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Chapter Sixteen

After meeting with her two o’clock client — who didn’t seem to notice that Delia had had two glasses of wine with lunch — she dutifully got out her phone and texted the two general contractors she’d been thinking of for Caleb’s renovation project. Bruce Mills was already booked up, but Raul Martinez told her he’d just had a cancellation after the second mortgage his clients had been relying on to fund their remodel fell through.

“So I hope this one isn’t on shaky ground,” he said, and Delia had to smile.

“No, this client is paying cash for everything,” she replied. “No bank involvement at all. And the wiring and the plumbing are mostly done, so you won’t have to worry about that. There’s still the HVAC system and the roof and all the cosmetic stuff, but — ”

“You had me at ‘paying cash,’” Raul cut in, and she could practically see him grinning at the prospect. “When did you want to get started?”

“As soon as possible,” she said. “But you’ll need to talk to Caleb and confirm that with him. Let me give you his number.”

After that piece of business was handled, Delia set down her phone and opened her laptop. She didn’t have another client meeting until four, so she thought this would give her a chance to get caught up on what was happening in Las Vegas and the world — and possibly distract her from the way she’d decided to go all in with helping a part demon remodel his dream house.

Or his income property, or whatever. She still wasn’t entirely sure what he planned to do with the place.

But when she went to the website of one of the local news stations, she wondered if maybe it had been such a great idea to get caught up on what was happening in the world around her.

Mystery Bodies at Morgue Stump Authorities, the headline read, and Delia let out a breath. While she’d known intellectually that you couldn’t just have a bunch of skeletons appear at the medical examiner’s facility and not send up a forest of red flags, she supposed she’d hoped that maybe they wouldn’t broadcast those details to the press until they’d had a little more time to investigate.

Apparently not.

But the article made it clear that neither the police nor the workers at the medical examiner’s office had any idea where the remains had come from, so she supposed that piece of information made her feel a little better. There really wasn’t anything to tie those skeletons to her and Caleb, since the two of them were the only people who even knew their true history. Maybe at some point, the medical examiner and his or her staff would be able to determine a cause of death, but she didn’t think they’d be able to extract much more information than that, not when the remains had been removed from the crime scene and so much time had elapsed since those women’s murders.

She and Caleb sure wouldn’t be talking…not because they’d done anything wrong, but because she knew there was no way they could explain how they’d gotten the skeletons out from under the floor of his home’s lower level without jackhammering the thing into oblivion.

And that didn’t even take into account the little detail of getting them from Pueblo Street into the coroner’s office without anyone noticing.

No, it was one of those crazy mysteries that would occupy the local media for a day or two until something just as sensational came along.

Even as she was about to navigate away from the news station’s website and over to the Weather Channel’s site so she could check to see whether any more rain threatened in the forecast, her phone rang.

Robert Hendricks’ number.

Delia hadn’t expected to hear from him again so soon, not when they’d both agreed that they would give things until the end of the week before she decided whether to continue with their demon search.

Well, she already knew she didn’t want to do this anymore and was only humoring Robert because he’d made it clear that he thought she needed more time, but still.

“Hi, Robert,” she said. “What’s up?”

“I have something you need to see,” he replied. “Can you meet me at the business offices at the Dunes?”

She’d wondered where his office was located…if he even had one at all. He’d been sort of hazy about exactly where he worked, although it seemed clear enough that he was just the spokesman for a group of concerned casino owners and managers.

“I have a client coming to the office in less than an hour,” she replied. “Can we do it after that, maybe around five-thirty?”

A pause, and she wondered if he was going to tell her no, that wouldn’t work, that the matter was urgent and he needed to see her right away.

But then he said, “Five-thirty should be fine. Just tell one of the security guards at the Dunes that you’re there to see Robert Hendricks, and they’ll take you up to my office.”

“Sounds good,” she responded. “Sorry I can’t meet you sooner than that.”

“It’s fine,” he assured her. “I understand that you have other clients you need to attend to. I’ll see you at five-thirty.”

They ended the call there, and she returned her phone to her purse, a little mystified.

Just what was so important that Robert needed to see her today after work, rather than waiting until tomorrow morning?

