had to be done. She couldn’t flip the house without checking the attic; if there was some sort of issue with the roof or the insulation, she had to know.
She set up the step ladder and climbed up it, the hammer in one hand. The angle was awkward, but she managed to pry the nails out of the boards after some effort. She let the boards drop to the floor, but tucked the nails into her pocket and then set the hammer down on the top step of the ladder and pushed the trap door up.
The square section of wood moved, but not enough. After examining it for a moment, she realized it probably opened out. There was a small hole on one side, as if some sort of handle had once been nailed or screwed there, but it was long since gone.
She had a hammer, though, and if there was one thing she had learned these past few years, it was her way around a hammer. She wedged the clawed end in the gap between the trap door and the rest of the ceiling boards and slowly pulled it down.
She was right; it was an attic door. The hinges squealed as she slowly opened it with the hammer, but it went easier as soon as she had enough room to wedge her fingers into the gap and could really put her weight behind it. Bits of insulation fell down onto her face and hair, and she screwed her eyes shut but kept at it.
There was an awkward moment where she had to move the step ladder aside without letting go of the trap door, since it kept threatening to spring back up, but finally she got it all the way down and could see a folded wooden ladder attached to it. She unfolded it, and the weight of the ladder overpowered the springs so the door finally stopped trying to shut on its own.
Then she had easy access to the attic, just waiting for her to ascend. She gazed up into the dark square over her head, feeling suddenly unsure.
It was just an attic. There was no way it was anywhere close to being as creepy as the basement at home, and she barely even felt uncomfortable doing the laundry down there anymore, flickering lights and all.
And the attic had been boarded up, anyway. It wasn’t like anyone could actually be up there. It would just be here, a bunch of insulation, some spiders, and if she was really unlucky, a few mice.
“No way am I calling Grady because I’m too afraid to go into a dark attic alone,” she muttered to herself.
Slipping her phone out of her back pocket, she turned the flashlight on and started climbing the wooden ladder. The contraption sagged and squealed alarmingly, but it held, and soon her head crested the entrance. She raised her hand and shone the light around.
It was almost disappointing to see what looked like a normal attic space. It spanned the length and width of the house, the peaked ceiling just tall enough for her to stand in the center, with pink rolls of insulation between each wooden support. Her phone’s light revealed a couple old moving boxes against one wall, but the rest of the space was empty... other than for the dust, and what she seriously hoped were old raisins and not rat poop.
It wasn’t creepy at all. In fact, it was pretty nice, as far as attics went. As she climbed the rest of the way up, she wondered why it had been boarded over. For all she knew, this had been Mason’s son’s room, and he had been afraid of the attic as a kid. Maybe they had boarded it over for him, or because the door was drafty, or any number of reasons.
Finally on her feet in the center of the attic, she looked around for a light bulb, but didn’t see one. Maybe she would install a simple light fixture up here; it was more storage space, and the house didn’t have a basement, so a place to store boxes and bed frames would probably be welcome.
Since she was up there already, she decided to check out the boxes and see what was in them. Brushing aside a few cobwebs, she made her way to the far side of the attic and crouched near one of the smaller boxes. It was heavy when she pulled it toward her, and she was unsurprised to find it full of old books when she opened the top. Old comic books. Maybe they were worth something; it sure would be nice if she found an old collectible worth millions up here, though she doubted she would be that lucky.
Pushing the box aside to look through later, she rose up on her knees and tugged at the flaps of the larger box. Something had chewed a hole through one of them, and she had a feeling whatever was in the box was destroyed by whatever rodents had made it home. This box was a three foot by three-foot cube, and the top was taped shut, instead of just folded in on itself. Grumbling, she tore the old cardboard and finally opened the top.
She was disappointed to see nothing but a grimy black garbage bag when she shone her light inside. It was covering something lumpy that she suspected were old linens, but she still wanted to see.
Holding the phone in her left hand to give her light, she pulled the garbage bag away. It wasn’t wrapped around whatever was in the box; it was just sitting on top. The interior of the box was lined with some sort of plastic sheeting, she saw now, and it crinkled as she moved the garbage bag to the side.
