Housesitter (Renfield Concierge Services #1)

Chapter One

Hell House Client Brief: The thing in the attic is mostly dormant...I think.

Shepherd pulled into the curb outside the Seal of Approval, behind a small, bottle-green scooter with the shop logo displayed on the panniers, and parked.

He got out of the minivan, pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head, and squinted at the shop.

Today’s special was a Lavender Mocha with a ham and provolone cinnamon bagel for fifteen dollars.

So it was bougie. That was promising.

It wasn’t for Shepherd. Bad coffee and celibacy had been two of the three main reasons he’d run away from the cult he’d grown up in.

Shepherd absently reached up to rub his throat, the clot of raised scar tissue over his collarbone slick and itchy under his fingertips.

The fact his ‘family’ was about to sacrifice him to the Lady of the Furrow before they were interrupted by the FBI’s raid on the property did have a strong lead on first place.

Still, the coffee and celibacy had been hard pills to swallow too.

These days he avoided both when he could.

Shepherd locked the minivan and stuck the keys in the pocket of his shorts and headed into the shop.

The bells over the door rang as he pushed it open. A barista was in the middle of the shop, bucket between her feet, as she swilled away at footprints on the tiles. She looked up and gave Shepherd a quick once-over, one eyebrow quirked with interest by the time she got to his face.

“Hi,” she said and plunked the mop into the bucket with a wet squelch. “I haven’t seen you around here before. Tourist?”

Shepherd blinked at her for a moment. He missed New York already.

Nobody there cared where he was from or why he was there.

Most of the time they didn’t even notice him.

That was how he liked it. It was one reason he didn’t like taking jobs out of the city.

Unfortunately, his wallet didn’t much care what he liked, and travel contracts paid better.

“Not exactly,” he said. “I’m here for a couple of weeks.”

The bucket was on wheels. It squeaked over the floor as the barista dragged it with her to the counter. She propped it against the wall and left it there as she grabbed a clean apron to pull on.

“Airbnb?”

Shepherd fished his wallet out of his pocket and wrinkled his nose as he considered the answer. “Kinda?”

The barista—Emily, from her name tag stitched onto the apron—leaned one hand on the bar. She cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows.

“That’s the sort of thing you should really be sure of,” she said lightly. “What would you like? Today’s special—”

“I saw,” Shepherd interrupted her. “No. Thanks. Just a vanilla latte. To go.”

She nodded, grabbed a cardboard coffee cup from beside the till, and turned her back to get to work on his order. Once she had the grounds slotted into the espresso machine, she looked back over her shoulder at Shepherd.

“The soup of the day is Bloody Mary and Pumpernickel,” she said, pointing to the big, silver tureen being warmed over gas on the counter. “If you’re hungry.”

He wasn’t, but it did sound…not good; he’d not go that far…but interesting. Especially considering Shepherd’s line of work.

“Another time.”

Emily shrugged. “No skin off my nose,” she said. “I didn’t make it.”

She hummed absently to herself as she finished the coffee, slapped a plastic lid on the cup, and turned around.

“Here you go,” she said brightly as she popped the cup into a cardboard holder and pushed it over the counter toward him. “Sure you don’t want anything else?”

“Directions?” he asked as he pulled out his wallet and fished out a twenty for her. She plucked it out of his fingers, and he added, “Keep the change.”

She lifted both eyebrows in surprise as she checked the denomination.

“The coffee is only four dollars,” she said. “Directions are free. Like the napkins.”

“I like to make a good impression,” Shepherd said with an easy grin. “And get to where I’m going.”

Emily leaned over the counter, elbows braced and fingers laced together.

“And where is that?” she asked.

Shepherd patted himself down until he found the pocket that rustled.

He dipped his hand in and came up with a folded-over bit of hotel notepaper.

Renfield’s usually managed a slightly more detailed onboarding packet—little flourishes like ‘an address the satnav recognized’—but that was probably still with the contractor who’d let the company down.

Shepherd was just filling in on this one, and pinch-hitters got an address over the phone.

The client manager had assured him that he’d find a full briefing and run sheet already on site.

He unfolded the note, laid it flat on the counter, and pushed it over toward Emily.

“Here,” he said.

She was ready to say something flirty—Shepherd could see it on her face—but she changed her mind when she read the address. Her expression turned sour as she folded the paper back up, set the crease with her thumbnail, and handed it back toward him.