Well, she supposed she’d find out soon enough.

Her four o’clock meeting — to help an older couple put the family home on the market and find them a condo for their new, downsized lifestyle — went faster than Delia had expected, so she probably could have met Robert at closer to five than five-thirty. However, they’d already agreed upon the time, so she decided to roll with it and show up as scheduled.

She’d known the traffic would probably suck, and she gave herself a little cushion for the drive over to the casino. Good thing, because even though she didn’t see any accidents like the one from a few days ago between the big black truck and the white Mazda SUV, enough cars still choked the streets downtown that she barely made it to the Dunes on time.

Once there, she followed Robert’s instructions and went over to a security guard, telling him she had a meeting with Mr. Hendricks. At once, the guard — a friendly Black man who looked like he was probably around ten or fifteen years older than she — guided her over to the elevator and took them up to the tenth floor.

Not the penthouse, which of course would need to be a luxurious suite designed to cater to the casino’s high rollers. Still, the tenth floor offered some breathtaking views, especially as the wintry dusk shifted into full dark and the lights on the Strip really came to life.

“Here you are,” the security guard told her, and pressed the button on an intercom set into the wall next to the office suite’s door. “Mr. Hendricks? I have a Ms. Dunne here to see you.”

“Send her in,” came Robert’s voice, and the security guard nodded at her even as a faint buzzing sound told her the door had probably just been unlocked.

“You can go inside now.”

She thanked him, then put her fingers on the door handle and pushed down. Immediately, the door swung inward, letting her into an office that showcased more of those dramatic views, with a big glass and steel desk at the far end of the space.

“Thanks for coming by,” Robert said as he rose from behind the desk. He looked a little less casual than he had the last time they’d met, today wearing a black dress shirt and gray dress pants.

She went over to him and smiled. “It’s no problem. What did you want to show me?”

“One of my colleagues found something on the security cameras at Treasure Island,” Robert replied. “I thought you might want to take a look.”

“Sure,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too reluctant. While she knew the chances of him or one of his associates finding anything truly incriminating were fairly low, she knew she also had to understand that she was in uncharted territory now…and all bets were off.

Robert had one of those insanely expensive Mac Pros and a matching cinema display, a setup she knew must have cost him upwards of three or four grand…mostly because she’d thought about getting one for herself and had decided she couldn’t really justify the expenditure no matter how much she wanted a shiny new toy.

Now he shifted the display just enough so it was facing more toward her. “One of the security cameras — the one near the men’s restrooms — picked this up. At first, I thought it must be some kind of degradation of the signal, a sort of glitch. But now I’m not sure, so I thought I should get your expert opinion.”

She wanted to argue that she wasn’t an expert at analyzing security footage and then decided to keep silent. Better to see what Robert thought he had found before she started getting too defensive.

He clicked the wireless mouse, and the screensaver that had displayed a series of desert scenes abruptly flicked off, instead showing what looked like every single hallway leading to the casino bathrooms that she’d ever seen. Yes, the pattern of the carpet and the color on the walls and the light fixtures might change, but they all felt slightly cramped and in person tended to smell of desperation.

The door to the men’s restroom opened, and a dark-haired man who looked like he might be around thirty, wearing jeans and a henley-style shirt, stepped out. He was very good-looking, but Delia doubted that was why Robert wanted her to see this footage.

No, it was the way that handsome face slipped for a split-second, instead showing the features of a much older Hispanic man, before the model-pretty visage returned.

“I…don’t understand,” she said, knowing she sounded a little shaken…although probably not for the reason Robert Hendricks might believe.

Neither of those faces had belonged to Caleb Lockwood, but she knew that it had to be him. She’d never watched him shift, and yet, who else could it be?

Another demon, she thought, but for some reason, that didn’t feel right. Caleb was the one who’d gone around changing his appearance so he could gamble and win money all over town without anyone being able to find a connection among all those winners, so it only made sense that it would be his slip-up that the security cameras caught.

Why it had happened, she didn’t know, but even with all his powers, she doubted he was infallible. Most likely, he hadn’t realized there were security cameras trained on him in that moment, and since the hallway had been otherwise empty, he probably wouldn’t have thought a little glitch like that was a big deal.

