Charon's Crossing

He smiled tightly. The light began to shift and fade, as did he, until all that remained were dust motes, dancing in the fading rays of the sun.

Chapter 6

Kathryn was furious.

She'd been at Charon's Crossing for three days, and she had nothing to show for it.

No, she thought grimly, as she yanked a dustcloth and a spray-can of Pledge from under the kitchen sink, no, that wasn't true.

She had plenty to show for her stay. A clean kitchen, sanitized bathrooms, three broken fingernails and enough weird dreams to keep a New York shrink happy for the rest of his or her Freudian life.

"Damn," she muttered as she strode into the library.

This morning, she was going to dust the leather-bound books that lined the library shelves. Then she'd wax the furniture to within an inch of its life. And for an encore, she was going to drag all the Persian runners out to the terrace, spread them over the railing and beat the hell out of them with a broom.

Oh yeah. She was going to score a perfect 10 in housekeeping. Of course, that wouldn't change the fact that she'd scored a perfect zero when it came to doing what she'd set out to do when she'd taken a week out of her life and flown down here.

"Damn," she said again, and gave the closest books an angry swipe with the cleaning cloth. Dust erupted into the air. Kathryn jumped back but it was too late. Half a dozen explosive sneezes almost drove her back against the wall.

She flung the cloth to the floor, slapped her hands on her hips, and eyed the library as if it had turned into her own personal Rubicon.

What in hell was she doing?

She hadn't come to the island to turn into a housekeeper, she'd come to ready this miserable house for sale and to manage that, she was going to need help from an attorney who didn't pull a vanishing act, a realtor who gave a damn, and a contractor who really existed.

And she couldn't even tell anybody that, dammit, because her rental car hadn't turned up and her telephone might as well have been used for a doorstop.

Kathryn dropped down into the sagging depths of a flowered settee. Dust rose into the air but she ignored it.

Now what?

She lifted one bare leg, crossed it over the other, pointed her toes towards the ceiling and swung her foot from side to side.

As far as she could see, she had two choices. She could sit here like a lump and wait until Olive or Amos or the Invisible Repairman decided to put in an appearance. Or she could take matters into her own hands. It was, what? Five miles to town? Make that more like fifteen, along a road that twisted like a snake.

Well, so what? Surely, she wouldn't have to walk the whole distance. Once she went out the gate and down to the road, somebody would stop and give her a lift.

Kathryn smiled. She hadn't smiled much, the past few days, and it was surprising how good it felt.

She uncrossed her legs, slapped her hands on her thighs, and got to her feet.

Her days of being a prisoner in paradise were about to come to an end.

* * *

Taking a shower in Charon's Crossing was almost a duplicate of taking one back home.

You got undressed, you put on your robe, you went into the bathroom, you turned on the hot water... and you waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Eventually, the water got warm enough and you stepped beneath the spray.

Then you shampooed and soaped and scrubbed and rinsed without wasting so much as a second because you knew the hot water wasn't going to last much longer.

Talk about destiny! Was she going to go through life plagued by heating systems that just plain didn't want to do what they were supposed to do?