Page 44 of Devil in the Details

Especially when it seemed as if there might not be a whole lot to find.

Annoyed, Caleb closed his laptop. He knew part of his current irritation stemmed from feeling utterly at loose ends, but he figured he could cure that easily enough.

It was still early, but in a town where the casinos ran 24/7, that wasn’t much of an impediment.

He grabbed his keys and headed out.

The house looked just about the way it had online — a pretty Mediterranean-style two-story that had been built in the early 1990s but had been subtly updated on the outside, just enough to show that the interior had also been renovated and wouldn’t be a ’90s flashback of white tile countertops and popcorn ceilings.

A sleek black motorcycle — a Ducati, she noted as she passed it by — was parked in the driveway, so Delia assumed her new client, whoever he was, waited for her inside.

Or at least, she thought it was probably a he. Sure, there was no reason to believe that a woman might not ride a sporty bike like the Ducati, but the vibe she was getting didn’t come across that way.

The front door was unlocked, so she let herself in. Standing in the empty living room was a man she thought she recognized.

Ty Carter, one of Caleb’s erstwhile competitors…and an individual who’d definitely pinged his demonic radar.

“Mr. Carter?” she blurted in shock, then realized she probably shouldn’t have let it slip that she already knew who he was.

However, he only smiled, as if summoning her like this was the most ordinary thing in the world. “You can call me Ty,” he said. “No need to stand on formality.”

He looked like he was probably a few years older than Caleb, so in his mid-thirties. His dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she guessed it would be a bit longer than his shoulders if he let it fall free. In contrast to his near-black tresses, his eyes were a bright blue, clear as desert skies at the peak of summer.

If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with more important matters, she might have thought Ty Carter was pretty spectacular. As it was, she could only stare at him in consternation.

“Why did you call me here?”

“To look at the house, of course,” he said imperturbably.

“You bought this house?” she returned, not sure whether he was joking.

“Not exactly.”

His expression remained utterly calm, so Delia had no idea what might be going through his head.

“If you didn’t ‘exactly’ buy it, then what are you doing here?”

“It’s haunted,” he said. “The buyers don’t know that, of course, but this place does have a resident spirit.” Ty paused there, those sky-colored eyes fixed on her face, as if to gauge her reaction. “I wanted to see how you work.”

This was insane. “If you’re not the buyer, then we’re trespassing.”

He shrugged. “There was still a lockbox on the door. I suppose the listing agent wanted to keep all her options open until escrow closed.”

Delia had to admit that sounded like something Jackie Villanueva would do. And since the house had a lockbox, that meant a licensed realtor could come in without any repercussions.

“So…you have a real estate license?” she asked next. “Because otherwise, how did you get the code to the lockbox?”

His expression remained neutral. Caleb hadn’t gone into details about how Ty Carter had lost in the qualifying rounds, but she guessed it hadn’t been due to his lack of a good poker face. For some reason, that annoyed her, probably because she would know better how to react if she could get even some sort of read of his emotions.

“It’s not so difficult to get that information if you know where to look,” he replied. “Anyway, I wanted to know if you could sense the ghost here.”

Delia planted her hands on her hips. “Not so far,” she said. “But the vibes in this room might be interfering with my ability to tell if there’s a ghost in the house or not.”

Maybe his lips quirked ever so slightly. “I’m sorry about the vibes, then. I’ll wait here in the living room while you explore.”

This was insane. Part of her wanted to turn around and walk right out of the house…but a bigger part wanted to see if there really was a ghost, or whether this was just some elaborate joke on Ty Carter’s part.

Except…why would he even do such a thing? He didn’t know her from Eve, so what was the point?

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