“So,” she said, glad her voice sounded steady enough, “you think that person is a demon?”

“Yes,” Robert replied. He didn’t seem too shaken by what he’d just shown here, but she guessed he’d already watched the footage multiple times and had had enough time to come to terms with its implications. “We’re fairly certain it’s the same one who’s been going around town and helping himself to some unearned winnings. Now that we know what he looks like, it’ll be easier to keep an eye out for him.”

Unfortunately for Robert Hendricks and his associates, the face they’d caught on camera wasn’t Caleb’s real one. Delia decided it was better to keep quiet about that particular point, though. She’d already decided that if she was forced to pick sides, she would be on Caleb’s…as unlikely as that scenario might have felt to her only a few days ago.

“I can see that,” she said, her tone neutral. “And if you know who to look for, I’m not sure you need my services anymore.”

Robert raised an eyebrow. “You thought I had you come all the way over here just so I could tell you that you were off the case?”

She shrugged. “Well, and to show me the footage, I suppose. But since all of the casinos have security personnel who can be given a screenshot of the guy, I don’t think my ghost-sleuthing abilities — or whatever you want to call them — are what you need right now.”

“Actually, they’re exactly what we need,” he countered. “Just because we caught a glimpse of the man doesn’t mean that he won’t keep changing his appearance whenever he wants to visit a new casino and bilk us out of more money. Our security guards obviously wouldn’t be able to detect when this demon shapeshifts…but you could.”

“I don’t know about that,” Delia said. “I’ve wandered around a number of casinos over the past week and never felt anything except the very slightest whiff that could have been something else entirely. Like I told you on the phone yesterday, I don’t think my talents — or whatever you want to call them — are what’s needed here.”

Robert Hendricks didn’t reply at first, only stood behind his desk and watched her with eyes that had narrowed ever so slightly. “I respectfully disagree. And you already told me that you’d be willing to keep working on this for another week.”

Yes, she had…a promise she now wished she’d never made. But because she couldn’t go back in time and tell her past self to just end it and walk away, there wasn’t much she could do about that now.

“I did,” she said steadily. “And I’ll keep trying. I just don’t want to exaggerate what I’m able to accomplish.”

“You haven’t exaggerated,” he replied. “If anything, you’ve underplayed your abilities. It’s unclear to us whether this demon has an unlimited repertoire of borrowed faces or whether he has a set number that he likes to cycle through. If it’s the latter case, then seeing these two appearances might help you spot him when you’re out in a casino.”

Maybe that would have been helpful…if she didn’t already know exactly who Caleb was and exactly what he looked like.

“Yes, it might,” she said. At this point, since she was still stuck spying for Robert Hendricks and his cohorts, she figured she’d just go along with whatever he said and then get the hell out of there as quickly as she could. “And it’s definitely something I’ll keep in mind. Was there anything else?”

That last question might have bordered on rude. Then again, this wasn’t a social call. They were handling a piece of business, and since it seemed as if he’d passed the relevant information on to her, she didn’t see the point in lingering.

Especially since she knew she needed to let Caleb know about this latest development.

A faint smile touched Robert Hendricks’ lips. “No, that was all. Thank you for coming over here at what I know must be the end of a long day.”

It had been long. Unfortunately, it wasn’t over yet.

She made a polite demurral, and after that, he walked her over to the door and thanked her again for coming. When she rode down the elevator, she realized she shouldn’t leave immediately, should make a show of wandering the casino floor and looking for their elusive demon gambler.

Who of course wasn’t even there.

But she still walked past the blackjack tables and the craps tables with their usual throngs of people hanging around and watching the moment’s latest high roller, wasting a good twenty minutes or so until she thought she’d spent enough time there that any report the security staff sent up to Robert Hendricks would show she’d done her due diligence.

Afterward, she went out to the parking lot and drove away. Once she figured she’d put some safe distance between her car and the Dunes — and after she’d nervously checked all her rearview mirrors, wondering if maybe he would have sent someone to tail her, ridiculous as that sounded — she waited for a convenient red light and then got her phone out of her purse.

Caleb picked up almost right away. “Hey, Delia. Did something come up?”

