Page 13 of The Devil Went Down to Laughlin
“I suppose so,” he said, as noncommittally as he could. “But if the next auction isn’t until Thursday, then there’s no reason why we couldn’t view the properties together sometime on Wednesday afternoon after you get back to Las Vegas. By then, we’ll know whether we got the first one or whether we have to keep looking.”
Her full lips compressed slightly, and he got the distinct impression that she was getting a little tired of his bullheadedness. She took a sip of water from her mug and then set it back down on the desk before giving him a very direct look.
“I understand that you’re worried,” she said. “But I’ve got this. Or have you forgotten that I’ve been cleansing houses for almost ten years and did just fine before you came along?”
If it had been anyone else, he might have let his temper flare at her stubbornness. Something about Delia made him want to be better than he used to be, so he did what he could to tamp down the flare of irritation that raised its ugly head.
“No, I haven’t forgotten,” he said evenly. “On the other hand, you have to admit that the landscape has changed a little since you first got in the ghost-whispering business.”
There was no way for her to contradict him on that front, not when she’d seen Robert Hendricks transform into the demon Calach back in January…not when she’d watched the demonic goons from Aegis Holdings nearly raise enough black energy during the poker tournament at the Desert Paradise casino to level a city block.
“It has,” she said, her tone almost too calm. “And I’ve changed, too.” Incongruously, she smiled. “Also, you know I don’t go anywhere without holy water in my purse. It’ll be fine.”
He’d seen her wield the stuff, too, fearlessly splashing the blessed liquid right in Calach’s face without blinking an eye.
No, Delia Dunne could definitely take care of herself.
Most of the time.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said.
Her smile faded, and those clear, blue-gray eyes met his without fear.
“It won’t,” she replied.
Chapter Four
At least Caleb had finally relented. Or rather, she’d agreed to check in with him regularly while she was out of town, and even though Delia could tell he would much rather have accompanied her to Laughlin, he’d backed off enough to say that should work…but if more than an hour passed and he didn’t hear from her, then he’d jump in his car and blaze a trail down there to find out what had happened.
She supposed she had to be content with that.
Before he’d left her office, she handed over printouts of some additional auction properties she thought might work well as flips, homes that weren’t priced too crazy and also didn’t need such extensive renovations that he couldn’t still make a decent profit on each of them.
He hadn’t looked too thrilled, but he hadn’t argued, either, and had told her he’d check them out. For all she knew, he’d do that before she even got on the road, since she had that one client at ten-thirty to handle and wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to leave the office before noon.
As it turned out, though, the house showings on Tuesday morning didn’t take as long as she’d expected, since her client fell in love with the first property and didn’t want to look at any others. Because she’d been unexpectedly gifted some extra time, she texted Aaron to see if he could meet with her at one instead of three.
He replied that meeting earlier would be great — she had a feeling he wanted to get all this over with as quickly as possible — so she stopped at In-N-Out on her way out of town and grabbed an early lunch before heading down to Laughlin.
As she took a bite of her burger, though, she couldn’t quite help experiencing just the slightest twinge of guilt. If she’d taken Caleb up on his offer to accompany her, they could have gotten these burgers together, and maybe added some candy or a couple of Little Debbies or something equally calorie-laden and unhealthy for the return trip to Las Vegas.
No, better for her to be doing this alone. She hadn’t heard from him this morning, so she didn’t know whether he’d gone to look at the auction properties already or whether he’d put the errand off until later in the day, figuring she wouldn’t get back from her ghost-whispering mission until sometime after five or six at the very earliest.
If he was going to look at the houses after lunch, then at least she knew he’d be safely occupied for a while.
It was possible she shouldn’t even be looking at the situation that way — she’d known he was only trying to help when he offered to come along, and was doing his best to keep her safe — but she still didn’t like the hidden assumption that she couldn’t handle whatever was thrown at her.
As she’d told him yesterday, she’d been doing this kind of thing for a long time.
The drive wasn’t anything to write home about, just long stretches of dry desert and asphalt that shimmered from the heat and created multiple mirages on the highway ahead of her. Since she’d gone this way plenty of times before, she’d known what to expect, and had her old school punk playlist queued up on her iPhone, X and the Circle Jerks and Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys and a bunch of others whose raucous tunes would effectively kill the silence inside her little Hyundai Kona.
That music had been the soundtrack for most of her high school and college years, and although she didn’t listen to it as much as she used to, she still liked to break it out when she knew she’d need something to fill up the monotony of a long drive — or to give her the energy for a task she disliked, such as cleaning out the fish tank at home. She had a housekeeper who came by twice a month, but she would never expect Lupe to deal with that tank.
And as “Johnny Hit and Run Pauline” started to blare through the speakers, Delia couldn’t help smiling at herself. She wondered what the eighteen-year-old version of herself, lead singer for Final Girl, the chick who wouldn’t take off her Doc Martens even in hundred-degree weather, would think of real estate agent Delia with her cleaning lady and her mortgage and her carefully renovated suburban home.
She’d probably think she was a total sellout.
Oh, well.
