Page 12

Chapter Twelve

She couldn’t believe she’d come back here…and with a quarter demon, of all things.

Not that Caleb Lowe…Lockwood…whatever…looked like someone who had demon blood in his veins. No, he was as handsome as ever as he stood a few feet away from her in the lower level of the house that would soon be his.

But it wasn’t his yet.

Good thing Paige Loomis hadn’t come by to take off the lockbox. Delia assumed the other realtor wasn’t going to take that step before money had changed hands…and that wasn’t going to happen until the title search was wrapped up. She also guessed that Paige had set the wheels in motion as soon as she left the office, so it might be fairly soon.

Not soon enough, though.

“They’re not here,” Caleb said. If he was at all worried about being free with the property when it wasn’t even his yet, he didn’t show any sign of it.

Then again, would a quarter-demon even care about a minor transgression like trespassing?

Delia had no idea. All this was completely out of her area of expertise, despite all the experience she’d had sending the spirits of the restless dead into the next life.

Somehow she guessed that wasn’t quite the same as banishing a demon.

Could you even banish someone like Caleb, who was more human than not?

Obviously, you can, she told herself. Or he wouldn’t have been in Hell in the first place.

“You don’t sense anything?” she asked.

True, she hadn’t felt anything here, either — well, except the serial killer’s spectral hands trying to push her into the swimming pool — but Caleb obviously had, which meant his senses for this sort of thing might be even more attuned than hers.

She wasn’t quite sure what to think about that.

“No,” he said. “Those poor souls had every reason to hang around, considering what happened to them, but I think they’re long gone. Maybe they were here once but moved on after they realized their killer’s spirit was stuck here as well.”

A shiver moved down Delia’s spine. Sure, it was pretty chilly here on the home’s lower level, since the new HVAC system hadn’t even been installed yet and the day outside was gray and lowering, threatening some rare winter rain, but she didn’t think the icy sensation that had just inched its way down her back had anything to do with the temperature.

It was beyond horrible to think of those poor women’s souls being trapped here…and then being forced to flee when they realized their killer’s spirit had also gotten caught on this plane.

She’d much rather believe that their souls had never become earthbound at all and that they had moved on to the next plane the moment they’d been killed.

“We need to report this to the authorities,” she said, and at once, Caleb frowned.

“Who will do what, exactly? These women were murdered more than half a century ago. The man who killed them is dead. It’s not as if we’ll get any justice for them.”

A pat argument, but one she refused to accept without at least some pushback. “It would give closure to their families. Even if their parents or husbands have passed on as well, there still must be people who have spent all those decades wondering what happened to their mother or their aunt or their sister. Don’t you think they deserve a little peace?”

Caleb’s mouth thinned, and Delia could tell he wasn’t too thrilled with her right then. “How are you going to explain that we even knew the bodies were here? It seems pretty obvious that the original owner of the house buried them on this level because the floors hadn’t been installed yet and it was easy enough for him to hide the bodies and then pour the concrete on top. No one knew anything about it — and there’s no reason for us to have found them, either, because the floor is still intact. You really think the cops would be willing to listen to a hunch?”

If I talked to them…maybe, Delia thought, but even she knew she was reaching there. Sure, she had a minor reputation around town as the woman who could clear any troublesome spirits from your new home, but that wasn’t the same as being a full-blown psychic.

Especially when she wasn’t even the one who’d known the bodies were here.

“It doesn’t feel right to just let it go,” she said doubtfully.

“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” Caleb replied. “Look, even a quarter demon doesn’t want a bunch of skeletons in his basement. I can try to extract them, and then we can figure out what to do next.”

“You can do that?” Delia knew she still sounded skeptical, but that was probably because this whole situation felt utterly surreal. She didn’t have any clear idea of what Caleb could or couldn’t do, and that had thrown her off-balance.

One thing was for sure, though — she’d never look at him as a regular guy again.

“I don’t know,” he said. He didn’t look particularly embarrassed to admit he was unsure of his abilities, and Delia had to grudgingly respect that. It would have been a lot worse if he’d tried to blow a bunch of sunshine up her ass.

“Can I help?” she asked then, surprising herself a little. This whole thing was way outside the scope of her abilities, but still, she didn’t like the idea of just standing there and watching while Caleb tried to somehow extract the remains from underneath the concrete slab.

Now he grinned. “I doubt it. But thanks for the offer.”

He moved away from her, pacing back and forth across the floor, and she realized he was doing his best to determine where the bodies were hidden.

Some kind of demonic dousing, she supposed.

Or maybe X-rays.

“They’re all lined up in the middle,” he said after a minute. “I guess our killer was a tidy kind of guy. So that makes it a little easier.”

“What’s the plan?”

His lips parted, and for a second — probably because of the glint she glimpsed in his dark eyes — she wondered if he was going to tell her there wasn’t a plan at all.

But then he said, “One of my gifts is the ability to transport myself wherever I want.”

