Chapter 2
Eat the Rich
WINONA
Any last remnants of fuzziness from making Sarah happy were long gone as I headed up toward the most exclusive neighborhood in Quince Valley. Flo, my beloved if not slightly quirky plumbing van, protested with a loud moan on the incline.
I grimaced. “I know, girl. The Hills don’t agree with me either.”
Quince Valley was known for its gorgeous valley views, quaint downtown, and red iron bridge spanning the river.
One side of the valley was dominated by the Rolling Hills resort I’d just left, and its sprawling golf course.
On this side, the low brick buildings and gingerbread houses of the downtown core slipped away, the properties expanding and houses set farther and farther back from the road.
But up here at the very top, I couldn’t see any houses at all; the mansions hiding fully behind gates and walls.
The Hills was a favorite locale for not just rich townies, but the uber-wealthy, too.
Business magnates, movie stars, and other folks with more money than sense who liked hiding away in a place still only a relatively close jaunt to major cities like New York and Montreal.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like money. I’d been tucking it away for years. Don’t you ever do what I did, baby, my mama had told me in an urgent whisper from her hospital bed. Your money, your life. I just didn’t trust people who had so much of it.
“You have arrived,” my phone announced.
I pulled to a stop. I’d done that thing where I barely remembered getting here.
Yet here I was, in front of a driveway leading to a massive black gate set between giant concrete pillars.
Trees emerged over the top of the gapless gate, but that was all I could see.
The wall was so long it took up the whole block.
Good lord. This wasn’t just a regular rich client.
This looked like the biggest, most imposing place in the Hills.
I gripped the steering wheel with sweaty palms. But I wasn’t going to back down just because of some nerves. I’d learned how to muscle through those years ago. No one controlled me. Ever.
I rolled down the window next to the intercom, which looked like a black tablet on a thin pole poking out of the perfectly manicured grass.
The tablet was so glossy I could see my reflection perfectly.
My cheek was streaked with grease. And was that a dust bunny in my hair?
I plucked it out, but my image disappeared before I could inspect anything further, replaced with another woman’s face.
She was pretty, with a tight chignon but warm smile.
I went to return it with a hello, but as she blinked, her eyelids blurred.
I bit my tongue. She was a computer-generated image. But she looked uncannily real.
“Hello,” the woman said, smiling benignly. “I’m Anita.”
“Um, hi, Anita.” I felt like a damn fool. I didn’t like computers. I was much better with real people. Still, I cleared my throat. “Winona Chalmers, Heartbreaker Plumbing. You—uh, your human—called?” Your human?
The computer was unfazed. “Welcome, Winona.”
The black gate sprang to life, gliding open in near silence.
“God love your cotton socks,” I muttered as I rolled up the window and put the van back into drive.
It was still warm, bordering on hot for mid-September.
But the temperature seemed to drop the moment I crossed the wall.
I’d entered a dark forest, with trees stretching skyward like giant sentinels, their canopy blotting out the sun; their trunks draped in shadow.
It felt less like I was heading to a house and more like I was about to encounter a mysterious, cursed castle.
It was a good five-minute drive, where I strongly considered turning back. More than once. But suddenly, the trees fell away.
I couldn’t help but ogle at the scene before me.
The grounds were less like a private residence and more like a park—lush grass dotted with hedge animals, albeit a little overgrown, and a massive fountain topped with a tangled metal sculpture so tall I had to tilt my head back to see it all as I passed it.
The residence itself looked like a massive concrete box, with only a few small windows on the top floor.
I thought of my place back downtown—a creaky old Victorian I’d inherited from a great-aunt of my mom’s.
While the plumbing was top of the line, everything else was tired. An embarrassment compared to this.
Cassandra’s future brother-in-law was clearly a millionaire. Maybe a multi-millionaire.
Must be nice.
I followed the discreet low lawn sign to the service driveway along the side of the house to where it ended in a small parking area. I hopped out of Flo and headed around to her backside to grab my tools.
Maybe I should take better care of my house.
My cranky next-door neighbor, Mrs. Moody, was always making snide remarks about it.
