Page 85 of Unexpected Ever After

As I slammed Flo’s back doors shut, I couldn’t help wishing I was at home reading a fairytale instead of being up here at this modern-day castle. It was eerie how I still hadn’t seen a single person on the grounds. There was no sign of life at the house, either. I realized I’d never gotten the assistant’s name, so as I headed under the fancy covered drive to the front door, I punched out a quick text to Sarah. But the moment I hit send, the front door—a giant slab of artfully rusted metal that perfectly matched the fountain—swung open.

I froze. There was no one there.

“Hello?” I called.

“Hello, Winona.” I recognized Anita’s voice. “Please come in.”

Unlike back at the driveway, I couldn’t see her face anywhere. It was like she was the house.

For a moment I hovered on the doorstep. Was I really going to trespass into this person’s house because a robot had told me to? I had a vision of my brother Raylan’s favorite movie, the old classic Terminator, where technology becomes sentient. And violent.

Then I finally registered what I was looking at through the open door.

It was a real, honest-to-God mansion.

I’d been right—the unassuming front of the building had hid the extravagance inside.

The doorway opened onto a wide entryway, with sparkling, polished-concrete floors, and trimless white walls lined with paintings bigger than Flo. Straight ahead was a massive sunken living room with rich brown leather furniture, and to the left, I saw the edge of a granite kitchen. The back of the house was all glass stretching so high up I couldn’t see the top from under the entryway ceiling. How’d they haul a single piece of glass that size up here?

Outside, an infinity pool and pool house overlooked a sweeping view of the Quince River valley.

Just then my phone rang, making me jump clear out of my skin.

I let out a breath when I saw the number. “Sarah, you better tell me what the bejesus is goin’ on here,” I whispered. “Am I doin’ a repair or a B&E?”

“Sorry, I didn’t get the instructions until now,” Sarah said in my ear. “Apparently it’s all automated. They sent me a floor plan pointing out the bathroom needing the repair.”

“So, I’m really just supposed to walk inside on my own?”

“Yes. I’m sending it now.”

My phone buzzed as her email arrived.

“Winona? The message also says if you can get the job done by noon—I think maybe when the owner gets home—they’ll pay you triple your emergency rate.”

“Trip—“ I choked, unable to get the word out. That was a bananas amount of money for what would likely be under an hours work. But it just so happened to be almost exactly the amount the business lawyer had quoted for her fees while incorporating Heartbreaker Trades. It was serendipitous.

So much for taking off.

A flash of movement outside caught my eye, making my stomach clench.

Sarah had just said there was no one home.

Then a bird fluttered to a landing on the diving board. I let out a breath. Just a bird. But as I did, a more worrisome though occurred to me than someone being out there.

“Sarah, the assistant who booked this job. Her name wasn’t Anita, was it?”

“No, Cass said her name was something with an S. Sal, I think? Why?”

My concern mellowed only slightly as I said, “You ever see Terminator?”

I let out a breath as I closed the bathroom door behind me. It was an elaborate room, of course, all white marble with a double sink set in front of a giant backlit mirror. There was a shower room and a tub the size of a damn swimming pool with one of those absurd faucets that was just a hole in the ceiling. Those things were a pain in the butt and made water splash everywhere, but I still felt more at home with a pipe than out there in the rest of this mansion. For the first time since driving up that hill, I felt my shoulders drop. I could handle this, no problem.

Once I got down on my hands and knees, I could see the issue right away. I’d be back at the Rolling Hills in time for lunch with my crew. Maybe I’d invite Sarah to join us, and she could tell us more about Blake’s mysterious brother. Blake was in business, I knew, and most likely this guy was too. But what if he was something else? A diplomat or a spy? That was almost enough to make me laugh at myself.

With the tension largely dissipated, I popped in my headphones. Normally I’d listen to one of my classic lady crooners: Joni Mitchell. Billie Holliday. Or my beloved Dolly Parton. But when I hit play on my music app, my ears were filled with the sound of sea shanties. Anyone back home would probably laugh me out of town if they knew I was playing these—the cliché was cringe, as Calvin would say.

But these songs reminded me of the good parts of home.

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