“Must cut down on airfare,” she remarked, and he flashed her a grin that really made her wish he wasn’t part demon.

“It does help,” he replied. “But what I was hoping to do now was use that same gift, except to have it raise the bodies of the women from under the floor rather than just sending myself down to Bali, or whatever.” He paused there, and the glint was back in those cola-colored eyes. “Unless you’re in the mood for some daiquiris on the beach.”

That sounded heavenly. However, Delia sort of doubted she’d ever take Caleb up on that sort of offer. Getting involved with a quarter demon was a level of complication she didn’t think she could handle.

“You can take another person along with you?” she asked, and he nodded.

“I’ve only done it once or twice, but yeah, I can manage it. Which makes me hope I can use that same sort of power to get those poor women out from under the floor.”

Exactly what they’d do then, she had no idea. But with Caleb’s ability to send people — and inanimate objects, she hoped — to wherever he wanted, she supposed he could send the remains to the medical examiner’s office or a local funeral home. Someplace where those women’s bodies would be treated with respect and given the final rest they deserved.

“Fingers crossed,” she said lightly.

He walked the floor one more time, probably so he could get the positions of the skeletons firmly fixed in his mind. Then he stopped in the center of the room, eyes shut and arms held out with his palms flat toward the floor.

Flames rippled up and down his arms, and Delia sucked in a breath. Yes, he’d conjured that one small flame earlier to prove there was a little more to him than met the eye, but this display was much more spectacular…especially as she realized the fire didn’t seem to harm either him or the black leather jacket he wore.

Was that what it looked like when his power manifested itself?

For just the briefest moment, she could have sworn she saw a pile of skeletons resting on the hideous bright blue indoor/outdoor carpet. But then they vanished, and Caleb’s eyes opened.

“All taken care of,” he said cheerfully.

“What did you do?”

He sent her a glance that was almost indulgent. “Shipped them off to the coroner’s office. Whoever goes in that exam room next is in for quite a surprise.”

That was what Delia had hoped he would do, but she was still startled to hear the task had been accomplished so easily. “Just like that.”

“Yes,” Caleb replied. He was smiling now, obviously proud of himself for coming up with such an elegant solution to the problem. “I assume they’ll be able to I.D. them by dental records, that kind of thing.”

Maybe. How long did those sorts of records even hang around, though? They were dealing with women who’d been murdered six decades ago, not victims who’d only disappeared a few years earlier.

Well, that was for the police and the medical examiner to figure out. Honestly, they wouldn’t have had that much more to work with even if Caleb had called them here to tell them the bodies had been hidden in the lower level of his latest real estate acquisition.

Except for the part where they could have at least pinned the killings on the man who’d once lived here.

It seemed Caleb wasn’t too worried about that, though.

“Maybe it’ll always be a mystery,” he said. “The important thing is that the killer is in Hell where he belongs and that the families of the victims will eventually get the closure they need.”

“I suppose so,” Delia replied, even as she couldn’t ignore the nagging thought that it would be better if the murderer could be publicly identified and, if not brought to justice, at least connected to his terrible crimes.

Caleb came over and reached out, almost as if he intended to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. At the last minute, though, he seemed to realize that probably wasn’t the best idea and awkwardly lowered his arm to his side.

“Maybe the situation isn’t perfect,” he said. “But if the cops had done their jobs, they would have found the guy decades ago. At least we’re fixing things so the families of the victims will have a few answers.”

A practical way of looking at the situation, she supposed. Had there been a connection between the five victims, something the police back in the 1960s had overlooked? Or had the killings been completely random, making it very difficult for the authorities to put all the pieces together?

She had no idea. Possibly Caleb had some idea, since he’d seen into the killer’s soul as the ghost passed through him, but she realized that Monday morning quarterbacking some sixty years after the fact wasn’t going to change anything.

“All right,” she said. “But let’s go back upstairs — it’s freezing down here.”

He didn’t argue. The flames that had run up and down his arms had disappeared as soon as his little magic trick — or whatever you wanted to call it — was over, and she found herself wondering if they’d warmed him at all or were only a physical manifestation of the powers he was employing.

Did he even feel heat and cold the way a normal person would?

She had no idea. He seemed to dress for the weather, or he wouldn’t have bothered with the leather jacket, but….

They headed upstairs. Delia had never thought she’d be reassured by a gutted kitchen, but it felt so relentlessly normal after that icy lower level and the horrible secret it concealed that she was just fine with the exposed subfloor and the pipes for the island’s plumbing sticking up out of nowhere like a strange clump of metal and plastic weeds.

“What’s your plan for the kitchen, anyway?” she asked, and he shot her an amused glance that signaled he knew exactly why she’d brought up that subject.

“I think I want white oak floors everywhere,” he said. “I suppose the terrazzo would be more fitting for the time when the house was built, but these days, most people would prefer wood. Black cabinets and black granite or some other stone for the countertops.”

“That’s a bold choice,” she replied, happy to talk about something so relentlessly normal. “Most people wouldn’t go with that much black.”

