Right of Redemption Read online

  I nodded. I should, too, so I could call Charlotte. “It was nice to see you.”

  “Likewise,” Todd said. “Take care.”

  He turned and walked away. I did the same, and when I got to my car, parked under the Martin and Vaughan mural, and turned back, he was on his way through the door into the office. He didn’t turn to look around, which I told myself was a good thing. He wasn’t still hung up on me, and he hadn’t gotten engaged to Marley for the wrong reasons.

  * * *

  Charlotte met me at the house on Fulton Street after lunch, dressed in designer jeans and a designer T-shirt, with hundred-dollar sneakers on her feet. I guess she imagined she looked like Christina el Moussa—Christina Anstead now—but to be honest, it was an invitation to disaster, since none of her clothes were likely to survive the day in the same shape they were now.

  I squinted at her. “Are you sure you want to wear that?”

  She squinted back. “What’s wrong with it? You’re wearing the same thing.”

  Yes—and no. My jeans had a maternity panel across the stomach, because I couldn’t button the waistband of my regular clothes quite yet. And while they were a decent quality, they weren’t designer. Rafe doesn’t make enough money to keep me in designer jeans—which is fine by me—and besides, these were maternity clothes. I’d thought I’d only be wearing them for six months or so. It had turned out to be a little longer than that—my stomach was refusing to flatten to its former proportions—but that also meant it wouldn’t be a terribly big deal if I ruined them, since I wouldn’t be needing them much longer. And my T-shirt, unlike Charlotte’s, had no elegant Double-C emblem on the chest.

  “That’s a Chanel T-shirt,” I pointed out, as if she needed to be told. “We’re going to be doing dirty work. It could get ruined.”

  “Richard bought it for me,” Charlotte said. “I don’t care.”

  She might care when it came time to replace it, and all she could afford was Walmart brand T-shirts, but I let it go without further discussion. It wasn’t like I hadn’t warned her, after all.

  “Did you leave the kids with your mother?” I asked instead.

  She has two, a boy and a girl. Both of them several years older than Carrie. Two and four, if memory served, or maybe closer to three and five now.

  She nodded. “Is she going to be all right?”

  She glanced at Carrie, kicking her feet in the car seat over my arm.

  “She’ll have to be.” Since I wasn’t about to dump her on my mother for hour upon hour every day—not that Mother would allow that to happen. She’s happy to baby-sit once in a while, when she doesn’t have something better to do, but she has already raised her own brood and doesn’t want to be responsible for mine. “I’ll give her to Mother whenever we’re doing something that wouldn’t be good for her—” like sanding floors or painting or anything else that might compromise her tiny and sensitive respiratory system, “but she’ll be fine here for the next couple of hours. I have to feed her soon, anyway.”

  Charlotte nodded and looked at the house. “What do you want to do today?”

  “I thought we’d start with something simple,” I said. “There’s wallpaper in the den and the bathroom that we have to scrape off, and a border along the ceiling in one of the bedrooms that has to come down. And if we have time after that, we can try to tear out the carpets. I don’t want to rip out anything else until we have a dumpster to put it in.”

  “Will we have a dumpster?” Charlotte asked.

  “Darcy is arranging for one. I’m not sure when it’ll get here. But we can get started while we wait.”

  I headed for the front door. Charlotte followed obediently.

  * * *

  The dumpster arrived before we were finished for the day. The wallpaper task turned out to be a lot more arduous than I think either of us had expected—I know it took more time and effort that I thought it would—and as a result, we were still scraping at four o’clock, when the sound of a large engine sounded outside.

  I put my scraper down on the edge of the sink and shook out my hand in relief. It was cramping from being wrapped around the edge of the scraper for so long, and I was pretty sure I was getting a blister in the middle of my palm, too. “Sounds like the dumpster might be here.”

  “Go and sign for it,” Charlotte said. She was standing up to her ankles in wallpaper scraps in the tub. “I’ll keep scraping. We’re so close to being done…!”

