Page 12 of Haystacks and Hoaxes

The alarm on her cell phone went off, alerting her it was time to leave. She ducked into the bathroom to fluff her hair one last time, make sure her scarf was still tied, and to squint critically at her makeup.

Good enough for me.

She scooped her purse off the bed, along with the floppy-eared stuffed rabbit she’d bought at a department store on the way home. Though she didn’t know what her two-year-old niece liked, she wasn’t about to show up without bringing her a present. She’d only met the kid a few times during holiday gatherings at her parents’ house. At least half of those times, Gwen had been asleep. This was Mila’s first real chance to establish herself as the little girl’s aunt.

She resumed her happy dance across the living room, giving the stuffed rabbit a twirl. Mid twirl, she nearly tripped over a stack of sketch books she’d been sorting on the floor earlier. Since it would be dark when she got back, she bent over to gather them up and stack them neatly on her coffee table. Then she straightened the snowman throw pillows on her overstuffed sofa and danced the rest of the way to the door.

Right before she opened it, her doorbell rang. She was so surprised that she yelped and jumped back a step. Then she moved forward to peek through the peep hole. There was no one standing outside her door.

Hmm.She opened the door a crack and caught sight of a box sitting on the black oval doormat. It was wrapped in brown packing paper. It wasn’t just sitting there, though. It was sagging there — literally pressing the rubber doormatinto a bowl shape, as if it was about to fall through to the sidewalk below.

That’s odd.She frowned as she bent to pick it up. Tucking it underneath an arm, she used the toe of her boot to push the doormat aside and made a disturbing discovery. A chunk of the wooden flooring beneath the mat was missing. A jagged hole, approximately a foot in diameter, gaped open.

Her horrified gasp created a smoky puff of whiteness in the cold December air. The hole didn’t look like something that normal wear and tear had caused. She also couldn’t see any damaged wood littering the concrete walkway on the level below her. The only other reasonable explanation was that the hole was a malicious act of vandalism.

She shook her head, utterly perplexed. She wasn’t sure how she’d made it into her apartment less than an hour earlier without falling through the hole. The fact that she wasn’t on her way to the hospital with a broken ankle felt like yet another miracle in her day full of miracles.

She shakily pulled out her cell phone, took a picture of the hole, and uploaded it to her apartment app as an emergency maintenance request. Knowing she couldn’t leave a tripping hazard of this proportion for someone else to stumble on, she reluctantly pulled up her brother’s contact information. As much as she hated to cancel their dinner plans, handling the current crisis was the only right thing to do.

Before she could dial Decker, though, her phone rang. The caller ID flashed across her screen. It was the maintenance department.

She hastily accepted the call. “That was quick! Am I ever glad to hear from you!”

“Are you alright, ma’am?” The workman on the other end of the line sounded harried.

“I am. Thank you. Just standing beside the hole, wildly grateful I didn’t step in it.” She still wasn’t sure how she’d missed it.

“Don’t move,” he instructed tersely. “I’m on my way.”

He arrived in less than five minutes, with an unpainted two-by-four in one hand and a circular saw in the other. He had a jam-packed tool belt buckled around his beanpole waist. After assessing the damage to the flooring, the wiry maintenance guy nervously adjusted the brim of his ball cap. “It’s your lucky day. You caught me right before I clocked out and headed on vacation.”

“Oh, wow! Thanks!” Though she felt bad about delaying his vacation, the hole in the floor wasn’t something that could wait.

He crawled around on his hands and knees, examining the hole. “If you’ve got some place else to be, I can take it from here.”

She’d been expecting a bigger reaction from him at the sight of the gaping hole. His deadpan voice felt anticlimactic somehow. “Shouldn’t we, um, call the police about this, Mr. ah…?” Come to think of it, he hadn’t introduced himself.

“Pat. Just Pat.” He fiddled some more with the brim of his cap, not looking up to fully meet her gaze. “I reckon we could, but they might say it’s the result of faulty construction. Since I’m the one who built this walkway, I could lose my job over it.”

Aha.No wonder his reaction hadn’t been what she expected. He was clearly overcome with guilt. She hastened to reassure him. “It doesn’t look like faulty construction to me, sir. It?—”

He cut her off with an agitated wave of his gloved hand. “With all due respect, ma’am, you’re not the one locked in a custody battle for your two kids.”

Okay. You’re right. I’m not.Her lips parted in dismay. She wasn’t accustomed to crossing paths with someone whose life was in more shambles than hers. Since she’d been fortunate to land a nice-paying job today, it only seemed fair not to add to someone else’s misery.Who knows? Maybe I’m being paranoid about the whole vandalism thing.Maybe she should dial it down and let him do his job.

He was right about one thing. She did have somewhere else to be. If she took off now, she might arrive fashionably late instead of not at all.

Pat didn’t wait for her to give him a thumbs up. He was already scraping and sawing away the damaged wood, cleaning the formerly jagged edges all the way back to the floor joists. At the rate he was going, he would have the hole patched in record time.

“I guess I’ll just get going.” She backed away reluctantly, still not a hundred percent at peace about not calling the police.

He nodded without looking up.

“I really appreciate you getting here so quickly.” Because of his promptness, she wasn’t going to miss dinner at the Taj Mahal after all.

Though he kept his head bent over his saw, he paused the motor long enough to inform her in an anxious voice, “You’ll get sent a survey when I’m done. I’d appreciate five stars if you’re happy with my work.”

She gave him a playful salute with her free hand, not that he saw it. “Consider it done. I really appreciate you doing this.” Spinning around, she headed for the stairs. She was extra careful on her way down, looking for everythingfrom cracked boards to loose screws. Thankfully, she made it to the brand spanking new Lexus SUV without any further incidents.

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