Cal glances at me, his mouth drooped into a disapproving frown.
“Ummm, all right, then,” she says with an uncomfortable chuckle. “Well, I’m finishing up in the pool house around back if you need anything.”
The specificity of “the pool house around back” makes me briefly consider if there is another pool house elsewhere. I wouldn’t be surprised; according to a stack of flyers sitting on a console table by the front door, this place is over twelve thousand square feet with eight bedrooms and ten and a half baths. The only people I can imagine this suiting perfectly would be a very large family that frequently suffers from food poisoning.
Makayla hurries off, her sky-high heels from this morning now replaced by more practical running shoes.
“Great,” Cal says once she’s gone. “Now Makayla thinks we inadvertently rented her a dildo.”
I try not to burst into laughter at the exasperation in his voice while saying the word. “Well, I would rather her think that, which is just sort of embarrassing, than her know the truth, which could potentially ruin our lives.”
Cal sighs heavily. “I guess.”
“And if she does believe it’s a sex toy, she probably thinks it’s mine. Let her assume I’m a little freak, getting off in Virtu’s storeroom.”
“Is that what she’d think?” he asks, an endearing blush overtaking his pale face.
“Either that or we were using it together,” I say, wanting to see how much redder Cal’s cheeks can get. The answer is quitea bit. “Anyway, we should split up,” I suggest, trying not to linger on the mental image too long myself since my skin is starting to feel hot too. “Cover more area quickly.”
“Good idea,” he says, the lightest catch in his voice. “I’ll take everything in, uh, this wing—” He gestures to the left. “You take everything in that one?” He shifts his arms to the opposite side. “And we’ll text the other with the location once it’s found.”
I nod once, agreeing to the plan, and rush off to search for the goose and the long-lost part of my brain that is supposed to think before I speak.
This house is oddly disorienting. Maybe because it’s so damn big, or because of all the random nooks and crannies the architect decided to throw in for who knows what reason. I swear it stretches on endlessly. Like, the listing said eight bedrooms, but I’m sure that I’ve come across ten upstairs by the time I reach the last one (the master, I assume based on how gigantic it is) and find Cal already inside.
He looks over his shoulder as I enter, as if he senses my presence.
“Nothing?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he confirms.
“Same here. Where could it be?”
“Maybe it flew away,” he says, completely deadpan.
“Ha. Ha. Aren’t you hilarious.”
I stare up at the tray ceiling, a rather ugly chandelier hanging from its center. “I guess we should go find Makayla and ask if it’s possible it was left on the truck.” I move toward the door, but Cal’s hand clutches my shoulder and pulls me backward before I can leave.
“The security panel,” he explains before I can register myannoyance at being manhandled. “The light on it was glowing green when I came in. Now it’s red.”
“What?” I follow Cal’s gaze to a small, dark screen mounted on the wall beside the door. It does indeed have a red light glowing beside the wordStatus.
He goes over and taps the screen with his finger, forcing it to awaken from its sleeping state. “System armed,” he reads.
“Shit. How did that happen?”
“Maybe Makayla forgot we were here since it took an actual eternity for us to get through this place.” Cal pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call Genevieve.”
I wait, breath held as the call goes straight to voicemail. Cal tries again and again with the same result. He leaves her a message that requests she call him back as soon as possible.
“Well. That’s not ideal,” he says, pocketing his phone.
“What about the police?” I suggest.
“Yeah, great idea, Annie.” His tone tells me this is sarcasm even before he continues, “ ‘Good evening, officer. Thanks for coming out. We promise we’re supposed to be here even though the person responsible for the property isn’t answering her phone. No, we don’t know her assistant’s last name. What were we doing here in the first place? Looking for something. Can’t tell you what, though! Because it would probably implicate us in a felony!’ ”
“Okay, fine. What are we going to do, then?”
