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Chapter Eighteen

Delia didn’t know why she was surprised that Aegis Holdings was involved in all this. Even though she hadn’t been able to fully figure out the pattern yet, she still knew the company was rotten.

But that private detective Caleb had hired was damn good. Not only had he unearthed that little factoid about Aegis being Paul Reeves’ sole client, but he’d also emailed a list of Aegis’s properties to Caleb later that evening just after she left to drive home.

Now they were tailing Paul Reeves’ work van as it headed into a neighborhood where she’d sold a property only the week before.

It was a nice area of homes built about fifteen years earlier, just old enough that a lot of them still had wall-to-wall carpet, unlike newer houses that almost universally had either tile or wood or luxury vinyl plank floors.

Delia was driving her Kona, just because she and Caleb had both agreed that it was less conspicuous than his new Mercedes, especially after she removed the door magnets advertising the Dunne & Dunne real estate agency.

And once Paul had pulled into the tract, she purposely hung back and let him disappear around a corner, figuring it wouldn’t be too hard to find out where he’d stopped, not with that van parked at the curb or in the driveway of the house he was working on.

Sure enough, she spotted the van after they turned down a street located in the middle of the housing tract. And since it was pulled into the driveway rather than sitting on the street, there was absolutely no question as to which house he was inside.

“Hang on a sec,” she said after she parked her SUV a couple of houses down, then undid her seatbelt and pulled out her phone.

“Need to make a call?” Caleb asked, only half-joking. After all, she’d hastily canceled her morning appointments so they could play amateur detective, so he probably thought she needed to handle something before they went in to confront Paul Reeves.

But that wasn’t why she’d gotten out her phone.

“No,” she said. “I want to Google the address of the house Paul Reeves is working on. If it’s owned by Aegis, then it’s probably just a vacation rental, but in case it’s a long-term property, I want to make sure it’s unoccupied.

You don’t want us to go busting in there if there are any renters around, do you? ”

“Probably not,” he admitted.

It didn’t take very long to discover that the house was currently up for rent — a standard year lease, and not just for a week here or there. Most likely, the HOA in this neighborhood had banned short-term rentals.

Which kind of begged the question as to why Aegis had bought the property in the first place, since they seemed to be focused on vacation homes.

Then again, the condo Aaron Sanchez was renting definitely wasn’t an Airbnb.

Delia wasn’t going to get bogged down in the whys and wherefores, however. No, the important thing was that the house was currently unoccupied. Maybe Paul had come here to get it ready for some new tenants, since the first of April wasn’t too far off.

“Okay, looks like the coast is clear,” she said as she returned the phone to her purse.

“Good,” Caleb replied, his gaze moving toward the front door of the home. It was shaded by a small portico and had tall, slim windows on either side, probably to allow at least a little light into that section of the house. “So…what’s the plan?”

Honestly, that part of this whole endeavor was still a little fuzzy. “I guess we go in and see what he’s up to. If he’s really cleaning carpets, he’s probably going to be preoccupied and not even notice us right away.”

In fact, a large hose snaked out of the van’s cargo area and into the home’s front door, leaving it slightly ajar. It would be easy enough to get inside.

Caleb had obviously come to that same conclusion, since he said, “Okay. Let’s see what we can find out.”

He also unfastened his seatbelt, and they both got out of the little SUV.

Even though she knew he could handle himself in a confrontation — and even though she had a half-dozen vials of holy water weighing down her purse — she could still sense the way her heartbeat sped up as they approached the entrance of the house.

Through the partially open door, she heard the faint whir of machinery. Maybe Paul Reeves’ carpet-cleaning business was mostly a front, but it sure sounded to her as if he was working now.

Maybe his lords and masters at Aegis wanted him to make sure their properties looked good, even if he didn’t have any other clients he needed to impress.

Caleb pushed the door open just wide enough so they could both slip into the house. The hum of the steam cleaner continued without even a hiccup, which told Delia that Paul Reeves didn’t seem to have noted that two interlopers were now inside the property.

And it also helped that he was working in the back, most likely in the family room off the kitchen, since that was how a lot of these houses were laid out. They might vary slightly from floor plan to floor plan, but the basic architecture didn’t change very much.