“I’m not most people,” he said with a grin.

No, he wasn’t. And if he wanted to do an all-black kitchen here, then she supposed that was his prerogative. Somewhere in this town, there was someone who’d be thrilled with that kind of decorating scheme. It was Las Vegas, after all, not a place known for its subtle understatement.

And even though he hadn’t admitted it yet, she had the sneaking suspicion that he’d grow more attached to the house as time wore on and the remodel really began to take shape, and that he might decide to make this his permanent residence and sell the home he was in now.

Would she want to represent him in that sale?

Best to get through the reno first, she supposed.

He stood in the middle of the kitchen, fists planted on his hips, gaze roving the space as though he was already measuring the cabinets.

Obviously, he wasn’t too worried about the history of the house.

But then, he knew it wasn’t haunted, so there wasn’t anything to stop him from getting the place fixed up and either ready to go on the market…or moved into, depending on what he decided to do once the renovation was finished.

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

Caleb turned toward her, eyebrows lifted slightly. “What a question.”

That was no answer. Even though Delia realized how awful it was that she’d blurted out such a query, considering his background, she thought it was a valid concern.

“Have you?” she pressed.

His head tilted to one side. “If I say yes, will you fire me as a client?”

“No,” she replied at once. “That is, I’ll keep representing you until the sale is final, but after that, you’re on your own.”

He was quiet for a moment. At length, he said, “No, I’ve never killed anyone. Caused some mayhem, sure. But murder? No. It might surprise you, but I lived a pretty ordinary life.”

That comment made her want to laugh outright, but she could tell he was being serious. Then again, what did she really know of his existence, except that he was from Greencastle, Indiana, and that he’d spent the past couple of years in Hell?

“How ordinary?”

The familiar grin pulled at his mouth. “Quarterback of the football team and prom king.”

Now she allowed herself to chuckle. “Those of us who were outsiders in high school might not look at being the quarterback and the prom king as exactly being ‘ordinary.’”

“You were an outsider?” he asked, then added, “You look like prom queen material to me.”

Oh, boy. Maybe some people would have considered that a compliment, but….

“No prom queen here,” she said. “Just the punk rock chick with screaming red hair and Doc Martens sitting in the back row of your English lit class.”

“We didn’t have too many punk rock chicks in Greencastle,” he said, which she could well believe. She’d looked up the town the night before after she got home…after Pru had dropped all those bombshells at dinner. It looked like a picture-perfect small Midwest town, with its own private liberal arts college and lots of brick buildings and green lawns and big, shady trees. Maybe there had been a few rebels, but she had a feeling that mohawks and combat boots had been few and far between.

Not that she’d ever had a mohawk. Dyeing her hair was one thing, but shaving off huge chunks of it was an entirely different proposition.

“Anyway,” he went on. “Everyone thought I — and the rest of the part demons — were ordinary, upstanding citizens, and we did our best to reinforce that image. The last thing we wanted was anyone paying too much attention to us.”

Beyond being the prom king and quarterback, she supposed. But then, she doubted anyone would suspect the high school hero of being anything more than what he appeared to be on the surface.

“Wise plan,” she said, then decided to let it go. She’d had enough revelations today. The important thing was that they’d done what they could for the victims whose bodies had been hidden in the basement, and now it was just a waiting game until the title on the house cleared and the funds transferred.

Especially since they were technically trespassing right now. True, Paige hadn’t taken down the lockbox, but still, etiquette generally suggested that Delia should have cleared this visit with the listing agent before she and Caleb came over here.

Well, what Paige didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

“Anyway,” Delia added, “I have a client coming to the office at one-thirty, so I should probably get going.”

And thank God they’d come in separate cars. After what Caleb had shown her, she guessed he could just blip himself wherever he needed to go, although it seemed as if he mostly drove around like a regular person.

Just another part of that whole not-attracting-attention thing.

For a second or two, he hesitated, and she wondered if he was going to ask if she wanted to go to lunch, and how she would reply. Yes, they’d had dinner the other night, but that was before she knew about the whole demon thing.

It was obviously going to take quite a while for her brain to adequately wrap itself around that unexpected piece of news.

Then he said, sounding casual, “Sure. I guess just let me know when the title search is done and what I need to do next.”

That part was easy. “Absolutely.”

They headed to the front door, where she returned the key to the lockbox and made sure it was secured before they both went down the front walk to the curb where their cars were parked. Still looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world, he waved at her before he climbed into his shiny black Range Rover — a vehicle she guessed he’d also paid for with his winnings — and drove off down the street.

No concern of hers where he’d gotten the money, she thought as she got into her little hybrid SUV and fastened the seatbelt.

Except….

Robert Hendricks’ face flashed into her mind.

What do you know about demons?

A lot more than she had a half-hour ago. But that wasn’t the point.

No, the real point was that — she realized with a sinking sensation in her stomach — Caleb Lockwood was probably the very demon Mr. Hendricks and his buddies at the various casinos had been looking for all along.