Page 56 of Speak of the Devil

Delia wished she could be that confident about the situation. Robert didn’t seem like the type to give up easily, or he wouldn’t have pressured her into working on the casino problem for another week.

Also, men who were pushovers generally didn’t end up in a corner office with a panoramic view.

“If you think so,” she said, and didn’t bother to keep the skeptical tone from her voice. “But I figured it was better if you knew how much information they actually have.”

“And I appreciate it,” Caleb replied with a smile. “It’s always good to know what your enemy is doing.”

Before she’d heard about the attempted car accident, she might have commented on his use of the word “enemy.” Now, though — even if she still wasn’t entirely sure whether the demons who’d targeted him were the same group as those who were trying to figure out who’d been gaming the system at the casinos — it seemed pretty clear to her that at least one person wanted to scare him off…if not remove him from the chessboard altogether.

“Since you’re over here,” he continued, now sounding almost diffident, “do you want to stay and have something to eat? Just something from DoorDash, but I assure you that I’m expert at ordering from them.”

A demurral rose to her lips, but then she took a good look at him. Most people would have said he still appeared casual enough, and yet there was something about the way he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes that told her he was more invested in her staying for dinner than he wanted to admit.

In that moment, she realized how lonely he really was.

And she certainly didn’t have anything on the docket except maybe sticking a quiche from Trader Joe’s in the toaster oven.It would be okay to stay here and provide a little company…wouldn’t it?

“Sure,” she said, hoping he hadn’t noticed her hesitation.

Maybe she was making a mistake.

She supposed she’d find out soon enough.

Chapter Seventeen

Caleb wasa little startled that Delia had actually agreed to stay for dinner, but he told himself it was probably because she didn’t have any other plans and figured she might as well get a free meal out of him.

No, that sounded like something he would do, not Delia. Whatever her reasons for hanging around, he wasn’t going to question them too closely.

So they ordered Thai and adjourned to the dining room once it arrived, and had what he thought was a friendly enough meal. She mentioned a few people who could help him make his money do more than just sit around, and even added that she’d keep an eye out for any properties that might be ripe for flipping.

“They don’t come up as often as they used to because the market is so competitive now,” she went on. “But still, every once in a while you can find a unicorn. And if it’s all cosmetic stuff and nothing major, you can sometimes turn things around in a month. People used to do that all the time because they wanted to make sure a place was sold before they had to make a mortgage payment.”

“But I’d be paying cash,” he pointed out, and Delia only smiled.

“I figured,” she said. “Still, you might be able to make fifty or sixty grand in only a month or so.”

Whereas at the gaming tables, he could make that much in a day without breaking a sweat. However, that avenue appeared closed to him…at least for now…so he knew he might as well entertain the idea of flipping a property or two in addition to buying T-bills or starting a stock portfolio or whatever else a financial advisor might instruct him to do. He supposed if he’d paid more attention to what his father did at the bank, he might know more about this sort of stuff.

However, he’d never wanted to work at the bank. His father had been pushing him into it at the end there, after his business in Southern California was concluded, but then they’d all been banished to Hell and that was the end of that discussion.

Silver linings, he supposed.

At the end of their meal, Caleb didn’t try to put a move on Delia — he had a feeling it wouldn’t be very well received — and instead just walked her out to her car and stood on the sidewalk for a moment, watching as she pulled away and then turned the corner, moving out to Pecos Road so she could head for home. Although she’d never told him, he knew exactly where that was, a neighborhood of larger homes that had been built in the late ’90s and which a lot of people were currently in the process of updating. The only photos he’d seen online of her house were the ones from when it had been up for sale, so he guessed it looked quite different now.

Somehow, he didn’t think she would have been too keen on keeping the wall-to-wall carpet or the white tile in the kitchen.

Maybe someday, if he could get her to relax a little more, she might invite him over.

In the meantime, he picked up the leftovers from their meal and put them in the fridge, then cleared away the empty plates and glasses and the bottle of wine. There was still a little bit ofpinot left, so he poured the remainder into his glass and headed back to the living room. Outside, the night was utterly clear, the swimming pool a glowing blue-green gem in the darkness, but he knew it was way too cold to go swimming.

No, he just sat down and turned on the TV mounted over the fireplace, feeling oddly deflated. If he hadn’t known that someone or something connected to the casinos was gunning for him, he might have headed out, thinking it would be a good idea to kill some time and refill his coffers at the gaming tables as well.

That particular avenue of amusement had been closed off to him, though.

And if it had been later in the week, he could have at least whiled away the rest of his evening by watching a football game, but that diversion had been denied him as well.

He drank the rest of the wine and went into the kitchen to rinse out his glass. True, he had pretty much every streaming channel known to man available on his Apple TV, and he’d also amassed a decent collection of Blu-Rays during his time in Las Vegas. It really shouldn’t have been that difficult for him to find some way to fill up the next couple of hours.

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