The Flip (2 page)

She frowned, new worry lines creasing the smooth skin of her brow. She was pretty, not beautiful. Cute, perky, with long brown hair kissed by the sun, a swinging body toned with hours of yoga, and merry green eyes. The people who liked her said she was a go-getter; the ones who didn’t said she had a type A personality. Brad told her he liked her drive, found her inspiring, and enjoyed their chemistry. His laconic attitude tempered her impulsiveness.
Their fundamental differences enhanced each other, creating a perfect balance. Holding up her wedding photo, she stared wistfully at the tanned couple. They looked perfect together. He was wearing a slick white dinner jacket with black tuxedo pants. She wore a Calvin Klein slip of a dress. They were both barefoot and ankle-deep in the sands of a Dominican Republic beach. The wind had snatched her veil. Brad’s arms were protectively around her when the photographer had snapped a classic black-and-white shot of them on the beach. She loved that picture; it summed up the simplicity of her relationship with Brad. It was black and white, no bullshit, founded in love, rooted in respect, and a whole lot of fun. In other words, it was bliss. They looked like a couple from a high-end perfume advertisement,
everybody always said.

Theirs had been a wonderful storybook courtship. Boy meets girl, instant attraction, destination: wedding. They had met at one of those
Match.com
mixers and hit it off immediately. She couldn’t believe he wasn’t taken. He had shoulders that filled a room, as well as a personality to match. He had just left the army after two tours in Afghanistan, and compared to the guys she normally dated, he was the real deal. Kind, polite, and ever so gallant, it didn’t take her long to let every rule fall by the wayside and allow herself to commit early. If only he could find something he liked to do. After his discharge, he drove a limo on the weekends while he attended a community college. She knew he
disliked it, and after they dated a bit, she had talked him into flipping houses with her. They had split the cost of three houses, small tract homes in Levittown, nothing so big that they could get hurt.

Julie did all the legwork. She had loads of time to do that in the office and evenings. The Internet was her best friend, making it easy for her to do research on what they needed. Brad was a worker. There was nothing he wouldn’t try to do. He wasn’t in love with the work—sometimes she felt guilty knowing he was hip-deep in hoarder hell, shoveling accumulated crap into a rented Dumpster. He fumigated homes, was the resident rat catcher, cleaned the toxic bathrooms. Brad never complained, but she could see the
resigned look on his face when he began to tackle a new purchase. He had this vast store of common sense on how to fix things like broken outlets or stubborn plumbing. He could take a few tools and tinker with problems, finding ways for them to save money by rescuing projects others would just discard. He was the most patient person she had ever met. It seemed that was when he was happiest, taking a lost cause and using his skill to restore and reuse. His Yankee ingenuity had doubled their profits. Where Julie saw garbage or a jumble of wires, Brad saw a challenge to bring it back to life. Brad wasted nothing. He cleaned the houses, carted out the junk, and sold what they could salvage, then hung drywall, put in bathrooms with an army buddy, and one time even did a wooden planked floor. He was
meticulous, taking his time while she constantly reminded him they were under the gun to do the job quickly.

Did they clash? Not really. He would give a lazy grin when Julie went off on a rant. It didn’t take long for her to lose steam, distracted by his charming smile and smoky eyes. Brad knew exactly how to defuse her energy, making her forget timetables and deadlines; she learned that things got done when they got done and that bottom lines could be adjusted. They had turned a tidy profit, and he had proposed in the last house. Julie’s eyes filled while she remembered how he had prepared a path of rose petals and illuminated the empty living room with dozens of glowing tea lights. He had set up a small bridge
table and prepared a feast of lobsters from his native Maine, along with all the other goodies that come with a clambake. The ring was small but oh so beautiful—an antique Edwardian with tiny sapphires surrounding a small rose-cut diamond. She loved that ring, and when he went down on one knee, she launched herself onto his deep chest, vowing never to leave. Julie shivered in her seat, her face flushed, her lips tingling, thinking of Brad and the wicked way he told her how much he loved her. Her brows drew together as her lips pursed. It had been a long time since he’d done those things to her. Somehow, they collapsed every night lately, back to back, too tired for anything else. She had heard of a seven-year slump, but after two years, it didn’t feel right. If only he’d find a job that excited him; if
only they could make a great sale and triple their money; if only they could move into that amazing Victorian off Bedlam Street in Cold Spring Harbor they had just purchased. It was so beautiful, resting atop an outcropping of rocks, overlooking the crescent-shaped bay. Julie’s pencil snapped in two; she hadn’t realized she’d been gripping it so tightly.