But all my extra cash these days went to the boys’ college and practicum expenses, or the startup fund for my new project.
Plus, I never thought I’d stay there after my brothers moved out, which they did last year, making me an empty nester at the ripe old age of 32.
In my twenties, while cosplaying as a parent at PTA meetings and soccer practice, I used to daydream of eventually moving out of the place we inherited from my great-aunt.
I’d thought for sure I’d be swept away by some sweet Prince Charming once the boys were grown.
A schoolteacher, maybe. Someone calm and level-headed. Handsome, but not showy.
But one had to actually date to get swept away, which was not something I cared to make time for.
I was far too cautious for casual sex, and getting entangled in something more long-term took time and energy already allocated to work.
But even before launching this new venture, I’d been far more interested in reading about romance than dealing with it myself. It was safer that way.
As I slammed Flo’s back doors shut, I couldn’t help wishing I was at home reading a romantasy now instead of being up here at this modern-day castle that had to be ruled by some kind of evil villain. Or whatever Sarah meant by ‘he’s kind of off’.
I looked around for a service door, but there was nothing visible in the slab of wall before me. I didn’t even know where to knock.
“Hello?”
Cool fingers danced down my spine. I was extremely alone up here.
I hadn’t seen a soul, not even a sign of one.
Shouldn’t there be staff milling around?
Sarah had said she’d made the arrangements with some kind of assistant, but that was all I got from her before she had to hang up for her ornery boss.
Finally, I walked around to the front of the house, reaching for my phone to call her as I mounted the front steps. But just as I got the thing in my hand, the front door—a giant slab of artfully rusted metal that perfectly matched the fountain—swung open.
For a moment, I stood still, worried I’d triggered some kind of trap.
Ridiculous. But I didn’t trust this echelon of humanity one bit.
The door had opened into an empty foyer with glossy concrete floors and trimless white walls. A colorful abstract painting bigger than Flo dominated the one opposite where I stood. But I was still alone.
I squared my shoulders against the urge to turn around. “Hello?” I called again.
“Hello, Winona.”
I startled. But I recognized the computer woman’s voice. Anita.
“Please come in,” Anita said.
Unlike back at the driveway, I couldn’t see Anita’s face anywhere.
But her voice came from…everywhere, in perfect surround sound.
Anita, I realized, was the house itself.
I swallowed as I had a vision of my brother Ryan’s favorite movie, the old classic Terminator, where technology becomes sentient. And violent.
“For the love of—” I forced myself to step inside.
“This way,” Anita said, her voice projecting to my right.
I was so low-tech I didn’t even own an e-reader. I only had a cellphone for my business. Yet here I was following a robot into—I sucked in a breath as I rounded the corner—into a proper, honest-to-God mansion.
Three stairs led down to a massive living room, where rich brown leather furniture sat around an enormous gas fireplace.
To my left, a granite kitchen bigger than my whole house gleamed.
But what really took my breath away was the far wall.
It was all glass, stretching so high up I couldn’t see the top from under the entryway ceiling, revealing an infinity pool, pool house, and sweeping views of the Quince Valley beyond.
The views were incredible. But my trade brain reeled.
How’d they haul a single piece of glass that size up here?
And why did it feel like no one actually lived here?
My phone buzzed in my hand. I jumped, nearly dropping it. But when I saw it was Sarah’s personal cell on the screen, I let out a breath.
“You better tell me what the bejesus is goin’ on here, girl,” I whispered. “Am I doing a repair or a B&E?”
“Sorry, I have more details now,” Sarah said in my ear. “So, apparently, it’s all automated. The service door requires a retina scan, so just go in the front. The door will open when you speak. Isn’t that cool?”
I did not think that was cool, and I was still boggling over the eye scan thing. In another of Ryan’s movies, someone used a person’s ripped-out eyeball to get a door to open. But I managed to let her know I was already inside.
“Oh, okay, good. The assistant sent me a floor plan pointing out the bathroom needing the repair.”
“So, I’m really just supposed to wander around in here on my own?”
“Yeah, I guess maybe the owner’s not around? I’m sending it now.”
My phone buzzed as her email arrived.