Page 54 of Speak of the Devil

A faint smile touched Robert Hendricks’ lips. “No, that was all. Thank you for coming over here at what I know must be the end of a long day.”

It had been long. Unfortunately, it wasn’t over yet.

She made a polite demurral, and after that, he walked her over to the door and thanked her again for coming. When she rode down the elevator, she realized she shouldn’t leave immediately, should make a show of wandering the casino floor and looking for their elusive demon gambler.

Who of course wasn’t even there.

But she still walked past the blackjack tables and the craps tables with their usual throngs of people hanging around and watching the moment’s latest high roller, wasting a good twenty minutes or so until she thought she’d spent enough time there that any report the security staff sent up to Robert Hendricks would show she’d done her due diligence.

Afterward, she went out to the parking lot and drove away. Once she figured she’d put some safe distance between her car and the Dunes — and after she’d nervously checked all her rearview mirrors, wondering if maybe he would have sent someone to tail her, ridiculous as that sounded — she waited for a convenient red light and then got her phone out of her purse.

Caleb picked up almost right away. “Hey, Delia. Did something come up?”

A fitting question, she supposed, since he probably would have assumed that after she gave him Raul Martinez’s contact information, she wouldn’t need to reach out for a while.

“Yes,” she said. “But I’d rather talk in person. Are you home?”

To her relief, he didn’t ask her why, only replied, “I am. Do you need the address?”

She did, because although she’d seen it on his paperwork, she hadn’t committed it to memory.

“That would help.”

He gave her the information, and she hurriedly programmed it into her nav.

“It’ll be about fifteen minutes,” she said.

“No worries. I’m not going anywhere.”

After she ended the call, she hoped she wasn’t interrupting his dinner. True, it was still a little early for that, but she had no idea what his schedule was like.

If he even had one. He seemed like one of those people who went where the wind took him — something that was a lot easier to do when you didn’t have a real job.

The streets were crammed, and she found herself drumming her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel whenever a red light took too long. Yes, Caleb had told her he wasn’t going anywhere, and he probably knew as well as anyone else that youcouldn’t control Las Vegas traffic, only do your best to coexist with it.

Eventually, though, she found herself winding through a neighborhood of older homes, most of which had been recently updated and restored. They were possibly a few years newer than the home he’d bought on Pueblo Street, but still very much mid-century in vintage and design.

In fact, the house she pulled up to felt oddly familiar, although she couldn’t say why, precisely. Maybe she’d seen it on the MLS or a sales flyer.

When he opened the door and let her in, however, and she took note of the boldly painted shelves in the living room and the fixture of sculpted LED lights that hung over the dining room table, it suddenly hit her.

“You bought one of theFlip or Flop Vegashouses?”

“I did,” Caleb said with a grin, ushering her into the living room so she could take a seat. “It was fully furnished and move-in ready, and I needed a home base, so I went for it. Drink? You look like you could use one.”

Drinking here alone with Caleb Lockwood didn’t seem like the best idea in the world.

On the other hand, it had been kind of a day.

“What’ve you got?”

“Pretty much anything,” he replied, still smiling. “Just don’t ask me to make a pousse café.”

Delia had no idea what that even was and figured it must be some kind of a private joke for him. “Some wine would be great.”

“Coming right up.”

She waited on the couch while he went into the kitchen. A few clinks that she guessed were the sounds of Caleb getting a pair of glasses out of the cupboard, and then the sound of a cork getting pulled out of a bottle.

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