Page 45 of The Devil Went Down to Laughlin
Although Caleb hated to think of the situation in such stark terms, he also knew he had to look at this the way a demon might. They were extremely transactional beings.
Pru got out her phone and navigated to her contacts list. Through all of this, Ty had looked on with mild concern, as though he knew these were details they needed to handle but wasn’t too worried about getting involved with any solutions they might come up with.
“Hey, Linda?” Prudence said. “It’s Pru. No, I’m fine. It’s just — ”
A pause, and Caleb guessed that Linda had interjected something before Pru could continue. But then she spoke again.
“Delia’s down in Laughlin on some business that’s taking her longer than she’d planned. Her phone’s acting up, and that’s why she asked me to contact you. I — ”
Again, she went quiet. Most likely, Linda was asking why her daughter had been able to get in touch with Prudence but not with her.
“No, she emailed me. She knows I check my email all the time but that you often don’t look at yours after you’re done at work.”
Caleb had no idea whether that was true or not. Then again, Pru had known Delia and Linda for a lot longer than he had, so he had to believe she was much more familiar with their habits.
“Right, right,” Pru was saying, which seemed to be a signal that Linda had decided to believe the story. “So if you could contact her clients tomorrow morning and let them know they need to reschedule, that would be great.” Another pause, and this time Prudence frowned slightly, as though she wasn’t sure what would be the best way to respond. “Um…maybe Friday?” she replied. “Yes, okay. Thanks — I’ll let Delia know you’re taking care of it. Have a good evening.”
And she pulled her phone away from her ear and put it down on the coffee table.
“All handled?” Ty asked.
“As much as it can be,” Pru replied. “I got Linda to push everything until Friday. I hope that’ll be enough time.”
Caleb wasn’t so sure about that. Tomorrow was Wednesday, and that would only give them two days to get all this straightened out.
A lot could happen in forty-eight hours, though. He was pretty sure if someone had told him on Sunday that two days later he’d be sitting in a hotel room at Harrah’s in Laughlin — accompanied by a half angel and a private detective, no less — he would have burst out laughing.
There was nothing funny about Delia’s disappearance, however. They didn’t have any hard evidence that August Sellers was behind all this, and yet Caleb had to believe he was the responsible party.
Innocent people generally didn’t start lobbing fireballs just because you happened to be in a section of a boat that was supposed to be off-limits to passengers.
“And once we’re done with our shopping tomorrow, I think we should go back to Alba Sanchez’s house,” Ty said. “We didn’t really perform an exhaustive search of the place, and there could be something we overlooked, some detail that might give us more information as to the Sanchez family’s connection to the river and exactly how they were guarding it.”
Caleb supposed a return visit to the house could be useful. On the other hand, he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if Ty was grasping at straws, trying to grab hold of something useful because he wasn’t really sure what to do next.
In a way, the notion was oddly comforting. At least it meant the half angel wasn’t omnipotent.
Not that Caleb had ever thought he was. If he wanted to be completely honest with himself, he knew that Ty’s aura of calm confidence could be just the wee bit irritating, so realizing that the half angel didn’t have the answer to everything made Caleb feel better about life.
Of course, he’d feel much better if any of them had some real answers to what was going on, but he knew the only way through this was to take everything one step at a time.
Even if they might have felt like the tiniest of baby steps.
“Then I suppose we might as well go to sleep,” he said. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
Pru stared at him as if he’d just suggested they go skinny dipping in the Colorado River. “It’s not even ten o’clock yet.”
Right. He’d forgotten what a night owl she was. Too bad — she’d just have to suck it up and get with the program, as Max Robbins, his high school football coach, might have said.
“And we need to be at Kohl’s at nine sharp tomorrow,” he reminded her. “So take an Ambien or whatever, but we’re going to sleep now.”
“I don’t use sleeping pills,” she said primly. Before he could respond, she added, “But I think I saw some chamomile in the basket of tea at the coffee station in my room, so I’ll make some of that.”
Well, at least she was trying. “That should work.”
He got up from the sofa, realizing that their escape from August Sellers had pulled a few muscles he hadn’t noticed at the time. Oh, well. A good night’s sleep should take care of that.
Ty rose as well. “See you in the morning,” he told Pru, then headed over to the room he was sharing with Caleb.