Sure enough, there was Paul Reeves, moving the brush head back and forth over an expanse of beige carpet that already looked as if it was in pretty decent shape. Clearly, though, the people at Aegis wanted to make sure the place was immaculate before the new tenants moved in.

The less people had to complain about, she figured, the lower the chances that anyone would look at the company too closely.

“Hi, Paul,” Caleb said, casual as if they’d just bumped into one another at a blackjack table.

At once, Paul Reeves raised his balding head from his inspection of the carpet and glared at the intruders. He still wore the same thick glasses he’d had on at the tournament, and he was flushed and perspiring…and looked royally pissed off.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.

A fair enough question, Delia supposed, but Caleb still looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“I’ve got some carpets I want cleaned, and I thought your Google reviews looked pretty good.”

Scowling, Paul turned off the steam extraction unit and set the nozzle down on the floor. “Then call my office.”

“No one was answering.”

The man crossed his arms. On the back of one wrist was an odd little tattoo, something that reminded Delia vaguely of the symbol the artist formerly known as Prince had used once upon a time, although this one was more angular and not nearly as friendly-looking.

Caleb must have noticed it, too, because he shot a knowing glance in her direction and gave a very small nod.

“That’s because I’m a one-man operation,” Reeves said.

“I suppose that works out okay…considering how your only client seems to be Aegis Holdings.”

Paul Reeves was already flushed from exertion, but his face turned an even uglier red, his skin almost the shade of those awful canned beets Delia’s Aunt Rosie had always tried to feed them when her family went visiting in Chicago.

But even though the man’s anger was obvious to her — and, she supposed, to Caleb as well — that didn’t stop him from trying to stonewall them.

Voice flat, he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do,” Caleb replied. He’d been doing all the speaking so far, which was just fine by her. Delia knew she’d never been all that good at confrontations, while Caleb seemed to positively revel in them.

Or at least, he didn’t back away when it came time to get in someone’s face.

“I’ve got the receipts,” he continued. “So there’s no point in pretending. I suppose I’m just trying to figure out what’s in it for you. Or is it more that you don’t have any say in the matter, thanks to that sigil on your wrist?”

At once, Paul clapped a hand on his arm, his chubby fingers hiding the mark that had been inked into the skin there.

“I think you’d better leave,” he growled. “You’re trespassing on private property.”

“Maybe we are,” Caleb replied. “Then again, the door was open. We might be operating in a sort of gray area here.” He glanced over at Delia. “I think the H 2 0 might come in handy right about now.”

For a second, she just looked at him blankly. Then she realized what he was trying to say.

A splash of the holy water she carried might be enough to break the hold the sigil had over Paul Reeve, if only temporarily. And that might buy them enough time to get some useful information out of the guy.

She didn’t reply out loud, only gave a small tilt of her head in Caleb’s direction so he’d know she understood what he was trying to say.

“There’s nothing ‘gray’ about it,” Paul Reeves retorted. “And if you two don’t get out of here now, I’m going to call the cops.”

While he was speaking, he’d been focused on Caleb, apparently dismissing her because she’d been silent this whole time and didn’t appear to be much of a threat.

Boy, was he wrong about that.

Her hand was already inside her purse. One of the little vials of holy water touched her fingertips, and she popped the cap and pulled it out, then rushed at Paul Reeves and splashed at least half the vial’s contents on his arm.

“What the fuck are you doing, you bitch?” he snarled.

“Whatever I have to,” she said sweetly as she backed out of the way.

In that same moment, though, the expression on Paul Reeves’ meaty features turned almost puzzled, as if he couldn’t quite figure out what he was supposed to do next.

“Who are you?” he asked, eyes blank, confused.

“A couple of friends,” Caleb said casually. “And we’ll get out of your hair just as soon as you answer a couple of questions.”

“I don’t know anything,” Paul Reeves responded, but again, he looked more perplexed than anything else.

“Well, I guess we can find out for sure soon enough.” Caleb paused there — not, Delia guessed, because he didn’t know which questions to ask, but more because he wanted to make sure she didn’t have anything she needed to interject.

Because she was more than happy to continue to let him do the talking, she shook her head very slightly.