Trouble Walked In (The Bellamy Sisters #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

L izzie Bellamy stared at the wreckage that used to be a guest room in her upstate New York inn, Belhurst Castle, with horror. There was a gaping hole in the bathroom wall, another in the bedroom, and two inches of water on the floor. She could hear it dripping somewhere like a demented metronome, and the stench—a mixture of sewage, rotten wood, and other unidentifiable foulness—made her eyes water.

She coughed, covered her mouth and nose with one hand, and turned to Mark Tetrick, winemaker, handyman, and owner of the inn before she bought a share of it three years ago. He and his younger brother Carter had inherited the property from their father, and together with their aunt Carrie they tried to keep it afloat. At only twenty-five he’d crafted an award-winning wine label, but the business had suffered in the process.

Since Lizzie had taken up residence, the four of them had faced renovations, event fiascos, and landscaping disasters together and, in the process, Mark and Carter had become the brothers she’d never had, and Carrie, the chef of Belhurst, had become the friend she hadn't known she’d needed. “I thought you said it was a minor leak?”

His expression shifted from pained to exasperated. “It was a minor leak two weeks ago, Lizzie. I patched that bit, but I told you it wouldn’t hold forever.”

“Yes, but I thought surely it would last more than two weeks. I was planning on tackling it with the late winter surge budget. What happened?”

Mark pointed at the toilet, which now lay on its side next to the gaping hole it should be covering. “It would have lasted that long if Mr. Onstein hadn’t flushed a handful of those spongey bath toys. You know, the kind that come in little capsules that expand when you put them in water?”

Lizzie cringed at the mention of the bath toys. She knew exactly where Mr. Onstein had put his hands on those little gems. “They used those for a game at the party last night. He saved them?”

Mark gave a grim nod. “Saved ’em, then flushed ’em. He had to know it caused a backup. Bet that’s why he skipped breakfast and ran out to the bus so fast.”

She remembered the short, stout older man rushing past the buffet table this morning.

“I thought he had a wonky expression this morning, but I shrugged it off. I figured he was rushing to claim his seat on the winery tour bus. He says he gets car sick if he’s not in front.” She did a double take. “You’re not saying he did this on purpose. Are you?”

Mark pressed his lips together. “Wouldn’t put it past the old coot. But no, more likely he aimed for the trash and missed. On purpose or not, I told you last winter these old pipes couldn’t take much more. My dad never did get around to doing much in this part of the house. They focused on the newer sections first.”

She stared at the toilet and the hole. A stopped-up toilet didn’t explain the current state of the room. “It's not just the toilet, is it.”

Mark shook his head. “The minor leak is now a major problem deep inside the wall. We need an expert. I can give Bill a shout. He might do it on the side for less. But it’s going to end up more than just this pipe when it’s done. Pretty sure he’ll have to bring the whole section up to code, too. That means all the way to the main line. Plus, there’s everything else.”

“Everything else?”

Mark gestured at the rest of the room.

Lizzie took in all the things she’d ignored. The smelly water had ruined the carpet in this room. They might be able to salvage the king-size four-poster bed, but water had crept up the wallpaper and melted the pretty rose pattern into psychotic impressions of Edvard Munch’s The Scream .

When she’d bought into her share of Belhurst Castle, it had been a charming inn nestled next to a lake in upstate New York. Lately, though, it felt more like a money pit.

Lizzie rubbed her face with both hands. “Is there a fast way to get the water off the floor?”

“I got a restoration company coming out to suck up this water, but it’s already flowing down the wall into the main ballroom.”

This couldn’t be happening. “Seriously? How bad is it?”

“It ain’t good. We’ll need new drywall, new ceiling tiles, new carpet…” Mark trailed off. “Sorry, Lizzie. This is a mess.”

She sighed and stared around at what looked like a room full of dollar signs. “I hate to ask, but any idea how much this will cost to put right? ”

Mark shrugged. “Ballpark? Maybe fifty or sixty grand, all in. But insurance might pick up some of it.”

She blinked at him. “Fifty grand? As in…fifty thousand? As in dollars? Seriously?”

“Plumbing’s expensive.”

She had an urgent need to run or scream, or both. “We don’t have that. We don’t have close to that. It’s the first of September, which means we only have one more big wedding and then we’re down for almost two months, and insurance won’t cover all of this. They already raised the rates twice, and if we hit it hard again they’ll dump us for sure.”

“Well, we could do it in chunks. We could tackle this here.” Mark tapped on the toilet. “Patch up the main hole temporarily. Pull up this carpet ’cause there’s no way to get that smell out now. We got some remnants in the storage barn that’ll probably fit. That’d buy us a month, maybe. By then the insurance might kick in. But this room’s out of commission because I think the main leak is in the wall by the bed, and all I could do is slap duct tape on it. Plus, winter’s coming. Can’t leave the walls open, ’cause if these pipes freeze this’ll just get worse.”

