Chapter Eight Isabella
“Tell me everything I need to know about that house,” Twizz says as I park my car outside of the real estate office.
“Like?”
“Like everything from soup to nuts, starting with when it was built and who built it. How many times has the ownership turned over.”
“You can find all of that out on Zillow.”
“Yes, but there are backstories that aren’t on Zillow. Did someone die on the job? How about a former resident?”
“Those houses are twenty years old. How would I know if anyone died on the job? In North Carolina, the seller doesn’t have to disclose if anyone died in the house.”
“That house has a history, and it doesn’t want the current residents there. I’d like to know why.”
“Why would you say that?” I ask, getting out of my car and closing the door, along with my mind for thinking there might be any chance that Twizz isn’t bat-shit crazy.
“Because it’s true.” Twizz is out of the car and next to me in no time.
“Explain.”
“All I can say is that the house has its own energy. I mean, you go inside a lot of houses, don’t you feel the difference walking in them?”
“No.” I swipe my card over the sensor that unlocks the office door and turn to Twizz, ready to say goodbye. “I see a house and feel the temperature the thermostat is set to. Along with that, I may feel humidity or lack thereof.”
Considering how close Twizz is to me, I think he plans on following me inside. Time to shut that down because I’m no longer comfortable being alone with him.
“Twizz, it’s time for you to go home.”
“I don’t think you understand.”
“I think I understand quite well. You want to move here with your employer, or your master, or your friend, whatever you want to call him, so you terrified a perfectly happy–”
“You don’t know that they’re happy.”
“And you don’t know that they’re not. Except now they almost certainly aren’t, and that’s because you convinced them that their house is haunted.”
“I didn’t convince. I suggested. I may have led them to believe that other houses in their area may or may not be haunted. But I said nothing about their house; they did.”
“And to force their hand into selling, you’re going to what? Pay them to allow you to set up fake equipment in their home and falsify evidence that the house,” she makes air quotes around the word house, “is indeed haunted?”
“Can I tell you something?” He leans against the door jamb.
“The husband’s mother died a few weeks ago.
She left them the family house he grew up in, and he wants to move back.
Since she died, the fan in the living room has been spinning even though there’s no power going to it.
The thing that’s going to convince them to move is guilt. ”
“Why didn’t you say that?”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. You wanted to make me the bad guy. Maybe I am, but it doesn’t change the fact that moving out of that house is what’s actually best for that family.”
Now I feel a twinge of guilt.
“Since you seem to be uncomfortable with me, I’ll leave now. Do your due diligence and pull comps to that house and get an attorney in order. Anything and everything we need for a quick sale.”
He’s crazy. There’s no way those people are going to rush into selling a house like that.
And if they do, it might get swept up before I even know of it.
This isn’t the only real estate office in this town, and that house is technically three towns over.
There are plenty of other realtors to go with before me.
“Twizz!” I call out to him as he turns and takes a step away.
Twizz continues to take backward steps as his eyes meet mine and a smile crawls over his lips.
“Don’t worry, my beautiful Isabella, I promise I’ll return.”
I nod my head and continue to watch as he presses his middle and ring fingers to his lips, holds them out toward me, and blows.
Time and space away from this man is the best thing for me.
Now he has my imagination spinning yarns.
If I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d swear I felt his blown kiss land right on my lips.