Chapter 17 #2
Cloister tightened his grip on the handle as he gave her a look.
She batted her lashes at him. “For realtor emergencies,” she said innocently. “Signs and shit. Now, come on. You said this was important.”
He reluctantly ceded the bag. Elise slung it over her shoulder, gold chain strap glittering in the sun, and slammed the car door.
Her heels clicked on the sidewalk as she walked briskly toward the big shell-white McMansion she’d texted him the address to.
A sign in front advertised an Open House in three days, under a photo of Elise in an uncharacteristic blue blazer.
Cloister followed her. It hadn’t taken him long to find State of Mind Security online.
They had a website, a chatbot, and an email form, but no other way to contact them.
They did, however, have a list of their other clientele.
Mostly storage facilities and realtors, including Tancredi’s mom’s company.
He glanced around as they walked up the drive.
The two houses might have both been for sale, but this one didn’t look much like the hoarder’s house they’d found Tracy Joel in.
The front lawn was the sort of green that was only achieved by landscaping, studded with sprinklers despite the current water ban, and pavers underfoot were pristine and level.
But the lock on the front of the door that Elise was wrestling with was the same. Fresher, maybe, but the same black block with a biometric fingerprint lock.
“Sometimes,” Elise said, her voice falling into the familiar rhythms of an advertising slogan, “peace of mind only comes from state-of-the-art security solutions. Call State of Mind Security to get both. Only don’t.
They’re horrendous to work with. The only reason this is here is because my client is easily led and in the middle of a contentious divorce from both his wife and his mistress.
Both of whom he had living here on different days of the week. ”
She pressed her thumb to the lock. It blipped red at her. She heaved a restrained sigh and tried again, wriggling her thumb around to get a better reading. This time, the lock popped open.
“See?” she said as she unhooked the latch.
“Some days it won’t open at all, and I have to call for the company to do a remote override.
Which is fine, except the only person able to do that is supposed to be the owner.
But if you’re annoying enough, everyone from the receptionist to the security guard seems to be able to pull it off. And I am annoying enough.”
She stepped inside and paused, giving Cloister and Bon a once-over.
“Wipe your feet,” she told him. “And she has to wait outside. Sorry. But the wife owns the cameras, and if she sees a dog in here…”
She trailed off with a grimace of glossy red lips.
“It’s fine,” Cloister said. “She doesn’t like tiled floors much anyhow.”
He glanced at Bon. “Go play.”
She gave him a skeptical twitch of her ears. That wasn’t a command she heard often while she was geared up. When Cloister didn’t correct himself, she gave a quick tension-relieving sneeze and shook herself before she trotted off into the garden.
While she sniffed along the picket fence, which apparently meant nothing to the owner, Cloister carefully scraped his feet on the WELCOME mat before he stepped inside.
“Are they the only security firm that offers those locks?” he asked. “The biometric ones?”
“The only ones in town,” Elise said as she pulled open the top drawer in the dresser by the door.
Despite how nice the house was—and what Cloister assumed was an eye-watering price tag for said house—the drawer was just as overstuffed as the one that served the same purpose in Cloister’s kitchen.
Elise pulled out a screwdriver, a novelty condom keyring, and a crumpled pizza leaflet as she hunted through it.
“Like I said, I never use them. Most of us don’t.
Mind that vase, would you? It’s expensive. ”
Cloister glanced at the vase Elise had indicated.
It was shaped like a greyhound, with a scooped-out dish in its forehead.
He folded his arms to keep them out of trouble, feeling awkward about his size in a way he hadn’t since he was a kid and his elbows were in a different place every time he took a nap.
“I saw one on a house earlier today,” Cloister said.
Elise made a pleased sound as she pulled a flat beige envelope from the bottom of the drawer. “Where?” she asked as she turned around.
“Estrella Parks,” he said. “Near Buckthorn Road.”
Elise pursed her lips and sniffed. “That makes sense,” she said. “Was it a foreclosure?”
“Looked like it,” Cloister confirmed.