Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Well, at least he knew Delia was okay, although Caleb still didn’t like the thought of her being down there in Laughlin all by herself.
Most of the time, he would have said she could handle pretty much anything that was thrown her way, but the last few months had been just crazy enough that he would have felt a lot better if he could have been there for backup.
He wasn’t, though. Rather than sit at home and brood, however, he’d looked up another of the Aegis Holdings houses that were going up for auction, not because he thought it was all that likely a prospect — the place was a townhouse, and the chances of making some serious cash on a home like that were a lot lower — but because he figured it was better than staying at his own house and doing nothing except fretting.
Also, he figured it couldn’t hurt to see who else was looking at the place, just in case any of them seemed suspicious.
When he did the walkthrough, though, he could tell the other people inspecting the property — a husband and wife team he thought he recognized from the same house he was actually interested in, a few solo people who snapped pictures and took notes — were all nothing more than they seemed to be, just regular humans out to make a buck.
Or at least, he was about ninety percent sure they were nothing more than they seemed.
He had to admit that his demon-detecting radar hadn’t been as accurate as he might have liked lately.
True, demons could be very good at hiding their natures, especially if they were several rungs up the ladder from the low-level demons Calach had sent after him in January, but still, Caleb thought he should have been able to catch at least a whiff of brimstone.
Nothing, though, and that meant he was driving home about an hour after he’d left, feeling vaguely unsatisfied and not sure what he should do with himself.
In more innocent times, he might have gone out and hit the casinos to pass the time and take the edge off his anxiety. After that clusterfuck at the Desert Paradise in March, however, he thought he might be happy if he never set foot in a casino again.
Besides, his investments were humming along, and with the prospect of flipping some properties in the near future, he knew he didn’t have to go out and make money by using his demonic powers to influence a set of dice or ensure that he made blackjack whenever he liked.
Maybe he really should take up golf.
His phone pinged at him just as the garage door was closing, and he turned off his Range Rover’s engine so he could slide the iPhone out of his pocket. A text from Delia.
Can you look this up and let me know what it is?
Obviously, there was supposed to have been an attachment, but he didn’t see anything. Possibly she’d goofed or — more likely — she had enough cell service to get a text out, but her carrier had decided the picture she’d tried to send was too much for the system to handle.
At least she’d texted him, though, which meant she must be fine.
Of course she was fine. She’d driven to Laughlin, not a town in the middle of the Sinaloa cartel’s territory or something.
He got out of the SUV and went into the kitchen. Cool air surrounded him, and he wondered if maybe he should have a beer to take the edge off. It was past three o’clock by that point, so he didn’t think anyone could give him too much grief over having a drink.
Delia first, though.
I got your message, but there wasn’t an attachment. Do you want to try sending it again?
While he waited for her to get back to him, he headed over to the fridge and pulled out a Voodoo Brewing brown ale, then cracked the tab and poured the beer into a pint glass. He swallowed some and looked down at his phone.
His text still showed as the last one in his and Delia’s convo.
Well, maybe she’d set her phone down somewhere, or maybe she was now enough out of range that even a text couldn’t get through.
That didn’t feel right, though. She was in Laughlin, Nevada, not out in the middle of nowhere. He might not have visited the town yet, but even he knew it was a big tourist destination and therefore should have plenty of cell capacity.
Had her battery died?
He dismissed that thought almost as soon as it passed through his mind. The whole time he’d known Delia — going on five months now — he’d never once seen her phone run out of juice. It was her connection to her clients, and she was very careful about keeping it fully charged.
No, the cell connection down there must be screwed up somehow.
Another glance at the phone didn’t reveal an answering text, which he’d already known. Still, he hated the thought of their one means of communication being completely unavailable.
An uneasy sensation inched its way down his spine.
What if it wasn’t the cell towers at all?
What if she was really in trouble?
Oh, shut up, he told his brain, but it continued to manufacture worst-case scenarios.