A fitting question, she supposed, since he probably would have assumed that after she gave him Raul Martinez’s contact information, she wouldn’t need to reach out for a while.

“Yes,” she said. “But I’d rather talk in person. Are you home?”

To her relief, he didn’t ask her why, only replied, “I am. Do you need the address?”

She did, because although she’d seen it on his paperwork, she hadn’t committed it to memory.

“That would help.”

He gave her the information, and she hurriedly programmed it into her nav.

“It’ll be about fifteen minutes,” she said.

“No worries. I’m not going anywhere.”

After she ended the call, she hoped she wasn’t interrupting his dinner. True, it was still a little early for that, but she had no idea what his schedule was like.

If he even had one. He seemed like one of those people who went where the wind took him — something that was a lot easier to do when you didn’t have a real job.

The streets were crammed, and she found herself drumming her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel whenever a red light took too long. Yes, Caleb had told her he wasn’t going anywhere, and he probably knew as well as anyone else that you couldn’t control Las Vegas traffic, only do your best to coexist with it.

Eventually, though, she found herself winding through a neighborhood of older homes, most of which had been recently updated and restored. They were possibly a few years newer than the home he’d bought on Pueblo Street, but still very much mid-century in vintage and design.

In fact, the house she pulled up to felt oddly familiar, although she couldn’t say why, precisely. Maybe she’d seen it on the MLS or a sales flyer.

When he opened the door and let her in, however, and she took note of the boldly painted shelves in the living room and the fixture of sculpted LED lights that hung over the dining room table, it suddenly hit her.

“You bought one of the Flip or Flop Vegas houses?”

“I did,” Caleb said with a grin, ushering her into the living room so she could take a seat. “It was fully furnished and move-in ready, and I needed a home base, so I went for it. Drink? You look like you could use one.”

Drinking here alone with Caleb Lockwood didn’t seem like the best idea in the world.

On the other hand, it had been kind of a day.

“What’ve you got?”

“Pretty much anything,” he replied, still smiling. “Just don’t ask me to make a pousse café.”

Delia had no idea what that even was and figured it must be some kind of a private joke for him. “Some wine would be great.”

“Coming right up.”

She waited on the couch while he went into the kitchen. A few clinks that she guessed were the sounds of Caleb getting a pair of glasses out of the cupboard, and then the sound of a cork getting pulled out of a bottle.

He came back into the living room, a glass of red wine in each hand. After giving her one, he sat down in one of the club chairs that faced the sofa.

Well, thank God for that. She wasn’t sure how she would have handled him sitting right next to her. At least this way, their meeting could feel halfway formal, even if they were drinking wine.

No offer of a toast, which told her he was pretty good at reading the room.

Then again, she kind of already knew that.

“So…what’s up?” he asked, and sipped some wine.

A swallow of wine sounded like a great idea. She drank some down and guessed it was probably pinot noir or a blend, since it wasn’t heavy enough to be a cab.

“I just had a meeting with Robert Hendricks.”

Caleb didn’t appear overly worried by that revelation. “And?”

“He had some security footage of you.”

At once, Caleb sat up a little straighter, his straight brown brows pulling together. “What?”

All right, now it looked as if he was paying attention. “You were coming out of the men’s restroom at Treasure Island, and the cameras in that hallway caught a little blip as your appearance shifted.”

“Well, shit,” he said, although he still looked more annoyed than concerned, as if he was irritated with himself for being so careless.

“It could be worse,” Delia told him, then sipped some more of her wine. “Luckily, the cameras caught you when you were wearing a different face, so Robert still doesn’t know what you look like. He thinks your real appearance is some Hispanic guy who’s around your same age.” She stopped there and gave Caleb an inquisitive glance. “So…where do you get all these faces you wear, anyway? Are they people you’ve seen on the street or something?”

“Some of them,” he replied. “Some I have an AI generate for me, so they don’t look like anyone in particular. Sometimes that seems safer to me.”

She supposed it would. If he was borrowing a real person’s face, there was always the odd chance that someone might recognize him, whereas if the visage he decided to wear only existed in the mind of an AI, that wouldn’t be an issue.

