Page 84 of Once Upon a Fall

He leans forward in his chair. “Do you have a ladder, a tarp, and some peanut butter?”

“Peanut butter?”

He thinks about it for a second. “And marshmallows.”

“You can find the first two in the barn on the property. I’ll have to grab the other two for you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I think my mom has both in the pantry.”

“Um, okay.”

“How attached are you to the attic insulation?”

I’m not sure what that even means. “Not . . . very?”

He nods. “Good. Sometimes they nest in it, and if I have to pull any out, I’d rather know before I start.”

That sounded surprisingly competent.

“Do you know how they got in?” Luke asks.

“No idea,” I tell him.

“Could be the chimney,” he says. “But I’d bet on the roofline. Or the soffit, vent, loose fascia. Something like that.”

I make a mental note to have all that checked if this actually works, even if I still have no idea what a soffit is and have never heard the words loose fascia in my life. Maybe I should look that up.

“Any neighbors I need to worry about?” Luke asks.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I can let one of them know you’re coming.”

“Best not to,” he says. “The fewer people who know, the better.”

A trickle of unease moves down my spine.

“Are you sure this is legal?” I ask.

He thinks about that for a second. “It’s kind of one of those ask-forgiveness-later things.”

That doesn’t help at all.

This is exactly why I said I wanted someone insured. Multiple times, actually. And yet here I am, apparently hiring an uninsured twenty-something who needs a tarp, peanut butter, and marshmallows to remove a family of raccoons.

“What exactly are you planning to do?” I ask him.

He smiles. “First, I figure out where the mom is coming and going, and then I’ll convince her to leave.”

He shrugs, like it’s just that easy.

“Convince her how?” Does he plan to have a discussion with her? Hand her an eviction notice?

“That’s part of what the tarp is for,” he says.

“And the peanut butter and marshmallows?”

“Only if necessary.”

I sit back against the couch. “I’m not sure I’m following.”