After all, he’d seen an angry spirit attack her in this very house — okay, out in the backyard — so he knew that ghosts weren’t always wispy blobs of vapor, entirely harmless.
What if an equally vengeful specter was haunting Aaron’s family’s house in Laughlin?
Would Delia even be equipped to handle that kind of assault?
She had holy water with her, but Caleb didn’t know whether that would be enough.
Damn it.
He picked up the phone and entered her number, since by this time, he had it memorized and this was faster than going to his contacts list. Three rings, and then he heard her standard message.
Hi, you’ve reached Delia Dunne. I’m sorry I missed your call —
An annoyed breath passed his lips, and he touched his finger to his iPhone’s screen to end the call.
Maybe that was rude, and he should have just left a message anyway, but the whole point of him reaching out was to talk to her personally and make sure she was okay.
If all he got was a recording, there didn’t seem to be any reason to stay on the line.
And if she was all right, then at some point she’d probably notice that he’d called but hadn’t left a message, in which case, she’d contact him anyway.
As much as he didn’t like it, there didn’t seem to be much he could do right now except sit and wait.
Even though it wasn’t even two o’clock in the afternoon and Aaron had opened all the drapes and blinds to let as much light in as possible, Delia still flicked on the lights in the stairwell as she made her way up to the second story.
True, the stairs were enclosed, so daylight didn’t help much, but it wasn’t as if she was going upstairs in the middle of the night or something.
All the same, the sconces on either side — unattractive things that she guessed had also been installed sometime in the 1980s — helped a little. Not all the way, because she could think of about a thousand places she would rather be, but it was still better than heading up there in the dark.
Okay, half-dark.
The stairs terminated in a landing with two doors facing her. One of them was a bedroom with nothing in it except a pair of empty white bookcases, and the other was a bathroom that looked fairly large, considering the age of the house.
Two more doors revealed two other bedrooms. The first looked to be about the same size as the one that faced the staircase, but the other was much bigger, obviously the master bedroom, even though it didn’t have an en suite bath.
Again, a lot of houses of this vintage didn’t have that amenity. Anyone who bought the place would have to deal with the setup as-is or figure out a way to steal some space from one of the other bedrooms to create a master bath and a decent-sized closet.
Not your problem, she told herself, but that was just how her brain worked.
After being in real estate for so many years and flipping a dozen or so houses along the way, the second she set foot in a place, she started assessing its strengths and weaknesses, trying to determine what should be updated and what might be left alone to save a little money.
Besides, thinking about harmless stuff like how to reconfigure the upstairs to fit the needs of a twenty-first-century family kept her from wondering about the entity that appeared to have taken up residence in the house…and how she was going to get it out of there.
The secondary bedrooms were mostly empty except for the odd bit of furniture inside, like the bookcase in the room that faced the stairs.
However, the main bedroom still had an entire suite of furniture — a four-poster bed, two nightstands, and a long dresser with a matching mirror that hung about it — as if no one had known exactly what to do with the outdated ensemble and had hoped maybe the new owners would want to keep it.
Fat chance of that.
All of the pieces had their share of scratches and dings, and besides, most people these days didn’t want matchy-matchy bedroom sets like the ones their parents and grandparents had preferred.
Delia moved farther into the room and stood there for a minute, doing her best to sense its energies. Again, she had that feeling of someone watching her, but nothing more than that. She certainly couldn’t tell if the presence was male or female.
Or even if it was human.
A shiver inched its way down her spine, even though it was probably about four or five degrees warmer up here than it had been on the ground floor, the swamp cooler straining against the ninety-degree temperatures outside.
“I’m here if you want to talk to me,” she said quietly, then waited.
Something went thump inside the closet.
Her heart made a valiant effort to leap into her throat, but she choked it down. She absolutely was not going to lose her shit in here, no matter how hard the ghost lurking in this house seemed to want to play with her.
Another swallow of air, and then she moved calmly over to the closet door — it was a sliding version, not a regular door with a walk-in space beyond — and pushed it aside.