A Clean Sweep [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations) Read online

  “She’s safe, though?” Mark asked when Jack finished the rundown.

  “Yeah. She’s across the street with some neighbors. I talked to the daughter already. She’s flying in today from Spokane. Apparently her cell took a swim, but she gave me that number anyway and said she’d have a replacement this morning before she caught her flight to Tampa.” He read the number off to Mark. “Her name’s Essline Barrone.”

  That name struck a bell, but at first he wasn’t sure why. Wait, that was the family’s name on Everybody Loves Raymond, that TV show. “How’d she sound?”

  “Shell-shocked, naturally. She’s been estranged from them for years.”

  “Damn.” He took another sip of coffee. “Do you suggest waiting for the daughter before I talk to the wife?”

  Jack let out a noise on the other end of the line that sounded like a sigh. “I probably would. From the way Corrine Barrone talked, her husband was the hoarder, but she seems pretty stressed out herself right now. Understandably so.”

  That was a relief. If the hoarder was the one still alive, it usually meant they only had a fifty-fifty chance, if that, of successfully saving the home. If it was a loved one who could let go of the clutter, their success rate was closer to one hundred percent.

  “I’ll try calling the daughter.”

  “Good luck with this.” Jack read him off a case number. “Let me know if they refuse your services, and please keep me posted if they hire you.”

  “Thanks. Will do.” Mark hung up and stared at the information he’d written on the paper. Sometimes, families hired them. Sometimes, they couldn’t afford to hire them. Sometimes, they hired them on as consultants at a reduced cost, and family and friends and even fellow churchgoers pitched in for the sweat equity part of things. It fortunately wasn’t the largest part of their business. Their main business was commercial and rental property cleaning services and disaster recovery.

  But when one of their own aunts had been exposed as a hoarder eight years earlier after she had a mild stroke and had been rushed to the hospital, they suddenly found themselves in the hoarder recovery business as well. They averaged fifteen major cases a year with full involvement, and another fifteen to twenty where they were consultants working in some capacity with the family.

  They were even featured in several episodes per season of a show on gO! Network. A production company out of Tampa contributed episodes to Clean Turnaround, that network’s popular answer to Hoarding: Buried Alive. In fact, Purson Gibraltar, one of the production company’s producers and costar of another show on the network, had called Mark over a week ago to check in and see if they had any jobs lined up they could film.

  The family’s name still rang a bell, though. And it was bugging the crap out of him.

  Josh walked in, his own laptop case slung over his shoulder and a travel mug of coffee in hand. “You’re in my spot,” he joked.

  “Bite me.”

  He pulled up short. “What’s wrong?”

  Mark held out the legal pad.

  Josh took it and frowned as he read through the notes. “Dammit,” he muttered. He handed it back to Mark. “I guess we’re going to be on TV again.”

  “If they agree to it,” Mark said.

  Josh sat in the chair in front of the desk, setting his laptop on the floor between his feet. “I’m really beginning to wish we’d never started doing the TV show. It’s sort of like we signed a deal with the Devil himself.”

  Fortunately, they didn’t have much screen time. The network had their own team of “experts” who usually handled the clients. Most of what they did was provide the actual cleanup and related logistical services. Of the three of them, Ted got the most screen time, which was usually less than a few minutes per episode.

  That was fine with Mark and Josh.

  Mark tossed the notepad onto the desk. “Yeah, I know. Every time an episode airs, we get another shit-ton of calls.”

  It wasn’t that they didn’t enjoy helping people, because they did. But that wasn’t where they made money.

  If it wasn’t for the royalties and stipends they earned from the show itself, they’d actually lose money on nearly every hoarding call where they provided more than just consulting services. They couldn’t bring themselves to charge customers more than they could afford. They would state a set cost, and if customers could pay it, fine, and if not, they worked with them to help make it work and get as much of the job done as the client would let them.

  And it emotionally drained all three of them. Especially Ted, who ended up quitting the practice he’d worked at as a counselor. He came to work with them as a full-time advisor and counselor, both on the show and privately, specializing in clients with hoarding disorders.

  “Did you tell Ted?” Josh asked.

  “I don’t think he’s home yet. Remember, he was up at Sully’s this weekend. He was going out fishing on the boat with them.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” He rubbed at his temple. “Sorry. I knew that. That’s why they all weren’t at the club Saturday night.”

  “Duh.” Mark leaned back with his coffee again. “I guess when our contract comes up for renewal with the network, the three of us need to sit down and decide if we want to do this again.”

  Despite the emotional toll, Ted especially liked helping people, liked the way the network handled the editing of the episodes to be as respectful to the clients as possible while still showing the process. Liked it when they got e-mails saying that someone’s relative finally reached out for help because of what they’d seen on the show.

  Mark and Josh agreed with him there, but it was still a pain in the ass.

  The door opened and their office manager, Tracy Porter, walked in. She and Mark had gone to high school together, and he was best friends with her husband.

  She pulled up short. “Oh, don’t tell me. Another episode has revealed itself.”

