There’s a nice young man doing it for you.”
Lynn gaped. “I told him to leave!”
“He tried to.”
Lynn’s hands settled on her hips and she frowned at the apparition sitting on the edge of her tub. “What have you done now?”
Delphine assumed a look of utter innocence. “I,” she said firmly, “haven’t done a thing. But some of the local fauna seems to have…reached a decision.”
“And you had nothing to do with that.”
“Not a thing. I’m quite sure of that.”
Lynn wasn’t so sure about that, but then she remembered that, while Delphine had mastered the art of misleading through misdirection or omission when necessary, she had never out-and-out lied about anything.
Which made this even more perplexing.
“Do go out and help the lad,” Delphine said. “He shouldn’t have to clean the mess all by himself.”
“I was going to clean it by myself. I didn’t ask for help.”
“But he was feeling so bad about not being able to give it!”
“I’m capable of taking care of myself!”
Now Delphine frowned. “That may be so. But take it as a little whisper from heaven—allowing others to help you from time to time is merely polite.”
Then, in an eye blink, Delphine vanished, leaving Lynn alone in her bathroom. Which, when she thought about it, was one place she ought to be able to be alone.
Grabbing her robe off the hook, she slipped it on and belted it tightly. Then she went out to find out what kind of chaos was now occurring in her kitchen.
She stopped at the doorway as she saw Jack Marks mopping steadily away at her floor. He seemed to sense her, for he looked up, then paused.
“Don’t blame me,” he said. “I know you threw me out. But Buster wouldn’t let me leave.”
Being reminded that she’d thrown him out embarrassed her, but curiosity about what he said grabbed her even more. “Buster?”
“Take a look out your door.”
Jack had already managed to clear a large swath of floor enough that she could cross it without sloshing. “I doubt,” she said by way of apology, “that this floor has ever been this clean.”
He actually grinned. “I guess there’s a silver lining in every flood.”
She couldn’t help smiling back. Then she looked out her door and saw Buster sitting at the very edge of her stoop, grinning with all his alligator teeth. “He stopped you?”
“Quite forcibly.”
Her heart skipped. “Do you think he’s suddenly gotten dangerous?”
Jack came to stand beside her. “Somehow I doubt it. But frankly, I wasn’t going to try and test him.”
“I wouldn’t either. My gosh, look at all those teeth!”
“The better to eat you,” he replied wryly.
It should have been impossible, but Buster managed to look wounded around the edges of his gaping maw.
“Awww,” Jack said sarcastically. “You were the one who kept threatening me when I tried to leave, and now you want me to believe you’re innocent?”
Lynn decided that seeing Delphine might not be as totally weird as she had initially thought. After all, she had talked to an alligator, and now Jack was too, and darned if the gator didn’t look as if he understood.
She spoke. “This could get us committed anywhere else in the world.”
He looked at her. “That’s what I love about this place. So, since I can’t leave, can I finish the floor?”
She decided not to mention the front door as her cheeks reddened. “I’m sorry about the way I acted before. I was rude when you were trying to help.”
“You were upset. But someday you have to tell me about Delphine.”
Lynn’s flush deepened. “Maybe. We’ll see.”
He nodded, wrung out the mop into the sink and went back to work. Lynn couldn’t figure out anything else to do except grab handfuls of old towels to wipe up the dampness and suck water out of crevices.
“Nothing on this island ever really gets dry,” Jack remarked as he swept the mop around. “The heat will evaporate the excess, but the humidity will remain.”
“That’s one of the first things I noticed here, the humidity. It’s odd though because even though it’s there, it’s not real troublesome.”
“Unless it turns really hot. Most of the time, though, it just seems to soften the air.”
“Well, I haven’t needed any moisturizer since coming here.”
He flashed a smile. “One of our many money-saving benefits.”
“Does the island have a plumber?”
“We sure do. I already put in a call to him.”
“Any idea when he’ll get here?”
Jack leaned on the mop handle and grinned. “Well…he said as soon as he could.”
“And that means?”
Jack shrugged. “I guess it depends on whatever else he needs to do.”
“Oh, great.”
“Relax. All things come in their own time on this island.”
Harv Cullinan’s time proved to be about a half-hour. “Caught me just before I left for a day of fishing,” he told Jack as he stepped into Lynn’s kitchen. “There I was, dreaming of a big ’un. All set to go, me tackle box beside me, waiting for Geordie to pick me up.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said.
“Me too,” Lynn said a trifle sarcastically. “Next time I’ll make the pipe wait.”
Harv looked at her. A short, bulky man with a balding head, he might have been a miniature Hulk. “Now, now, teacher, nice of you to worry about me, but there’s always another day to fish.”
Lynn nearly gaped at his response. She’d been churlish and he’d taken it as a kindness. There must be something in the air here. Worse, his response made her aware of how peevish and unpleasant she was being. “Sorry. I’m sorry you missed your fishing.”
“Like I said, always another day.”
Slowly, as if his every joint ached with monstrous pain, he lowered his bulk to look into the open cabinet beneath the sink.
“My, my,” he said, his voice sounding hollow as he put his head inside the cabinet. “That’s a beaut.”
“We thought so,” Jack agreed.
Slowly Harv eased back and sat on his heels. “It’s not gonna be easy.”
“Why not?” Lynn asked.
“Because pipes don’t split like this. Not copper ones, unless somebody’s done something to them.” He eyed her suspiciously from beneath bushy brows.
Lynn felt as if she stood accused before a jury. “I swear I didn’t do anything to it.”
“Someone did,” he said darkly.
Lynn had a pretty good idea who, but she hadn’t gone far enough over the edge to say so out loud. “Can you fix it?”
“Oh, aye. I’ll need me helper and some other tools. Back shortly.”
She hoped shortly was shortly.
“He’ll