“I don’t see how it can possibly be worse than it is already.” She shook her head as she looked around the room. She knew from experience that Mark’s estimate was probably right, and it made her sick to her stomach. She’d already plunked down close to fifty grand this year to fix the wiring. What else was going to fall off or fall apart in this old place?

Someone honked a horn outside in several long blasts. Mark sloshed over to the window and shouted, “Hey, second floor. Hurry up.”

He turned back to her. “Damage control incoming.”

“Great.” Her thoughts whirled around all the things she now needed to take care of on top of the remaining high school reunion events. “Okay, you take care of the water. I’ll try to find a spot for Mr. Onstein before the big dinner tonight.”

“You should throw him out on his ass,” Mark grumbled. “The bastard threw sponge toys down the toilet. Who does that?”

“Tempting, but no.” A giggle rose in her throat that was at total odds with the seriousness of the situation. “I can’t throw him out. He’s the chairman of the planning committee.”

“Well he can sleep on a chair in the damn corner then. You should add the cost of all this to his bill.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening either. He doesn’t have any money. I had to give them a discount as it was.”

Mark gave her a level stare. “Then he shouldn’t throw crap down the toilets. Anyway, you haven’t heard the worst part.”

“Worst part?” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “What do you mean worst part?”

“I can’t turn the water back on in this section of the house until we do something about all this.” He gestured at the room.

Lizzie sat on what used to be a lovely club chair and groaned. “We can’t leave the water off over here. Every room is full with the reunion people. They’ll be back from their winery tour in two hours, and they’ll need to pee. How fast can you get the water back on, and how much will it cost to do the bare minimum? We can’t afford to wait for insurance to kick in.”

Mark shrugged again. “I need to verify it with Bill, but I’d guess around ten grand to get this patched enough to turn the water back on for now. More or less. Maybe. Then another forty to fifty to bring it all up to code and repair the damage.”

She stared at her ruined shoes and tried not to think about what was floating around in the smelly water. “Ten grand. Where am I going to get ten grand this fast? It’s four o’clock on a Friday. I don’t have enough cash in the contingency fund for this. We don’t have any other groups coming, so no deposits to draw from. I’ll have to liquidate something. That can’t happen until Monday, which means it’ll be next Friday before it hits the account.”

Mark moved a suitcase from the precarious perch on a luggage rack to the more secure middle of the bed. “Can we scrounge five? Bill would probably take a deposit, with the rest due next week on completion. His dad and mine were really good friends.”

Shouts down the hall caught Mark’s attention. He splashed over to the door and waved. “Down here.”

Lizzie stood up as two men in boots and overalls trudged in. One was short, the other tall, and both sported scruffy beards and tattoos.

The tall one stopped just inside the door and tapped at the water with his boot. “Hey, Mark. Ma’am.”

Lizzie reached out to shake his hand. “Lizzie.”

“I’m Jay. This is Larry.” He looked around. “Damn. Yeah, good thing we brought the truck. Larry, why don’t you go send up the hose so we can start sucking this out.”

“Yep.” Larry nodded. “This’ll take all night. I got to get home by seven.”

“No problem, man. I can stick around. Me and Mark’ll cover it, right Mark?” Jay chuffed Mark on the shoulder. “I’ll help you get this furniture out. You got an empty room?”

Lizzie groaned. “No. I don’t even have an empty closet right now. You’ll have to haul it to, um, let me think.” She wracked her brains for a good place to store wet, smelly wood during a big high school reunion that filled all the rooms at the inn and spilled out onto the porches. Nothing came to mind except the back lawn, which would displace the corn hole game.

“Don’t worry about it, Lizzie,” Mark said. “We can stash it in the winery storeroom for now. It should fit in there.”

Larry picked up the club chair Lizzie had been sitting on. “I’ll take this down with me.”

“Leave it on the back porch,” Lizzie called after him. Usually, she’d have said the ballroom, but they were supposed to use the ballroom for dinner in—she checked her watch—three hours. “I have to go.”

Mark waved her away. “We got this. Just give Mr. Onstein a swift kick for me, ’kay?”

Lizzie dashed out the door and squished her way downstairs. The smell of sewage followed her the entire way. They’d need to break out the scented candles from Christmas, and the air freshener spray, and maybe have an exorcism.

She poked her head through the ballroom door. Ceiling tiles bulged, and a dark trail of water plunged down the soft gold wallpaper to puddle on the wood floor. She muttered a few comforting swear words to herself and shut the door.

“Carrie?” she called out as she walked across the foyer toward the little restaurant and kitchen. “We need to move dinner to the back porch.”