  Mark and Josh shared a look. “Dang, she’s good,” Josh said.

  “That’s why we pay her the big bucks,” Mark joked.

  She set her things down on her desk and walked over, her hand out, fingers waggling. “Gimme.”

  Mark handed over the notepad. She chewed her bottom lip as she read through his notes before handing them back. “Wow,” she quietly said. “I always hate it when a death triggers it. Extra layer of epic fail for the family to deal with.”

  She knew as well as they did that it was easier for the process when the person doing the hoarding willingly wanted to change. It compounded the tragedy when something like a death forced the issue.

  “Yeah,” Mark said. “I know.”

  Tracy returned to her desk and powered up her computer.

  “I wish I could figure out why the name sounds so familiar,” Mark said again. “It’s driving me crazy.”

  “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Josh said. “That was the family’s name.”

  Tracy didn’t look up from her computer. “What was the daughter’s first name again?”

  Mark looked at the page. “Essline.”

  She tsked and shook her head at him. “Idiot,” she teased. “Essie. How could you forget her? We went to school with her. She was in my English class sophomore year. We all went out to the movies together one day senior year. You were panting over her. And you spent the better part of a year pining for her.”

  He froze, staring at her name. “Essie?” He stared at his notes again. “Holy crap,” he muttered. Now it hit him.

  How could I have forgotten her?

  “Yeah.” Tracy swiveled her office chair to face him, concern in her expression. “We don’t have to take the case if you don’t want to,” she gently said.

  His notes seemed to scream at him, the black ink on lined, pale yellow paper in his face like DayGlo neon.

  “No,” he quietly said. “We have to. If they’ll let us.”

  Chapter Two

  Essie found herself sitting in the Starbucks inside the gate area at Spokane International a little
before ten that morning. She still had an hour before her flight. Amy had taken her by the Verizon store first, so Essie could replace her phone. Then Amy had dropped her at the airport on her way to work.

  She rubbed her finger up and down up the outside of her venti order of Pike’s Peak—black—staring at her bare, neatly filed nail as she dragged it across the cup’s smooth surface.

  Just the thought of having to step inside that house again sent an itchy, crawling sensation wriggling up and down her spine.

  The good news was, her mother was safe. Essie had called her at the friend’s house once she’d gotten her replacement cell phone. She’d given her mom the number, as well as told her approximately when she’d arrive.

  The bad news was, as Essie recalled the conversation with the inspector, her mother would lose her home to condemnation unless they got it cleaned out. Worse, the county could possibly have her committed, seizing her assets to pay for her care, if Essie didn’t step in and do something.

  Why should it be up to me to do something?

  Her father didn’t want her help while he was alive, and her mother never stood up to him despite her quietly siding with Essie.

  Still, something inside her couldn’t stand by and not at least reach out once more. One more time.

  One last attempt to reconnect.

  Now that Edgar Barrone no longer ran the show.

  But it was going to suck. Big-time. And she knew it.

  After she finished her coffee, she threw the cup away, shouldered her carry-on, and headed for the gate area. For the first time in her adult life, she regretted moving away from Florida.

  If I’d stayed there, I could have driven home. Been there this morning for Mom. Or maybe forced Dad to get some help before it came to this.

  As she settled into one of the chairs at the gate area and dug her Kindle out of her bag, Essie tried to shove that thought out of her head. This wasn’t her fault, and logically she knew that.

  I’m not the first estranged adult child to move far from home.

  Hell, if it hadn’t been for her stellar grades in high school, she wouldn’t have been able to attend school at UF in Gainesville, earning a full-ride scholarship, including housing.

  And college in Gainesville had been a blessed relief. Freedom. Control.

  A dorm room, shared with Amy, which was always neat and tidy and company-ready.

  Amy’s grandparents had retired to Jacksonville from Washington state several years earlier. She’d actually accrued enough high school credits she could have graduated early, but opted to move in with them for her senior year, earning her residency status and a lower tuition rate at UF, her school of choice.

  Before Essie lost herself in the erotic ménage romance she was currently reading, she glanced at her new cell phone and realized it was practically dead already. The battery had been less than half-charged when it came out of the box.

  Moving to a seat at one of the workstation counters, she switched the phone off and hooked it to the charger before plugging it in. Her mom had promised to call and leave a voice mail if she had to call before Essie arrived in Florida. By the time her flight was called to begin boarding, the phone had reached full charge.

  She took a deep breath as she queued to board. She tried to stay positive, to think good thoughts.

  This will be okay. I will get my mom back.

  Even as the ticket agent scanned Essie’s boarding pass before she could step onto the Jetway, Essie said a silent prayer to a god she didn’t believe in that those words would come true.

  * * * *

  With the time difference, it was after eight o’clock that muggy May evening when Essie stepped out of the Tampa International terminal in search of the rental car counter. So much had changed since she’d last been there, including the airport itself. Purple light painted the landscape as she finally got her rental car pointed west over the Howard Frankland Bridge across Tampa Bay. She’d had a voice mail when she powered up her phone again upon getting in the car, but didn’t recognize the number so she didn’t play it.