The phone buzzed, breaking her concentration. Mr. Wilson’s curt voice came through the receiver. “Get me the Shapiro file.”

“Which Shapiro? Father or son?”

“I was on the phone with Doug Shapiro all morning. That should be enough for you to realize which one I want.”

“I…I was working with Dulcie—”

“Don’t give me your life story!” The line went dead, and Julie took a long look at her boss’s door. She would love to tell him where to put the file, but she got up to retrieve it. Joanne guarded his door like Charon at the gates of hell.

“Shapiro?” Joanne held out a strong hand, her nails painted a deep power red.

“The father. How was I supposed to know?”

“He pays you to know,” Joanne snapped as she snatched the file, and then she went into the inner sanctum of Barry Wilson’s office.

Dulcie, Joanne’s assistant, looked up sympathetically from her desk. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You would think. Maybe I should add mind reader to my job description.”

Dulcie shushed her with a kind smile, her chocolate-brown eyes dancing. Glancing around, she added, “They hear everything here. Be careful. He’s in a bad mood today.” She took out an energy bar and offered it to Julie, who shook her head no. Dulcie’s brown fingers with bright fuchsia nails stripped off the packaging, crumpling the wrapper and shooting it into the basket.

Julie smiled with approval, clapped quietly, and said, “She scores.” A frown graced her brow. “He’s always in a bad mood. What makes you think today is any different?”

“Well, it’s worse than usual.” She leaned closer. “It’s his wife,” she whispered. “I think she’s leaving him.”

“Oops. That makes three. What’s he going to do now?”

Dulcie got up and walked around the desk, discreetly looking around. “I’d watch out. I heard he likes to fish in his own pond, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s not true. Number one was his college sweetheart, two was a flight attendant, and three—”

“Came from accounting.”

“Why didn’t I know that?” Julie wondered.

“It was when you met Brad. You weren’t aware of too much. It was hard to have a coherent conversation with you.”

“Yeah,” Julie replied. “Those were the days.”

Joanne came out of the office and eyed the two younger girls. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” she demanded. They scattered apart, Julie leaving for her desk.

Maybe they would make enough on the sale of this house so that she could leave here and devote herself to their flipping business. But, she thought dreamily, she did love the bones of that house.

Chapter 2

Brad cleared his throat, his eyes tearing from the smell of a dead rodent. Using his shovel, he scooped it up, but its bodily fluids had glued it to the floor. He gagged, ran up the stairs to escape out the front door, and hunkered down on the steps to deeply breathe in the crisp October air. The house was at the end of a long gravel drive at the top of a hill, overlooking the waters of Long Island Sound. The address read Bedlam Street, but it was actually almost a mile from the road, affording the occupants privacy. It was a big house, with clumsy additions added on through the ages and looking to him like a doughy-faced dowager. Sitting on the first step of the porch, he
watched the gray waters of the sound, the autumn shades of the trees surrounding the bay like a bowl. Seagulls screeched, diving to pluck small mollusks from the shallow water and then dropping them on the beach to break apart. They protected their bounty, fighting off interlopers to feast on their seafood snack. His stomach rumbled, but he couldn’t eat. The musty smell of the basement killed any thought of lunch. His eyes were gritty with filth. This was by far the dirtiest flip they had attempted, and he longed to tell Julie to list it on eBay for a dollar more than they had paid for it, but he knew Julie had a bug about this house. She loved it, and he couldn’t understand why. It was old, dilapidated, and a monster of a repair. He’d almost lost his temper this morning when she rapped out fifty things
that needed to be done. He didn’t need her to remind him; he knew what had to be done. He didn’t mind walking away from this project. He trotted to his truck, removed his thermos filled with coffee, took a healthy swig, and spit it into the bushes. It cleared the dust from his palate, and he swallowed a satisfying mouthful. His phone broke the peaceful silence. Glancing at the face, he saw that it was Julie, and he swiped it with a dirty finger to answer.

“What’s up?” he asked, his throat gravelly.

“You didn’t call me all day,” Julie said, a tone of plaintiveness in her voice.

