Page 7 of Devil in the Details

Which still hung on the living room wall above the low, modern television stand that held his Blu-Ray player and collection of discs.

“What, you don’t have a stash of gold chains somewhere to go with your new gambler personality?” Delia inquired with a twinkle in her eyes.

Even though she was being snarky, Caleb didn’t mind too much. He liked it when she looked a little bit devilish…and it made him wonder what she would be like if she ever decided to take a walk on the wild side.

He’d need to leave those speculations for later, though. Right now, he had more pressing matters taking up his brain space.

“Could be neighborhood kids,” he said. “Whoever left this, their hand looks a little smaller than mine. Maybe the door really was unlocked and they tried it and then got freaked out and left when they realized they actually could get inside.”

Delia didn’t immediately dispute this theory, although the way her lips pressed together again told him she didn’t think too much of it.

That was all right.

Neither did he.

But he knew he was trying to come up with harmless explanations because he didn’t want to face the possibility that something dark and demonic might be meddling in his life again. They’d had a blessedly uneventful couple of months, and he wanted things to stay that way. Nothing much going on meant that Hell’s imps had more important things to do than mess around with Caleb Lockwood.

The only interesting element he wanted in his life was maybe getting Delia to unbend a little bit so they could be something more than just casual friends and business partners.

“Let’s see if I can get any prints,” he said, then lifted the bottle of baby powder he was still carrying so he could sprinkle some on the door. It mostly wanted to slide right down and then get carried away by the wind, but enough remained that he thought he might be able to lift a print.

If he was really, really lucky.

He set the baby powder down on the patio’s stamped concrete floor and then extracted the Scotch tape from his jacket pocket. The day was probably getting too warm for the jacket to even be necessary, but he’d slid it on early in the morning while it was still cool out and had sort of forgotten about it.

Gingerly, he pressed the tape against one of the prints and then just as carefully lifted it off. When he looked down to see what it had caught, though, he only found himself frowning.

“What is it?” Delia asked. She’d maintained a respectful distance while he was working, but he could tell she itched to come closer so she could see what he’d discovered.

“No prints,” he said, even as he did his best to ignore the uneasy sensation in his gut.

Demons didn’t have fingerprints.

“You mean, like whoever did this burned them off?” Delia said, now sounding uncertain, as though she knew what she’d just suggested was something you might encounter in a movie but rarely in real life.

He wished it were that easy. Or at least, while he thought maybe he could consider the remote possibility that someone had decided to case the house, a career criminal who’d removed their fingerprints so they could commit breaking and entering with impunity, he thought it far more likely that his first impression had been the correct one.

“Doubtful,” he replied. “No, I think a demon did this.”

Delia had the naturally fair skin of most redheads, so when she paled, she looked almost stark white. “A demon?” she repeated. “But I thought….”

Caleb knew what she’d been thinking, since the same hopeful thoughts had occupied his brain as well these past few months. Calach was gone, and everything seemed quiet, so Caleb had assumed they’d scored a major victory by banishing the demon and that they could just go on with their nice, tidy lives.

“Demons don’t have fingerprints,” he said. “And sure, there are people who’ve removed theirs, but the kind of person who does that doesn’t generally gain entrance to a house and then leave without taking anything.”

“Still….” she said, then stopped, as though she’d just realized that any argument she’d been about to offer wouldn’t hold up for very long.

“It’s probably nothing,” he told her, and she sent him an unbelieving look.

“How can you say it’s ‘nothing’ if a demon was breaking into your house for some reason?”

“Because demons love to stir the pot,” he said. “And because this happened here, I have a feeling they don’t know anything about the house on Pueblo Street. Even if they’ve been watching me, they probably think I’m just working on a project and have no idea I was planning to move in there. In fact….”

Caleb stopped himself, his mind working furiously. He had planned to have movers with a small truck take over the few items he didn’t plan to leave here, but if demonic forces had decided to keep an eye on him, then having a panel truck pull up in front of the house would be pretty much the same as sending up a flare that announced, “I’m moving!”

Most of what he wanted to take could fit in the back of his Range Rover, even the big hundred-inch TV. And if he could get Delia to help out with some of the smaller items, then they could move him over there with no one the wiser.

After all, as he’d already told her, demons knew a lot more than humans, but they weren’t omniscient, not by a long shot. He hadn’t gotten a hint of any demonic presences around the property, so whoever had left that smudge was long gone. Most likely, the demon responsible had come by while he was asleep.

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