Page 71 of Be Very Quiet

“Good afternoon, Pearl. We need to speak to Georgia Perkins.” Reese flipped open his leather wallet to reveal his badge.

Pearl leaned forward to read the credentials, and her hand flew to her chest. “Oh my, the FBI. I’m sorry, Ms. Perkins isn’t in today.”

Luca spotted Rex in his office on the phone. Rex glanced up and saw him. He hung up and came out to greet them. “Luca, can I help you with something? Did you decide to look for a place in Miami Beach after all?”

“They’re asking about Georgia,” Pearl informed him.

“Oh, well, she’s not here today.”

“Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

“They’re with the FBI,” Pearl supplied.

“Sure. Come back to my office.”

Once they were inside, he closed the door. Luca introduced Reese, and they shook hands.

“I didn’t know you were a federal agent, Luca. Liliana didn’t mention that.”

“I’m not. I’m simply facilitating the meeting.” He didn’t elaborate. Liliana had told everyone that he was an old friend, and Christian and Audria were doing research to open their studio. He wouldn’t say anything that would reflect poorly on her.

“Oh, okay. Why did you need Georgia?”

“She deactivated a listing on a house that was used in a crime today,” Reese told him.

“How do you know it was Georgia?”

“She was the agent of record, and our experts traced it to an IP address located here.”

Rex frowned. “She shouldn’t have deactivated anything on the multiple listing service without talking to me first.” He jiggled the mouse of the computer on his desk. “What’s the address?”

Reese recited it, and Rex typed it in. “I remember this place. It is one of our listings from a couple of weeks ago. I accompanied Georgia but let her take the lead.” He scrolled down. “She tagged it as temporarily off-market. She’s by the book, so I can’t see her doing something like that without letting me know. I’ll call the owner and see if they asked her to. If I recall correctly, they moved to Tampa to be closer to their daughter.”

“I was about to ask you to do that,” Reese said.

Rex read the number from the screen and punched it into his cell. “Hello, Mrs. Burns? This is Rex Raines. I’m good, thank you. No, we don’t have an offer yet. I wanted to know if you spoke with Ms. Perkins and asked her to pause the listing?” He listened for a minute and shook his head. “You didn’t?” Reese motioned for the phone. “Mrs. Burns, I’m going to have you speak with an FBI agent.” He handed the cell to Reese.

“Mrs. Burns, my name is Supervisory Special Agent Reese Reneau. I’m afraid there was an incident at your home today.” Without giving names, he explained what had happened and reassured her that the home hadn’t been damaged too severely. “I’m going to have a local FBI agent in Tampa speak with you. Can you give me your address?” He wrote it down and thanked her for her cooperation before returning the phone to Rex.

“I’ll take care of having the house cleaned and back on the market as soon as possible,” he assured the woman before disconnecting.

“Do you know why Georgia didn’t come in today?” Luca asked.

“She’s taking a couple of days off.” Rex looked troubled. “She didn’t say anything about it yesterday.”

“She didn’t request the time off earlier?”

“No, and it’s strange because she has a meeting with a big client this afternoon. She was looking forward to it because it would be a huge commission. I’ll have to cover for her or send Theo.”

“How did she let you know she wasn’t coming in?”

“She left a note on Pearl’s desk. It’s not like her at all. I’ll try calling her.”

Rex punched her number and put the call on speaker. It rang for ten seconds before kicking to voicemail. He left a message for her to get in touch with him immediately.

“Do you have her home address?” Luca asked.

“I do.” He found it in his phone contact list and wrote it down, passing the paper to Luca.

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