  She pulled over at the northern rest area on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to use the restroom and settle her nerves. After she was back in the car, she played the message.

  “Hi, Essie. I don’t know if you remember me, but it’s Mark Collins. We, uh, went to school together. Jack Davis called me in on, uh, the case with your mom. I know you’re probably in the air now, but please call me when you get this, even if it’s late. I’d like to discuss the options with you. Our company specializes in situations like this.”

  He hesitated. “I’m really sorry about your father. I wish this was under better circumstances.” He listed two phone numbers, one matching the one on the caller ID. “That’s the office and my personal cell. Please, even if it’s late when you get in, call me, okay? I’ll be up ’til at least midnight. If nothing else, I’d like to know if there’s anything I can do for you as a friend.”

  She saved the message and noted his phone numbers in her contacts, her heart in her throat.

  Remember him?

  Hell, she never could forget him. Him, or his two hunkalicious older brothers. In high school, she’d mistakenly thought she could have something resembling a normal life if she devoted herself to studying as much as she could at the library or went out with friends. She’d secretly liked Mark from afar since her sophomore year, eventually meeting him through her friend and classmate, Tracy. And then they’d gone to a movie together one night, a bunch of them.

  She’d had the time of her life.

  When her father had insisted on her bringing Mark home to meet them before he’d let her go out with him again, she’d taken the coward’s way out and told Mark she couldn’t see him again.

  There was no way in hell she was bringing anyone home to her house. The last thing she wanted was for her secret to get out. As a teenager, she’d been terrified of being kicked out of the only home she had, as disgusting as it was. Her room, and the bathroom she and her mom used, were the only functional rooms in the house. The kitchen was barely useable.

  Her father had filled the rest of the house with junk, stuff he got everywhere, some of it bought at yard sales or flea markets or found on the side of the road.

  The only good thing she could say about her dad was he had provided a roof over her head, food on the table, and clothes on her back. As she’d grown older and realized none of her friends lived the way they did, and began to understand why her parents, especially her mother, never allowed anyone over to the house, it made sense.

  At least he hadn’t fought her and her mom about throwing away obvious garbage, so they didn’t have insects and rodents sharing the house with them. There were countless times she’d come home from school to find her dad had tried to “store” stuff in her room. She’d immediately throw it away, or move it into another room. It happened to the point she’d begged her mom to allow her to put a lock on her door.

  Which her father had overruled.

  Of course.

  I bet I can’t even get into my old room now.

  She’d done a good job over the past sixteen years of avoiding the “what if” train of thought. First she had college and a part-time job to distract her. When she moved to Spokane after graduating from college, she had a full-time job to distract her. Amy had introduced her to her friends out there, and she’d basically been adopted by the whole Lionel clan.

  She’d dated off and on, but had never found a guy she could be with long enough to either make it past her exacting standards, or who would put up with her control freak ways.

  She was also weird in that she was the only vet tech at the animal hospital without any pets. She loved animals.

  But she didn’t feel ready for pets. For the responsibility of them.

  For the emotional investment they required.

  Her secret fear that something inside her might snap and instead of one cat, she’d end up with thirty of them.

  As she s
tared at her phone, she made her decision. She’d wait to call Mark Collins until after she saw her mom.

  Switching her phone to map mode, she punched in the address of her parents’ house and pointed the car south again. Everything, including the rest of her life, would be on hold until she got to her mom and assessed the situation she had to deal with.

  * * * *

  All morning, Mark tried to focus on his work and not on the ghosts of what might have been. When lunchtime rolled around and he realized how obsessively he was checking his cell phone for missed calls, or how his heart started thumping when the office phone rang, he realized he needed to get out of the office.

  He was heading for the front door when Josh called out to him. “Going to lunch?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Hang on. I’ll go with you.”

  It wasn’t really what Mark had wanted, but he found himself waiting for his older brother anyway. Ted still hadn’t come in yet, wouldn’t be there until later in the day.

  They took Mark’s car and went to a small family-owned pizza joint that they frequented a couple of blocks from their office. It was only May, and already heat shimmers sizzled off the pavement, bouncing Sarasota sunshine back at them from the ground as they crossed the blacktop parking lot and walked into the air-conditioned restaurant.

  “You’ve been distracted all morning,” Josh said.

  Josh was only two years older than his own thirty-four, with Ted two years older than Josh. Both divorced, he and Josh shared a house. Ted, also divorced, had a small apartment near their office.

  “A little,” Mark admitted.

  “Well?”

  Mark played with the paper wrapper for his straw. “I keep thinking about Essie Barrone.”

  “Oh, boy. I was afraid of that.”

  “Don’t give me any crap.”

  “You were in high school, dude. That was, what, sixteen years ago?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Josh shook his head. “I thought you quit thinking about her when you met Carolyn.”

  “I did. Until today.”