  We were pretty close to being done. The den floor was covered in shreds, and we had a wall and a half—the half being the part above the tub in the bathroom—to go.

  “I’ll be right back.” I headed out of the bathroom, down the hallway through the kitchen, and across the living room and out, where I greeted the truck driver. “Is that my dumpster?”

  “Your name—” He consulted a clipboard he was holding, “Darcy Corcoran?”

  I shook my head. “Darcy’s my sister. I’m Savannah Martin. Collier. But you’re in the right place.”

  He raked the yard and street with a glance. “Driveway?”

  “For the dumpster? Sure.” I’d made Charlotte park on the street just in case we got lucky and the dumpster arrived today.

  “By the X.” He thrust the clipboard at me. I located the signature line and scribbled my name there.

  “When are you coming back for it?”

  “Check the copy.” He took the clipboard back, tore the carbon off, and handed it to me. I retired to the front step and perused the copy while he got back into the truck and reversed into the driveway. The dumpster slid off the back of the truck and hit the concrete with a bang, and then the driver threw the truck into drive and rolled off down the street with a merry beep-beep of the horn. I opened the door and went back inside.

  “All set. We keep it for thirty days unless we fill it up and need it emptied sooner. If so, we call.”

  Charlotte nodded. She was on her toes in the tub, taking wild swipes at the ceiling.

  “Give me that,” I said, reaching for the scraper. “I’m taller than you. I’ll do it.”

  Charlotte stepped out of the tub, catching her breath. “Tomorrow I’m bringing a step stool.”

  Good idea. I intended to finish scraping the last of the wallpaper before we left today, but there would surely be other uses for a step stool later. And a ladder. If nothing else, we needed it to clean out the gutters.

  * * *

  Over the next hour we finished dealing with the wallpaper and gathered it into a couple of lawn and leaf bags we tossed in the dumpster on our way out. The plastic was an extra step, but there was no top on the dumpster, so if we got a storm anytime in the next month, the shreds could be whipped out of the dumpster and end up all over the neighborhood. That wasn’t likely to endear us to the neighbors, so the bags seemed like a good idea. And I’d made sure to buy the biodegradable kind, so it could be worse.

  The following day we started on the carpets, and then the mats under the carpets, and the furring strips holding the carpets to the floors, and the millions and millions of staples that had to be pried out individually, by hand, because if we left them, they’d tear up the sandpaper once it was time to sand the floors. And then there was the textured finish on the ceilings we had to scrape off, since nobody wants popcorn ceilings anymore.

  By the time that job was over, the week was getting close to an end, and we were both in pain. My shoulders and arms were screaming from hours and hours of holding them aloft, scraping at the ceiling. I had calluses on my knees from prying tacks from the floor, and blisters on my hands from both. My nail polish was chipped, and two of my nails were broken.

  Charlotte was no better. She stood in the middle of the floor with her hands on her hips, with chunks of plaster and dust turning her hair white, and looked around at the empty living room with an expression of loathing on her grimy face. “It’s been less than a week, and I already hate this house.”

  “The hardest work is done,” I told her, wo
ndering whether I looked as bad as she did. Or maybe even worse. The plaster had mixed with the sweat at her temples and turned into paste. “From here on out, it’ll be better.”

  She didn’t look like she believed me.

  “I swear,” I said. “It gets easier. We’ve done most of the tear-down. Tomorrow, we can start building up the floor in the den, to make it level with the rest of the house, and then the plumber can come and rough in the new bathroom. Or maybe we have to build the walls first. I’m not sure. I’ll ask Rafe.”

  Charlotte nodded. “This is a lot more work than I thought it would be.”

  It was more work than I’d thought it would be, too. Or if not exactly that, it was more work than I’d been prepared for. I knew it took time and effort—and money—to renovate a house. I just hadn’t quite understood what it would take to actually do all the work with my own two hands.