“I didn’t know I was expected to report in.”

Julie sighed. “Brad, what’s wrong? We
usually speak a few times a day. Look, day after tomorrow I’ll be there to help.”

“I don’t even know if I want you to help, Jules. This place is disgusting. I just had to peel a decomposing rat off the floor. I don’t want you in the place.”

“Honey, we are in this together. Look, it was a great price. If it works out well, we’ll make enough to buy two houses with the profit. Maybe I can quit my job,” she finished in a hopeful whisper.

Brad was silent. It was a long-held dream. He didn’t like her boss, the sleazy son of a bitch. He never made eye contact with Brad. But the fact was, they got their medical and 401k there,
plus her salary would keep them going until they could turn the flipping into a profitable business. Profitable meant that he could stop taking landscaping jobs in the spring and they would make enough to live off the flips. They had even discussed an income property, but they didn’t have enough to tie up their capital in a rental house. Her boss had been instrumental in helping them with their loans. If not for him and the generous terms he negotiated, none of this would have been possible. So far, they had only made enough to pay their bills and move on to the next house. They hadn’t accrued anything. Other than the small house they lived in, they had no real equity. They had a ways to go—especially when his truck died and they had to buy a slightly used pickup. The down payment had put a dent in
their savings.

“This is worse than the Tate house.” Two houses ago, they’d picked up an estate sale. The house hadn’t been touched for many years, and they had to rip out everything. They had made next to nothing, and it was one of their less successful ventures because they weren’t prepared for the extent of the damage. Julie knew he was reminding her of that fiasco.

“We were rookies then,” she pleaded. “We know what we are doing now. The homes on that hill go for the high nines right now. We bought it for nothing.”

“That’s because it’s worth nothing. I don’t have time. We only have the container until the
end of the week, so I have to finish clearing out the garbage,” he snapped. He said a hasty goodbye and slid his phone into his back pocket. He looked up at the house, the sun’s rays glinting off the multicolored stained glass window. Hands on hips, he considered the building. It was butt ugly. He laughed, shaking his head as he walked up the front steps again to tackle the lower levels of hell, his new name for the basement of the house.

He went down into the darkness, reaching up to find the string that lit the single lightbulb. He didn’t remember turning it off, he thought, as he stumbled into a pile of trash. His shin connected hard with the corner of a metal box, and Brad cursed loudly and fluently. The light flicked on, and he searched the room, his eyes
wide. The hanging bulb swayed as though pushed, and Brad turned where he stood, looking for an intruder. Reaching up, he pulled the cord, extinguishing the light, and touched the hot bulb gingerly. Twisting it gently, he quickly determined it was not loose. He relit it, searching the ceiling to see if the connection to the fixture itself was compromised. It must be dicey wires, he reasoned. After all, the house was really old. He wondered how safe the wiring was, making a mental note to recheck all the connections. The light moved gently, painting peculiar shadows on the walls. The room was dim for sure, but a brightness illuminated the dark corners. Brad watched the pools of light speculatively, the hair on the back of his neck rising as the tension grew. Hearing a footstep, he spun, his hand
instinctively reaching for a firearm he no longer carried. His breath came in short gasps, and his eyes darted around the room, until he felt the vacuum of emptiness. Something fell, but he took in the nothingness of the space.

There was the sound of metal scraping against metal on the other side of the room. Brad walked closer, gingerly putting his ear against the cool wall. Tapping the surface with his knuckle, he heard the emptiness of the other side. It was a secret room, a walled-up space, he thought with astonishment. He laughed uneasily when the old Edgar Allan Poe story popped into his mind—what was it? “The Tell-Tale Heart.” He wondered if he’d find a chained skeleton bolted to the wall. His fingers caressed the surface, looking for an
opening. Another thump. Something fell on the hidden side. He banged on the wall, feeling foolish. There was a rumble of sound. Brad shrugged with impatience. Using his shovel as an ax, he hit the wall, breaking plaster, raining dust all over him. With all his might, he hit it again, pulverizing the ancient slat work under the wall to break into a vacant space. Stale air hit him in the face, and he created enough of an opening to slide into the pitch-black area through the rent in the wall. Placing his hands on either side of it, he lowered himself through the opening. The floor of the other side was a good five feet deeper than the basement.