IT TURNEDout someone had thought of the property search already. The house on La Cantera was owned byAbout Time LLC.Jacob supposed it was a comfort, in a way. He wouldn’t want to be outsmarted and framed by someone who didn’t think ahead.
He stood at the counter in the mall vet with Fozzy’s lead double-wrapped around his wrist, and tapped the details out for Simon—assuming he ever checked his phone. Posters on the wall told him to fix his pet and check for ticks. In what he guessed was some sort of visual aid, there was a jar of the fat things crawling over each other on the counter. Jacob stood a good distance from them. He hit Send just as the young receptionist bopped out of the back, full of apologies for the delay.
“One of the cats got out,” she said as she blotted the bloody backs of her hands on her scrubs. “He’s a monster. I’m sorry. You wanted to get your puppy checked out?”
Jacob knelt down, picked Fozzy up, and grunted at the weight of the little barrel body in his arms. He set the dog down on the counter and hung on to his collar as his paws scrabbled in an attempt to run.
“Well, he’s sort of mine,” he said. “I was dating this guy for, like, a week? Now he’s blown town and left me with this scruffbag.”
The girl’s eyes went huge with dismay. “Oh no.” She took Fozzy’s head in her hands and scritched his ears, which made the dog go cross-eyed. “You poor sweetie. Did your daddy go off without you? That’s just horrible, but,”—her attention flicked up to Jacob—“we can’t take him. It’s policy. Otherwise—”
“No, that’s fine,” Jacob reassured her. “It’s just… obviously this guy isn’t the most reliable. So I just want to get scruffy here checked over. Make sure he’s healthy before I find someone to take him on.”
It was actually the truth. That was weird, but if it did the job….
“Oh, no problem, then,” the girl said. She dropped down on her stool and pushed over to the computer with her sneaker toes. She tapped the keys with businesslike speed. “I can fit you in—”
“Today?” Jacob suggested. He tried his best smile when she looked up and her face squinched into dismay again. “I have a meeting to get to,” he said apologetically. “I can’t leave him in my apartment all day. I’ll pay for kenneling him for the day? Please?”
He wasn’t sure if it was his puppy eyes or Fozzy’s that did the trick, but the girl gave in. “Okay,” she said. “I can fit him in… late, late this afternoon. Is that okay?”
“More than okay,” Jacob said. He gave her his details, his phone number, and the dog. If anything happened to him, at least the dog would be with someone who would take care of it.
He rolled mental eyes at himself as he walked out of the shop. The breakup couldn’t come soon enough, as far as he was concerned, before he started strip-mining his bank accounts to fund orphanages instead of keeping Bali cabana boys in suntan oil.
There he was, back on familiar ground—lying.
OVERSIZED WREATHSof blue and silver Christmas baubles hung on the main gates, and a tasteful twenty-foot tree, strung with elegant glass snowflakes, stood outside the luxury apartment block. Most of the windows were bare, except for the occasional tasteful spray of orchids, but someone on the second floor had filled their balcony with a family of light-up snowmen.
Jacob perched on the low wall outside and idly swung his foot as he sipped his toffee latte and waited for someone to pick up the phone. He’d just started to wonder if they’d given the staff leave for Christmas when the call was answered.
“Hello,” a smooth male voice said. “The Residences.”
“Is that Kim?” Jacob asked. He’d had a roommate from Nantucket once, and he let his voice settle into the remembered cadences. “My assistant was speaking to you last week?”
He waited expectantly, ready to throw his fictional hard-done-by assistant under the bus if Kim was on duty. Instead the voice on the phone corrected him pleasantly.
“Actually this is Chris. I’m the location manager. How can I help you?”
“I just wanted to apologize ahead of time,” Jacob said. “I’m going to be late for my viewing. Fox Bellamy.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Jacob sipped his coffee and waited for Chris to finish his panicked schedule check. He wiped the pad of his thumb over his lower lip and caught a stray dollop of cream. Right on cue Chris cleared his throat apologetically.
“I’m afraid I can’t find your appointment in our system, Mr. Bellamy. Are you sure it was for today?”
“I’m only in town for today,” Jacob said. He pulled the phone away from his ear for a second, checked the time and added ten minutes. “I was supposed to be there for one twenty? The booking might have been under my assistant’s name? Dan Adler.”
There was another pause while Chris fruitlessly checked through the files. “I’m sorry. We don’t have you booked in for a viewing. I can only apologize. Kim must have gotten the dates wrong, or misfiled your call….”
He sounded like his teeth were gritted. Based on the reviews online, this wasn’t Kim’s first screwup. She was name-checked more than once over bad service and bad recordkeeping. It was convenient to have a scapegoat to blame the mislaid appointment on.
“That’s a shame,” Jacob said. “I thought your apartments looked nice, but I have other buildings to see.”
“I could fit you in… New Year?” Chris offered.
“Sorry,” Jacob said. “I’m being seconded to the local office, and I don’t have time to waste getting settled in. If I can’t see the apartment this afternoon, I can’t see it.”
He paused to give Chris the opportunity to do the work for him. Bless him, he stepped up to the plate.
