Page 18 of The Devil Went Down to Laughlin
“Good luck.”
Why did that supposedly friendly admonition sound so ominous right now?
However, she only smiled and lifted a hand, and he did the same before he headed back outside. She couldn’t hear his car starting up, but that wasn’t so strange — the windows in the house were mostly closed, although she’d noticed the one in the kitchen had been left open a crack so condensation from the swamp cooler wouldn’t start to build up.
For a moment, she stood in the middle of the family room, not sure what she should do next.
Then she pulled in a breath and headed for the stairs.
Chapter Five
Well, at least he knew Delia was okay, although Caleb still didn’t like the thought of her being down there in Laughlin all by herself. Most of the time, he would have said she could handle pretty much anything that was thrown her way, but the last few months had been just crazy enough that he would have felt a lot better if he could have been there for backup.
He wasn’t, though. Rather than sit at home and brood, however, he’d looked up another of the Aegis Holdings houses that were going up for auction, not because he thought it was all that likely a prospect — the place was a townhouse, and the chances of making some serious cash on a home like that were a lot lower — but because he figured it was better than staying at his own house and doing nothing except fretting.
Also, he figured it couldn’t hurt to see who else was looking at the place, just in case any of them seemed suspicious.
When he did the walkthrough, though, he could tell the other people inspecting the property — a husband and wife team he thought he recognized from the same house he was actually interested in, a few solo people who snapped pictures and took notes — were all nothing more than they seemed to be, just regular humans out to make a buck.
Or at least, he was about ninety percent sure they were nothing more than they seemed. He had to admit that his demon-detecting radar hadn’t been as accurate as he might have liked lately. True, demons could be very good at hiding their natures, especially if they were several rungs up the ladder from the low-level demons Calach had sent after him in January, but still, Caleb thought he should have been able to catch at least a whiff of brimstone.
Nothing, though, and that meant he was driving home about an hour after he’d left, feeling vaguely unsatisfied and not sure what he should do with himself.
In more innocent times, he might have gone out and hit the casinos to pass the time and take the edge off his anxiety. After that clusterfuck at the Desert Paradise in March, however, he thought he might be happy if he never set foot in a casino again.
Besides, his investments were humming along, and with the prospect of flipping some properties in the near future, he knew he didn’t have to go out and make money by using his demonic powers to influence a set of dice or ensure that he made blackjack whenever he liked.
Maybe he really should take up golf.
His phone pinged at him just as the garage door was closing, and he turned off his Range Rover’s engine so he could slide the iPhone out of his pocket. A text from Delia.
Can you look this up and let me know what it is?
Obviously, there was supposed to have been an attachment, but he didn’t see anything. Possibly she’d goofed or — more likely — she had enough cell service to get a text out, but her carrier had decided the picture she’d tried to send was too much for the system to handle.
At least she’d texted him, though, which meant she must be fine.
Of course she was fine. She’d driven to Laughlin, not a town in the middle of the Sinaloa cartel’s territory or something.
He got out of the SUV and went into the kitchen. Cool air surrounded him, and he wondered if maybe he should have a beer to take the edge off. It was past three o’clock by that point, so he didn’t think anyone could give him too much grief over having a drink.
Delia first, though.
I got your message, but there wasn’t an attachment. Do you want to try sending it again?
While he waited for her to get back to him, he headed over to the fridge and pulled out a Voodoo Brewing brown ale, then cracked the tab and poured the beer into a pint glass. He swallowed some and looked down at his phone.
His text still showed as the last one in his and Delia’s convo.
Well, maybe she’d set her phone down somewhere, or maybe she was now enough out of range that even a text couldn’t get through.
That didn’t feel right, though. She was in Laughlin, Nevada, not out in the middle of nowhere. He might not have visited the town yet, but even he knew it was a big tourist destination and therefore should have plenty of cell capacity.
Had her battery died?
He dismissed that thought almost as soon as it passed through his mind. The whole time he’d known Delia — going on five months now — he’d never once seen her phone run out of juice. It was her connection to her clients, and she was very careful about keeping it fully charged.
No, the cell connection down there must be screwed up somehow.
