Page 34 of Devil in the Details

The caller was Caleb.

“I took your advice,” he said without preamble, and she blinked.

“‘Advice’?”

“About the Porsche,” he explained. “The mechanics at the dealership couldn’t find anything wrong with it, so that means our little friends were having fun at my expense. Anyway, I sold it and bought a Mercedes. Nice and low-key.”

Delia wanted to smile at the idea of a Mercedes somehow being low-key, but she thought she knew what he was trying to say. “I assume it isn’t red or bright yellow?”

“Nope,” Caleb said cheerfully. “Dark gray. And it’s a mid-level model, which means there should be plenty of others driving around town. I sold the Porsche at one dealership and then took a cab to buy the Mercedes, and it doesn’t look as if anyone was paying attention to what I was doing. So I think we might have given them the slip.”

She certainly hoped so. Spending half your time looking over your shoulder was no way to live.

“That’s good news,” she replied. “And I’m taking care of all my chores now, so I’ll be a complete free agent this afternoon.”

“Great.” A pause, and then he asked, “Do you want me to come pick you up?”

Maybe it would have been safer for them to take separate vehicles. On the other hand, she wanted to see his new car — partly so she could determine for herself that it was as inconspicuous as Caleb claimed — and she had to admit there hadn’t been any sign of the demons poking around her house, or his new one. Having him drive seemed innocuous enough.

“That would be great. What time?”

“I’ll come by around three-thirty, since I need to be at the casino a little before the official start time to sign in and do that kind of stuff.”

Delia knew she’d have the laundry finished by then — she’d slipped in the first load on her way out to her house showing — so she only said, “Sounds good. I’ll be ready.”

“See you then.”

He ended the call, and she put her phone back down on the counter. While they were speaking, she’d wondered if she should have said anything about Aegis Holdings and what Pru had been able to dig up so far.

Which admittedly wasn’t much.

All the same, there didn’t seem to be much point in mentioning any of it unless Aegis ended up making the highest offer on the house. And since Delia hadn’t heard a peep out of Evan Matthews for several days, it seemed much more likely that someone else would snap up the place.

As with so many other things in life, real estate was more of a waiting game than anything else. And until she had something concrete to give Caleb, she figured she might as well leave it alone.

With the last qualifying round coming up in just a few hours, she knew he had much more important things to occupy his mind.

Chapter Nine

Although he hadn’t said anything to Delia about what she should wear to the tournament, he should have known she’d pick exactly the right thing. Skinny jeans, a silky top in a soft blue-green that only made her red hair stand out that much more, sandals with a bit of a heel but not enough to make her look as if she was tottering around the way some women did when they slipped on a pair of stilettos that were way too high.

No, she was just effortlessly beautiful in a way that made him want to stand there and stare and drink in every single detail of her appearance.

However, he had a feeling that doing so wouldn’t win him any points, not when she was so relentlessly trying to keep him in the friend zone.

“What do you think?” he asked as she followed him out to the driveway where the new Mercedes was parked.

“Very nice,” she observed. “Beautiful, but understated.”

“And not rare in the slightest,” he said as he opened the passenger door for her. “In fact, I saw two of this same model while I was driving over here.”

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Same color?”

He couldn’t help smiling in return. “Well, one of them was.”

She chuckled, and he went around to the driver’s side of the car and lowered himself into the seat. A brief pause while he checked the mirrors — he’d already set up the automatic seat position at the dealership, but he didn’t think he’d gotten the mirror angles just right — and then he backed out of her driveway and headed toward the feeder road that led out of the development where she lived.

From there, it was about a fifteen-minute trip to the casino. During the drive, they talked about cars…she wanted to know why he’d opted for a Mercedes over a BMW, and although he didn’t have a very good explanation as to why he’d made the decision, he found himself saying, “I suppose it’s because there was a Mercedes dealership closer to the place where I sold the Porsche. Trying to keep those cab fares as low as I can.”

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