7. Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Robinson
It definitely wasn’t fun getting to the shut-off valve. Robinson didn’t know dick about plants, but whatever was back there had thorns, and he told Ozzy as much on his way back inside. But once he got the water shut off and headed back inside, it was somehow even less fun. The faucet and the shower and the two knobs were all rusted over, which made them an extra pain in the ass to get loose before he could see what was going on, and then once he did, it was apparently made with some kind of non-standard bullshit fittings.
Which wouldn’t have actually been that bad. Annoying, but not bad. He could work with non-standard fittings. It was just that, on top of the cameras, he was also dealing with Ryan shadowing him again. He really did like the idea of teaching someone else about plumbing, it just hadn’t been in his calculations when he showed up on the job site.
Still, at least the kid knew how to hold a flashlight. “Little lower. I think I can see the leak.” And, as before, Ryan managed to nail the positioning. Robinson scanned a little deeper into the cavity behind the faucet. He had small enough hands, as a rule, but it was still a squeeze…
“There we go. We’ve hit paydirt.” He pulled back to look at the water and corrosion on his fingertips. “If I’m right, this is hopefully the only spot that’s really causing trouble.” He looked a little closer and, sure enough, he saw the ridge of a fitting. “I’m hoping I can reach into there without tearing up the tiles.” Eventually, they would have to go. The entire surround would have to go, since he couldn’t be sure where all the leak and the mildew had spread. Didn’t mean Robinson wanted to start that whole project right now. It would be a hell of a lot easier if they could get this stopped and the water back on fast. “Especially if you guys wanted to keep these.”
“He doesn’t. They always hated the way this bathroom looked.” Ryan leaned in closer too. “I think that’s why they turned it into storage. I remember watching Dad-Drew one night—”
Robinson turned fully around, trying not to laugh. “Dad-Drew?”
Ryan immediately blushed and averted his gaze. “I know it’s dumb. But Dad and Dad got confusing, so…I don’t know when it happened. He was already Dad-Drew by the time they fostered me.”
“It’s not dumb.” It was incredibly cute, although Robinson knew damn well that no teenage boy wanted to hear how cute or sweet or sentimental they were being. At least not any that Robinson had met in his entire life. I would have died of sheer embarrassment at his age. “Just took me by surprise.” Robinson knew a subject change was in order, so he craned his neck to look deeper into the hole in the wall. “Any chance you could fetch me Nick or Colby? I think their hands have a better chance of fitting in there. Otherwise, we’re going to have to start demolition early to find the fix for this.”
“I could probably get in there.” Ryan scooted forward and extended his hand. “I’m pretty flexible.”
Robinson was about to tell him to stop. Far as he could tell, Ryan had no chance. Too strongly, thickly built. But, when he approached the hole in the wall and twisted his hand, somehow he fit in there just fine.
Robinson wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. “All right, it’s not very far in. There should be a collar that unscrews. If you can’t get it, then you can’t get it. But if you can, then you should be able to unscrew it, then pull it off.”
Ryan nodded and wriggled his arm around. Robinson cringed a couple times as his wrist twisted against the edges of the tiles, but after about a minute, the pipe clattered to the tub…along with a cascade of black flecks that Robinson recognized instantly.
“Son of a bitch.”
Ryan pulled his hand out, shaking off the water and little specks as best he could, and frowned at Robinson. “Did I do something wrong? Is that mold?”
“No. You did everything right. Whoever built this house did something wrong.” Robinson tried to quell the shake out of his voice, and he wasn’t even sure if this was anger or worry or some weird shame that he had no reason to feel. Maybe all of them together. Maybe something else. What he knew was, the kid of their client didn’t need to see their plumber freaking out. “I’m going to need to get hold of everyone. Think you can track down your dad while I get the others?”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah. Sure.” He hesitated a moment, then headed downstairs. Once he was out of sight—and hopefully out of earshot—Robinson slapped his hand against the wall. It stung, but it was the only outlet for his frustration in that moment.
To double check before everyone got sent into a raging panic, Robinson grabbed the faucet and examined it, hoping he’d see anything other than what he expected.
“Galvanized steel. What the fuck?” The faucet itself was stainless, but whoever had plumbed the house up had used galvanized steel fittings. At least here, but that suggested they were either everywhere, or at the very least, interspersed throughout the rest of the house. The best case scenario was that someone had redone this bathroom at some point and maybe the corrosion was limited in scope.
Robinson crumbled up some of the corrosion and let it fall apart into the bottom of the bathtub, then shook it off his hands and pulled out his phone to text Mason. They needed to get the gang together, and probably at least the head of the contractor crew. If they were unlucky, this could very quickly become an all-hands job.