Page 12 of The Devil Went Down to Laughlin
Linda had far too much control of herself to sigh, but Delia could still tell her mother was disappointed by that response. It had been a very long dry spell…Delia’s breakup with her ex-fiancé had been almost two years ago now, and she sure wasn’t going to count that one date with Aaron Sanchez as anything more than a mistake…and she knew her mom had been hoping her daughter would get back out there at some point.
Thank God she was still about eighteen months away from her thirtieth birthday. Delia had little doubt that when that momentous occasion rolled around, her mother would really up the pressure about getting married and settling down. While she wasn’t as strident as some of Delia’s friends’ parents, Linda had also made it crystal clear that she’d be less than thrilled with her daughter if she didn’t get at least one grandchild.
“Well, you know best,” she said, although her tone seemed to indicate she wasn’t entirely sure whether her daughter actually did know best.
Mercifully, Delia’s phone rang right then, so she was able to reach for it while giving her mother an apologetic glance, and Linda took the signal for what it was and melted away.
Sometimes, working with family could be a real pain in the ass.
Caleb made sure to be right on time for his appointment with Delia. While he was glad to finally be getting the money from the sale of the Piñon Drive house — okay, the transaction had gone smoothly enough, but he was still sort of astonished by how long it took even the simplest mortgage to process — he was looking forward to seeing her for an entirely different reason. The day before, she’d been dead set on helping out Aaron Sanchez and his family, and yet Caleb still hoped he’d be able to convince her that this whole thing was a very bad idea.
She smiled as he entered her office, but at the same time, she also looked tired, as if she had way too much going on.
Maybe she did. While she discussed her work sometimes if she thought something particularly interesting or amusing had happened, a lot of it was still opaque to him.
But if she was overloaded at the office, then taking off to Laughlin for the day didn’t seem like a very good idea.
“Here you go,” she said after she’d greeted him and he’d sat down in the chair facing her desk. By this point, her office with its white oak furniture and plants everywhere felt almost as familiar to him as one of the rooms in his own house. She slid an envelope across the desktop toward him. “Seven hundred and fifty-eight thousand dollars.”
“A good day’s work,” he replied with a grin, although he didn’t reach for the envelope. It was far too warm now for a jacket, so he didn’t have a convenient pocket he could slide it into.
“Well, it took a bit more than a day,” she returned, and her mouth lifted a little at the corners. Not a complete smile, but the shift in expression made her appear a little less tired.
“True. But it’s done now, so we can look forward to the next thing.” He leaned forward slightly as he added, “I really wish you’d think again about going down to Laughlin. The whole thing is giving me a hinky feeling.”
Her posture grew a little more tense, but her expression remained pleasant enough. “So, you’re getting psychic abilities now, too?”
“No,” he replied at once, refusing to take the bait. “This is more of a gut feeling.”
“I don’t go back on my promises,” she said, her tone flat.
Good to know, although Caleb was forced to admit that he didn’t like the idea of her making promises to Aaron Sanchez. Maybe she was right and he was completely innocent, his memory of his dealings with Aegis Holdings wiped right out of his memory banks, but he still didn’t trust the guy.
“Then let me come with you,” Caleb said, surprising himself. He’d thought of several ways he might dissuade Delia from going to Laughlin, but none of those scenarios had included him tagging along.
She chuckled. “It’s just a plain old haunted house, Caleb. No demons. There’s no reason for you to be there.”
“That you know of.”
Her shoulders lifted slightly, and she reached for the mug that sat on the desktop near her. It was the white one that he knew she used for water and nothing else, since it was late in the day to be drinking coffee.
“Nothing Aaron described sounded like anything more than evidence of your regular, garden-variety haunting. It’s probably going to take me longer to drive down there and back than it will for me to convince his grandmother’s ghost to move on.”
“It could be a demon masquerading as a ghost,” Caleb suggested, even as he realized he was starting to sound a little desperate with all these excuses. Maybe he should have backed off, but some niggling sixth sense kept telling him the house in Laughlin was no bueno. “That sort of thing has happened before, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” she said, her tone a little too even. “I’ve never run across anything like that in all the hauntings I’ve worked on. Then again, I didn’t know demons were real, either, until a few months ago.”
“Then trust me on this one,” he said. “Besides, wouldn’t it be more fun if I tagged along? We could pick up a bunch of junk food, make it into a real road trip.”
A reluctant smile tugged at her mouth. “Maybe it would be more fun. But that’s not why I’m going. I’m trying to help someone out.”
Yes, he knew that, and maybe he was being an utter jerk for trying to insert himself into a situation where he really had no business being there. As she’d said, this sounded like an ordinary enough haunting. At best, he’d provide some company she probably didn’t need.
At worst, he might prove to be more of a distraction than anything else.
“Besides,” she went on, “I noticed that some more of the Aegie properties went up on the auction sites this afternoon. You’d be much better served to go take a look at them while I’m out of town in case the bidding gets too hot on the one we’re interested in. Then, when I get back, we can walk the most promising ones together and decide which ones we want to bid on, since the next auction won’t be happening until Thursday afternoon.”
Under normal circumstances, this would have sounded like a good plan. However, Caleb couldn’t prevent himself from believing that it would be much better for him to stay by Delia’s side and offer whatever support he could.
