live there,” Evangelista said, clearly unconcerned about her other customers. “Said the inside looks like something out of a vampire movie. Guy was a real pack rat, she said, although they probably got rid of all the crap by now, if they’ve been trying to sell it. But the kitchen and bathrooms?” She rolled her eyes. “God himself couldn’t move that place. Oh, here’s your food,” she said to Eli, peering through her glasses at the ticket. “Put it on your tab?”
“Yeah,” he said, hefting the plastic bag as he slid off the stool. With a nod to Tess, he started toward the door.
“By the way,” Evangelista called, “how were those enchiladas? I tried something a little different with the sauce, did you notice?”
Shouldering the door open, Eli turned, dimples flashin’. “Can’t say as I did.”
“They weren’t too hot, then?”
His eyes touched Tess’s. “Nope, not too hot at all,” he said, then pushed his way outside.
“Man,” Evangelista said on a wistful sigh as they both watched Eli through the plate glass window as he got into his truck, “if I was twenty years younger, I would be all over that hombre.”
Blowing out a breath, Tess gathered up her replaced cup of coffee and the battered roll in its bag, refusing to meet Evangelista’s questioning gaze before hotfooting it out herself. She’d intended to head straight for the little office on Main Street she’d shared with Suzanne Jenkins, her partner; instead she headed east, toward the house in question. Normally she’d never go after one of Suz’s old listings—the real estate equivalent of dating your best friend’s ex—but times being what they were, she’d take what she could get.
As far as listings went, that is.
She pulled up in front of the secluded old adobe and got out, getting a scolding from a crow atop a nearby telephone pole, a thick layer of pine needles cushioning her footsteps as she walked up the flagstone path. From the outside, the pinon-smothered house didn’t look too bad—the adobe was solid, the pitched, tin roof seemed in fairly decent condition. On the small side, maybe, but not everybody needed or wanted a big house. And—she turned—the setting was spectacular, with great, sweeping views of sky and mountains and valley.
Location, location, location…
Shivering in the frigid breeze, Tess tiptoed around the house’s perimeter, peering inside cloudy windows, the turquoise-painted wooden trim peeling and pockmarked with dry rot…an easy-enough fix. Heck, once the trim was replaced, she could paint it herself if she had to. The inside, though…oh, dear. Even through the murky glass, she could see the outdated kitchen cabinets and countertops, the scarred, smoke-smudged walls, the worn shag carpeting in the living room.
She got back in her car, giving the poor, neglected house a final glance. Were these people off their nut? Who on earth put a house on the market in that condition? Especially these days?
Was she off her nut, even considering taking the thing on?
Twenty minutes later, she walked into the office, nearly giving Candy Stevens, their receptionist, heart failure. “What in the blue blazes are you doing here?” the well-past-forty redhead barked from behind her desk by the front door.
“Got a divine message I was supposed to come back today,” Tess said, crossing to her side of the one-room office. Dust of postapocalyptic proportions lay thick on her desk.
“You might’ve given us some warning,” Candy—whose fashion philosophy pretty much began and ended with pushup bras, fringe and Aqua Net—said, following. Today’s ensemble included a snuggly sweater, tight jeans and cowboy boots never meant to come anywhere near a horse. “I haven’t even dusted or anything over here in weeks.”
“So I noticed.” Tess set her coffee and roll on top of her printer, then shrugged out of her jacket, hanging it on the back of her chair. “Where’s Suze?”
Who, knowing her partner, would be less than thrilled by her return. Suze wasn’t real big on sharing. Except for rent and utilities.
“On vacation,” Candy said, madly taking a feather duster to shelves and things, stirring up a lot more dust than she was dispatching. “She’ll be back Monday. Oh, my goodness, honey—you got a rash or something on your neck? You’re all red—”
“It’s nothing!” Tess said, only to be suddenly squished against Candy’s copious bazooms.
“God, I missed you,” the older woman whispered, as though somebody might be eavesdropping. Then she let Tess go. “You know I love Suze to death, but she’s…”
“Suze,” Tess said, smiling. Heaven knew why Suze had taken Tess under her wing, mentoring Tess into as good an agent as she was. Or at least had been. But the four-times-married blonde’s piranha-esque tactics were legendary. Woman could probably sell property to the dead. So why hadn’t she been able to unload the house up on the hill?
“So I see she dropped the Coyote Trail listing?” Tess said, settling in front of her computer.
“More like the sellers dropped Suze,” Candy said, butt twitching as she returned to her own desk by the front door. “Birdbrains. They wanna dump it but won’t spend a dime on updates. Suze took a stab at selling it as a fixer-upper, but in this market? No way.”
“So there’s no lockbox?”
Candy’s eyes snapped to hers. “You went up there?”
“Just a little bit ago, yeah. I think it has potential.”
“For the Addams family, maybe.”
Tess smiled. “You got the clients’ contact info?”
Now Candy frowned. Carefully. “Well, sure, it’s still in the system, but honey…you can’t be serious.”
“What can I say? I’m up for a challenge.”
Anything to take her mind off Eli, she thought, catching herself moments before she touched the aforementioned “rash” on her neck. But not before the memory of how that rash got there started up the tingling. Again.
“There’s challenges and then there’s banging your head against a wall. Sugar, I hate to break it to you, but business hasn’t exactly picked up while you were gone. In fact…” She sighed. “Suze said if things didn’t improve by the end of the month she’d have to let me go. So I’m thinking this might not be the best time for you to be thinking about getting back in the groove.”
A feeling like hot steam flashed up the back of Tess’s neck. “Nobody’s letting you go, Candy,” she said, even as she wondered how she planned on making good on her promise. A moment later, she had the contact info on the screen in front of her; five minutes after that, she’d arranged to meet Fred and Gillian Harris at the house the following Monday.
She hung up the phone to see Candy wagging her head. “Honey, you are one serious glutton for punishment.”
Yeah. Tell her about it.
Once inside the house on Monday morning, Tess decided it reminded her of a tired housewife who’d given up the good fight. Unfortunately, houses were not capable of dragging their saggy butts