  “Think of the money,” I advised her. “In a month or two, when we’re done, it’ll be worth it.”

  “If you say so,” Charlotte said, and turned to the door. “Is that a car outside? Who’s coming?”

  I had no idea. “One of the neighbors? Or your mother or mine, coming to see what we’re doing?”

  It probably wasn’t Rafe, since the workday wasn’t over yet and he’d still be dealing with keeping the peace at the Columbia PD.

  “Looks like some guy,” Charlotte said, peering out the grimy window. “You go talk to him. You’re married. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

  She ducked through the doorway into the kitchen just as the knock came on the door. I arched my brows—officially, she was married too, even if perhaps she didn’t feel quite so married anymore—and went to open it.

  The person outside was male, around thirty, and black, dressed in a pair of khakis and a peacoat that looked to be a couple of years out of date. To the best of my knowledge, I’d never seen him before.

  “Steve Morris.” He put out a hand.

  “Savannah Martin,” I said. “Collier.” I held up my hand to show him the grime coating it, and he dropped his own. “What can I do for you?”

  He was dark-skinned but sallow, like he didn’t spend much time outdoors. And he obviously subscribed to the Rafe Collier method of haircuts. In fact, he was totally bald, his scalp gleaming, while Rafe at least keeps a half inch or so of scruff covering his head. Trying to avoid those pretty waves he gets when his hair grows longer.

  “You’re in my house,” Steve Morris said.

  My stomach did a kind of funny flip, although I kept my voice steady when I told him, “This is our house. My sister bought it at auction last week. Tax sale.”

  “It was my house first,” Morris said.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Well, it’s our house now. If you wanted to keep it, you should have kept up with the tax payments.”

  “I had other things to worry about,” Morris said grimly.

  “That’s too bad. But it isn’t my problem.”

  He smirked. There’s no other word for it. “I’m about to make it your problem, sister. Have you ever heard of a statutory right of redemption?”

  Vaguely, in the back of my head, I thought I had. Maybe in real estate school? Or even longer ago, in pre-law? Something about a year-long redemption period and ten percent above the sales price…

  “No,” I said, thinking that if I told him I had no idea what he was talking about, he’d explain it to me, and I wouldn’t have to dig up the elusive memory.

  “It means I have twelve months after my house is sold to pay you back the money you paid for it, and get it back.”

  “Plus ten percent,” I said, as the details slid back into my head and realigned themselves.

  He nodded, even as a shadow of what looked like vexation moved across his features. I guess he hadn’t expected me to know that.

  “We paid fifty-seven thousand for the house. An additional ten percent makes it over sixty.” Although that didn’t cover the cost of the dumpster, or the work we’d already done. Or the materials we had ordered, and the fees we’d paid. Not to mention the plans we’d had, which had been free, but which I was loath to give up. “Are you sure it’s worth it to you?”

  “It’s my house!” Morris said.

  “Not anymore. It’s our house now.”

  He didn’t answer, and I added, “If you have sixty thousand dollars, you could just buy another house. There are several other properties on the market you might like.”

  He scowled at me. “You a real estate agent, or something?”

  I smiled sweetly. “I am, as a matter of fact. I’d be happy to help you look for something else.”

  “You can help me by getting out of my house!” Morris snarled, his face turning brick red with anger.

  I shook my head. “Sorry. As I said, it’s our house now. You can’t just come back here and tell us to leave. If you want to invoke your statutory right of redemption, there are proper channels for that. But until you do, we own the place, fair and square.”

  He scowled at me, his brows lowered and his fists curled, breathing through his nose. It made him look like he wanted to punch me—he probably did want to punch me—and I decided it would be best if I removed the temptation.

  “Sorry, Mr. Morris, but until you talk to the court, there’s nothing I can do for you.”

  I moved to close the door, bracing myself in case he tried to stick his foot in the gap to stop me.