Halfway across the entry, she glanced out the front doors. It wasn’t a wide-open view, but she could make out enough of the drive to see that a dark red sedan had just pulled up outside.

She wasn’t expecting any new arrivals. She changed her trajectory to open the door, thinking it might be someone Mark had called in to help with the swamp situation upstairs. Just as she reached the porch, a familiar young blonde woman in a sparkling black cocktail dress and bare feet spilled out of the backseat. She had a coffee cup in one hand and a crumpled McDonald’s bag in the other.

“Della?” Lizzie called, then realized her sister couldn’t hear her through the still closed porch door. She pushed it open and tried again. “Della? What are you doing here?”

Della looked up. Her mascara was smudged, her lipstick was rubbed off, and her hair was tousled as if she’d just woken up. “Hey, Lizzie. Hang on a sec.”

Della reached back in the car and pulled out an oversized designer bag and a pair of silver stilettos. The driver hovered awkwardly while she gathered her things. He was probably in his thirties and looked both starstruck and bemused.

Lizzie was used to seeing that expression on people when they were in her superstar sister’s orbit. She wondered who the guy was, then noticed the Uber logo on the window of his car. From the circles under his eyes, he must have been driving for hours.

Della fished around in her bag and emerged with a handful of cash. “Thanks for everything. You’ve been a real sweetheart. I hope she says yes.” She pressed the cash into his hand and planted a kiss on his cheek.

The driver held the money out like it might bite him. “You already paid for the ride, and that wasn’t a small tip you added on. You don’t have to do this.”

“How many hours did it take to get here? You deserve a bonus. Besides,” she smiled, which almost lit up her face, “I want to. Go get that ring, okay?”

The guy looked down at the cash like Christmas had come early. “Thanks.”

She flashed him another grateful smile, then tiptoed carefully over the cobblestones toward Lizzie. She looked up at Lizzie with dull, tired eyes that begged for comfort and understanding. “I need a room. ”

Lizzie stared at her. The last time she’d spoken with her little sister two weeks ago, Della had been as excited as a hyperactive puppy about winning the Teen Critics Choice award for Favorite Female Artist. “Aren’t you supposed to be going on tour?”

“Not anymore.” Della climbed the steps on delicate feet and leaned in for a hug.

Lizzie’s arms automatically went around her little sister and squeezed her tight. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Della squeezed her back and murmured. “Everything.”

The joyless tone in Della’s voice made Lizzie’s heart ache. She couldn’t imagine what had happened in the last two weeks to make her sister sound like this. “What happened, Dell Bell? Tell me.”

“I quit,” Della whispered.

Lizzie leaned away from the hug to get a closer look at Della’s face. “You what?”

Della wrinkled up her nose. “What’s that smell? Did you step in dog crap?”

They both looked down. Lizzie’s once white shoes were now a putrid shade of beige. “Dang it! I just bought these shoes.” Lizzie kicked them off behind a planter, then took Della by the arm to usher her inside. “Quit? What do you mean quit?”

"I’m done,” Della said. Her voice took on a defensive edge.

From the left, Carrie’s distinctly upstate-accented voice carried through the open kitchen door. “Lizzie? You call me?”

“This is perfect. It’s exactly what I need.” Della dropped her hold on Lizzie’s arm to spin slowly in place. “You know, the pictures on your website don’t do this place justice. You should get a photographer out here to do a set. ”

Everything about her sister, from the mussed-up face to the bare feet and cocktail dress, was off. This wasn’t the girl who was always surrounded by dozens of friends and flitted from parties to concerts to award shows like a hummingbird on crack. This was a quieter, softer, sadder Della. It felt wrong.

“Never mind the pictures, Della. What do you mean you’re done?”

From somewhere up the stairs, Lizzie could hear Mark issuing instructions to “lift it higher” and “to the left—the left !” He must be on the way down with furniture from the flooded room.

Della dropped her bag on the bench just inside the front door. “I’m here to stay. I’m not going back.”

Lizzie watched her, stunned. Della’s next tour was supposed to kick off in November, but there was a lot of prep work to do before then, including rounds of talk show interviews and radio shows, fan events, teasers and more all to build excitement and buzz for the big launch.

She thought about all the work that went into planning a tour. She remembered how many sleepless nights she had spent plotting out The Bellamy Sisters’ first year. The phone calls. The arguments with venues. The sheer number of people who had to be involved in setting up a big stage. Hundreds of people were probably waiting for Della to show up for rehearsals right now, and here she was in upstate New York.

“You can’t just quit.”

“I just did.” Della’s voice took on a hard edge.

“Do you have any idea how much work, how much money, has gone into setting up this tour? Why are you doing this?”

Della shrugged. “I don’t want to be me anymore.”