Chapter 1

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"Lia are you sure you should?" Faye's voice coming through the phone echoed Lia Haven's thoughts.

"No, but I can't take looking at the hole anymore!" Lia insisted as she walked with purpose across the alley that separated her driveway from her neighbors.

Lia looked up at the mansion as she approached it. It was massive and took up an entire block. The little carriage house that she rented sat across the alley from the massive home, which meant that she had a front row seat in watching the house fall further and further into disrepair. There had been a few crazy storms over the past two months since she had moved into the carriage house and one of them had ripped off a section of the porch roof shingles. She had attempted to leave notes for the owner, Benjamin Emerson, but so far nothing had been done.

Every day she returned from her nursing job at the hospital she looked towards the house with the hope that it had been done, but so far it hadn't, and the hole had gotten worse after the previous evening's storm.

"Be careful, maybe you should keep me on the line just in case," Faye, a fellow nurse, and a good friend suggested. "After all you've heard the stories about the man."

The story that surrounded that man was an outrageous one. Everyone said that he had killed his wife and unborn child by pushing her down the stairs so that he could claim all her inheritance money before her family could. They also said that the only reason he had gotten away with it was because his father had gone to school with the judge.

"You know Savannah's rumor mill, I doubt any of them are true," Lia insisted as she climbed the steps on the side of the house, dismissing the story as too outlandish to contemplate. She could feel the boards of the porch creek under her feet as she moved around to the front door.

"Where there is smoke there is fire. It may not all be true, but there had to be something for the story to be based off and you know it."

"Fine, stay on the line," Lia said as she lowered the phone and pushed on the doorbell. She didn't hear anything, so she pushed it again, and when that didn't work, she started to bang on the door with the massive knocker.

"What!" a deep rough voice said from the speaker on the wall next to the door. Lia was surprised that it worked.

"I want to talk to you about the hole in your roof," she yelled back as she pushed the button on the speaker, feeling awkward yelling at a wall.

"You the one that left the note?" the voice demanded.

"Yes, now please, can we have a discussion-"

"No," he cut her off, "I received your note and will take your comments into consideration."

Lia looked at the speaker opened mouth. Take it into consideration; his house was falling around him. She must have made a noise because Faye hushed her gently.

"Maybe he can't afford to fix it. Take my word for it; old houses are crazy expensive," Faye reminded her gently.

"Then he shouldn't live here; he should sell it!" Lia said, the answer simple to her.

"Maybe he can't," Faye said softly, and Lia immediately felt bad as she was reminded of Faye's situation. Faye lived in an old house that had been left to her and her siblings by their parents. She had no money to move them out, and they couldn't sell until all three siblings had come of age, but she had done her best to keep the house maintained while trying to raise her brother and sister, and it hadn't always been easy.

Takin a deep breath Lia pushed the doorbell once more.

"What!" The man's voice ground out through the speaker.

"If it's a matter of money I can-"

Lia was cut off by his bark of laughter, and she felt her face turn red in anger and embarrassment. Jabbing the speaker's button, she took a deep breath. "Fix the damn hole, or I'll call the City Marshall."

"Go ahead; I went to high school with him."

Stomping her foot and grumbling under her breath, she walked down the steps and back towards her apartment. She would get the supplies and fix the damn roof herself tomorrow!

"What's going on?" Faye asked.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing, the man refuses to fix it." Lia pushed open her door and walked into the blissful coolness of her little two-bedroom apartment.

"You don't know that. I heard him say he would consider it," Faye reminded her.

"It's been two months. He's not going to fix it." Lia reached into her fridge and pulled out a bottle of water.

"Lia, you're not going to do something stupid, are you?"

"What would be stupid?" she asked with a mischievous smile.

"Trying to fix it yourself!"

Lia frowned at her words. "It would not be stupid!"

"You're going to try to fix it yourself?" Faye squeaked.

"No, I don't have that kind of skill level, but I can tarp it and maybe slip a few nails in his driveway." She smiled again as she had a sudden image of a balding, skinny, Benjamin Emerson, wearing glasses and an outdated suit driving away on four flat tires. Although, if she was honest, his voice didn't fit the image her mind had created for him.

"Lia!" her friend admonished. "What a horrible thought."

"Why, I'm just giving him something else to consider." Lia shrugged. "I'm beat, and I have to be back at the hospital tomorrow afternoon because I'm doing a half shift for Chloe, and I still have to take the dog for a walk."

She hated afternoon and night shifts. She preferred to start work early in the morning, even if it meant she didn't get off until the evening. She was always at her best in the morning.

"Alright, I'll talk to you tomorrow then."

They said their goodbyes and hung up. Lia changed from her scrubs into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt while she hollered for Huck, a dog of undisclosed origin who had more hair than was needed for any animal, even one in the north pole.

Huck slowly rolled off the couch with a thump looking at her with the saddest eyes that told her he had been so lonely and was starving to death. She believed he was part Collie and maybe a little Saint Bernard with some Basset Hound thrown in for good measure.

"Come on lazy, let's get it over with." She shook the leash, and he moaned.

"Who do you think has been on her feet all day earning money for your kibble! Don't tell me you're tired you mangy mutt!"

He rose with a long stretch then padded over to her and waited for the leash to be attached before sedately following her until they cleared the driveway. As soon as they hit the sidewalk, he took off at a trot pulling her this way and that as he sniffed anything and peed on everything, but after twenty minutes Huck let her lead the way back to the house.

Lia looked up at the large house in the gathering dusk as they passed it, and she noted there was only one light one in one of the upstairs windows, and she felt herself grow angry all over again as she thought of the man on the other side of the speaker. He was outrageously rude, maybe she would drop a few nails in his driveway, not that she ever saw him leave the house.

Tomorrow she would climb up on that house and tarp the roof. He never left the house so he wouldn't see her, and he probably wouldn't care anyway.

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