  But no, he didn’t. I got the door into the frame with no resistance, and turned the lock so I could be sure to keep him out.

  “This ain’t over,” he told me through the wood.

  I didn’t answer, just stayed where I was and listened to his footsteps walk away. A few seconds later there was the sound of an engine starting and then fading away down the street. I turned to the doorway into the kitchen, where Charlotte was staring at me with huge eyes. “Oh, my God, Savannah!”

  I nodded. It was an oh, my God sort of moment.

  “What he said…” Charlotte said, “is it true?”

  I thought it was. What little bit I could remember about it told me it was. But I didn’t want to rely on what might be a faulty memory.

  “We need to talk to Catherine or Dix. Or Jonathan. Someone who knows the law better than I do. I never graduated from law school.” And the education I’d had was several years in the past. We needed updated information.

  “Now?” Charlotte said.

  “The sooner, the better.”

  I turned to the tiny coat closet in the corner of the living room. We’d left our stuff in there this morning so they wouldn’t be covered with the same plaster dust the two of us were covered with.

  “I have to go get my kids,” Charlotte said, watching me pull the door open. “Mom’s had them all day.”

  My mother had had Carrie all day, too. I hadn’t wanted to expose the baby to the flying plaster dust. But under the circumstances, she’d just have to wait another fifteen minutes.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I told Charlotte as I handed her her coat. “Go home and relieve your mother.”

  I yanked my own coat off the hanger and stuck one arm through the sleeve. “I’ll go talk to Dix and let you know what he says. Then we’ll figure out what to do from there.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Is it safe to open the door?”

  “I heard him drive away.” But that didn’t stop me from making sure the stoop and lawn and driveway were empty before I pulled the door all the way open. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  We slipped outside, and I locked the door behind us while Charlotte peered worriedly up and down the street. “Savannah?”

  “Yes,” I said and turned to the car.

  “If he’s right…? What are we going to do?”

  We’d probably have to give him the house, and take the loss on the money we’d spent on it so far. It wasn’t a huge amount beyond the purchase price plus ten percent, but enough that I hated to lose it. “I don’t know,” I said. �
��One thing at a time.”

  Charlotte nodded, but she was still looking worried when she buckled herself into the minivan and took off down the street.

  Six

  “We have a problem,” I announced to Darcy thirty minutes later, after I had driven to Sweetwater, found a parking spot on the square, and stalked through the door of Martin and McCall Law Offices.

  She looked up from the computer. And while her lips twitched, she didn’t comment on the fact that I looked like I’d been standing under a congregation of birds. “What kind of problem?”

  “Someone’s trying to take our house,” I said.

  She took her hands off the keyboard and leaned back, folding them in her lap. “The guy from the auction?”

  There had been maybe twelve guys at the auction. Most of them had started bidding with us. All but two dropped out by the time we got to fifty thousand. One dropped out at fifty-three. The last guy kept the bidding going all the way up to fifty-seven before he gave up, and as I may have mentioned, I think he was doing it just to drive the price up. At that point he had probably figured out that we wanted the house and would keep bidding, so he jacked the price up by a couple thousand just so we’d end up paying more.

  Now that she’d brought him up, I considered the possibility. One that hadn’t occurred to me until Darcy said something. Would he benefit in some way if we lost the house?

  It would probably give him satisfaction, if I was right and he had taken the trouble to make sure we’d overpay for the house, even when there was nothing but spite in it for him. And of course it was possible he was in league with Steve Morris.

  That’s if the man who had come to the door was actually Steve Morris. He hadn’t shown me any kind of ID.

  If it came to that, he might not even have told the truth about owning the house before us.

  Maybe it was all one big elaborate hoax to freak us out and make us willing to take a cash settlement for the house. Maybe by tomorrow we’d hear from someone else, like the guy from the auction, who’d be willing to pay us fifty thousand to spare us the trouble of dealing with Steve Morris and his right of redemption.