Page 58 of Devil in the Details

“I thought so, too,” Delia replied. Her stomach wouldn’t allow her to ignore the toothsome aroma rising from the slice on her plate any longer, so she picked it up and allowed herself a few bites.

Seeming to understand that she needed to eat in peace, he was quiet for a moment as she chewed. But once she’d washed down the pizza with some more wine, he said, “Have you heard anything from that guy at Aegis Holdings?”

“No,” she said. “I guess he decided the property wasn’t the right fit.”

“Or maybe he’s just waiting for the right moment.”

That possibility had crossed her mind, but in the world of real estate, hanging back and waiting wasn’t always the best strategy. “To see if we come down in price?”

“Maybe,” Caleb replied. “I mean, I don’t have any plans to do that, but — ”

“I don’t think you’ll need to,” Delia said quickly. “Marcy Talbott messaged me this morning and said her buyers were very interested but that they were still thinking it over. And there’s the open house tomorrow.”

The smile he sent her after she delivered that statement was almost indulgent. “I’m not worried about the house selling. Sure, it would be nice to not have so much money tied up in it, but since I’m not paying a mortgage and won’t have to worry about property taxes for almost a year, it’s not that big a deal.”

She’d already known that, and yet it was good to have confirmation from Caleb that he didn’t expect her to have the place sold by the end of the week.

“So, it’s fairly obvious that Sanchez is sus, even if we don’t really know the depth of his involvement with Aegis Holdings,” he went on. “It’s too bad you weren’t able to pick up more of what he was thinking when you were with him.”

The thought of having to muck around in Aaron Sanchez’s mind wasn’t remotely appealing. Delia shrugged, then said, “Well, next time I’ll try the full Vulcan mind meld.”

Caleb chuckled, as she’d sort of hoped he would. “With any luck, there won’t be a next time. It’s probably better for you to give him as wide a berth as possible. I know that won’t be completely easy, not when you might have to interact with him professionally, but I suppose as long as you’re not alone together, you should be okay.”

She wouldn’t argue, not when doing everything she could to avoid being alone with Aaron Sanchez sounded like a pretty good idea. Since she didn’t have too much more to offer on that subject, she said, “Sooo…you have some news, too?”

“I do,” Caleb replied, clearly not deterred by the obvious change in topic. “Jim Whitaker — the P.I. I hired — found some pretty sketchy stuff about Paul Reeves. Supposedly, he owns a carpet-cleaning business, but Jim says he’s pretty sure it’s a front of some kind. The company was created about eight years ago, and yet it only has a handful of Google reviews.”

“Well, maybe people don’t see the same need to review a carpet-cleaning business as they do a restaurant or something,” Delia responded. Taken on its own, that particular data point didn’t seem too significant.

“Maybe not,” Caleb said. “But then Jim told me he copied and pasted a couple of the reviews he did find into Google to see if they popped up anywhere else, and sure enough, they were originally posted about other carpet-cleaning companies across the country. The name of the business was changed, obviously, but otherwise, they were identical.”

All right, that sounded pretty fishy. And Delia had to admit that a carpet-cleaning outfit might be the perfect cover for all sorts of shady activities. No one paid much attention to a van with a business logo on it, whether it was driving around town…or parked in front of a particular property for a lengthy amount of time, the way a carpet cleaner would need to be.

“Did he find anything else?”

“Not yet,” Caleb said. He’d finished his first slice of pizza, so he reached into the box to get another.

“Does Paul Reeves own or rent his home?” Delia asked next, since she’d certainly hit pay dirt on Aaron Sanchez when looking at him from that angle.

Or at least, Prudence had.

“Own,” Caleb said briefly. He swallowed some chianti, then added, “Nothing weird there, as far as Jim was able to tell. Regular mortgage, one he took out about ten years ago. No defaults or late payments or anything like that.”

Well, if he really was using his carpet-cleaning business to launder money, then Delia supposed Mr. Reeves would do whatever he could to look like an honest, upstanding member of society.

“Okay, so he’s someone we definitely need to keep an eye on,” she said. “What about Ty Carter?”

He was the one she was really interested in, although she kept that thought to herself.

She didn’t want Caleb getting jealous.

Something that sounded suspiciously like a sigh, and he set down his wine glass. “Clean as a whistle, according to Jim. The guy’s worked as a tennis pro at DragonRidge Country Club for about five years, and before that, he worked at another tennis club in Brentwood, California. He’s renting a townhouse not too far from the place where he works now. No complaints, nothing out of the ordinary.”

Nothing except the way he’d summoned her to a house he’d somehow known was haunted, even if the people who’d actually lived there apparently didn’t have a clue.

Or the way he might or might not have awakened some latent psychic powers that had been buried deep within her. Caleb seemed to think that was a natural consequence of spending time around him, but Delia wasn’t sure whether she bought that idea. After all, she’d known him for several months now, so why had that strange ability to read minds appeared only recently instead of soon after they’d met?

She had no idea…and she had a feeling that if she pressed him on the subject, he probably wouldn’t know, either.

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