“Still,” she said, “now they have solid proof that you exist…and that you can shapeshift. It’s probably better if you lie low for a while.”

A quick flash of a grin, the one Caleb seemed to employ whenever he needed to reassure her that everything was cool.

“Already on it,” he replied. “After getting attacked by imp demons twice — imps I realized were trying to keep me from going to the casinos — I decided I’d focus on the remodel and get my money working for me a different way. Speaking of which, do you have any financial advisor recs you can give me?”

He sounded so blithe. And wait… two attacks? Delia only knew of the one from the parking structure at the Bellagio.

“What was the second attack?” she asked, ignoring the comment about the financial advisor. She had a few people she could recommend, but that didn’t seem like the most pressing matter at the moment.

“Oh, I hired an Uber where the driver turned out to be an imp. He intentionally ran a red light, but I teleported myself out of there right after we got T-boned.”

Once again, she had a hard time understanding how he could be so chill about the whole thing. “So…they already know who you are?”

“I don’t think they know it’s me, me,” Caleb replied calmly, and drank some of his wine. “I think they just detected the presence of someone of demon-kind. They probably don’t know where I live, or otherwise, they would have come after me here. But they obviously figured out I use Uber a lot to get around. So my plan is to keep a low profile until things calm down a little. Luckily, I’ve got plenty of earnings to live on, so it’s not as if I need to worry about heading out to the gambling tables any time soon.”

She supposed that was something.

“And I doubt they’re going to try to kill me,” he went on, sounding way too blithe, considering the situation. “I think they wanted to send a clear warning that they’re not happy with me taking millions of their money.”

Although she’d already done the unpleasant math in her head, she said, “So…the casino owners are working in concert with the demons?”

“Or some of them might be demons themselves,” Caleb said. He still wore a half-smile, making her think he still wasn’t taking this too seriously. “It’s hard to say without meeting them. Has this Robert Hendricks given you any weird vibes?”

Delia wanted to say no, he hadn’t, but after meeting Caleb, she had to admit that she didn’t quite trust her instincts the way she once had. There hadn’t been a single sign, a single comment or word, that had made her think he was anyone except who he professed to be.

“Nothing I can think of,” she replied. “Which unfortunately doesn’t mean much, because it doesn’t seem as if I’m as good at detecting demons as I am at working with ghosts. But he seems like a regular man to me.”

“He could very well be,” Caleb said. “Lots of instances of humans working with demons and having absolutely no idea who they were interacting with. But I don’t see any reason why we can’t peacefully coexist now that I’ve sworn off the casinos. Demons tend to be single-focus creatures, so once I’m off their radar, it should be fine.”

Delia wished she could be that confident about the situation. Robert didn’t seem like the type to give up easily, or he wouldn’t have pressured her into working on the casino problem for another week.

Also, men who were pushovers generally didn’t end up in a corner office with a panoramic view.

“If you think so,” she said, and didn’t bother to keep the skeptical tone from her voice. “But I figured it was better if you knew how much information they actually have.”

“And I appreciate it,” Caleb replied with a smile. “It’s always good to know what your enemy is doing.”

Before she’d heard about the attempted car accident, she might have commented on his use of the word “enemy.” Now, though — even if she still wasn’t entirely sure whether the demons who’d targeted him were the same group as those who were trying to figure out who’d been gaming the system at the casinos — it seemed pretty clear to her that at least one person wanted to scare him off…if not remove him from the chessboard altogether.

“Since you’re over here,” he continued, now sounding almost diffident, “do you want to stay and have something to eat? Just something from DoorDash, but I assure you that I’m expert at ordering from them.”

A demurral rose to her lips, but then she took a good look at him. Most people would have said he still appeared casual enough, and yet there was something about the way he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes that told her he was more invested in her staying for dinner than he wanted to admit.

In that moment, she realized how lonely he really was.

And she certainly didn’t have anything on the docket except maybe sticking a quiche from Trader Joe’s in the toaster oven. It would be okay to stay here and provide a little company…wouldn’t it?

“Sure,” she said, hoping he hadn’t noticed her hesitation.

Maybe she was making a mistake.

She supposed she’d find out soon enough.