“What are you?” she asked. “One of those paranormal investigators? Because trust me, my boss gets wind of that and you won’t be welcome back here for any more coffee.”

Shepherd laughed. “With the night vision goggles and the EMP meters?”

“EMF.”

Shepherd ignored the correction. He wriggled the coffee out of the tray and took a drink. It wasn’t bad. He wiped his thumb over his mouth and shook his head.

“I don’t believe in that sort of thing,” he said. “I’m just here to do some house-sitting.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“At Marble House?” she said. “You’re house-sitting for the Maddens?”

Just Dio Madden. No ‘s’ involved. At least, that was the information that Shepherd had been provided. They could have been left out, though. As previously mentioned, he’d not gotten the usual in-depth rundown on the job.

Shepherd shrugged at Emily.

“I’m staying at this address,” he said and picked the bit of paper up. It went back into his pocket. “If I ever find it?”

Emily picked up a cloth and busy-work wiped down the counter in front of her. She focused on fastidiously collecting crumbs and drops of foam into a tidy pile instead of on Shepherd.

“No one goes there,” she said stiffly.

“The mailman skips it?”

“No! Obviously not,” Emily snapped. She looked up long enough to glare at Shepherd from under her bangs. “No one wants to go there. It’s a bad place, like cursed bad. It was this, like, mental hospital or—”

“That’s OK,” Shepherd cut her off. “I just need directions, not to give my bad dreams any ideas.”

She sucked her cheeks in and then rolled her eyes.

“You’re going to regret it,” she warned him.

“Everybody hates that place. Before Mr. Madden came back and renovated it, kids used to spend the night there as a dare. Some of them never came out. Plus, there's this contractor guy who’s on the HOA, and he’s convinced the house is a code violation.

He’s been trying to get it condemned before someone else dies. ”

Her voice dropped portentously on the last line as she made eye contact with Shepherd. He scratched his jaw, stubble noisy as he scraped his nails over it.

“If you don’t know, I can ask someone else.”

Emily sighed heavily but grabbed a napkin and a pen from the till.

Shepherd had figured that would do it. Small-town economy. Sales or gossip, the principle was the same. No one wanted to let a competitor get first crack at one.

“We’re here,” she said, and doodled a blob that might have been a coffee cup onto the paper. A flick of the pen indicated the road outside before she went back to the napkin. “You want to drive down the road, turn on…”

Shepherd nodded his way through the ‘pink bench’ and ‘best burgers in town’ flourishes. Most of the middle bit went in one ear and out the other, but he’d always found that as long as you knew where to start and where to stop, the rest worked itself out.

“You can’t miss it,” Emily said as she narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s the one with an aura of evil… and the front door is cobalt blue.”

“Thanks,” Shepherd said cheerfully. He lifted the coffee in a toast. “See you tomorrow.”

“I don’t work tomorrow,” Emily said, with a sniff that implied she wasn’t sorry about that.

“I was talking to the espresso machine,” Shepherd said.

He turned to go and had just pulled the door open when Emily cleared her throat behind him.

“You know what they call that place?” she asked.

“123 Marble Road?”

“The Hell House,” Emily said dramatically. “Because there’s a portal straight to Hell in that place.”

“Yeah, well,” Shepherd said as he stepped out onto the pavement. “Unless it needs watered, that’s not my problem.”

And if it did, the services packet had better cover it. If it didn’t, Shepherd wasn’t taking responsibility for anything drying up, closing up, or getting overfed. He did what he was told. In his experience, no one thanked you for showing initiative.

He left Emily looking confused and headed back out to his minivan. As he got in, he realized that Shithead had gotten out of the crate and onto the passenger seat while he was inside. Flat blue eyes stared a dumb challenge at Shepherd as he got into the car.

“It’s up to you,” Shepherd said as he got behind the wheel and started the engine. “I’m not buckling you in, though. If we get in an accident, you go through the window.”

If Shithead could have given him the finger, he was sure she would have. Since she couldn’t, she just sat there. Ominously.

As ominously as an old-fashioned Victorian doll with a snatched-bald head, a frilly blue dress, and only one leg could anyhow. Which was, in fairness, quite a lot. It was probably the faint smell of mildew.

“Up to you,” Shepherd said as he pulled out in front of a purple Toyota. He dropped the window and waved one arm out in a vaguely conciliatory gesture when the driver honked the horn at him. “You’re old enough and ugly enough to make your own choices.”