Fix It Up - Mary Calmes Page 0,8

snorted. “Rock star with a drug problem? Please. You’ll be lucky if you’re back here in eight. You’ll have to have someone there to take over before you leave.”

But Torus didn’t do long-term, we did short-term.

“He’s gotta be in good shape before you leave him,” Jared had reminded me on the way out.

I thought I was in a bad mood before, but getting on the plane the following morning brought me to new levels of pissed off.

Nick Madison’s home was in the Mission Creek neighborhood of Santa Barbara. It wasn’t the priciest area, that was the Upper East, but a four-and-a-half-million-dollar house was not something I was ever going to have in my lifetime. What was nice about the house’s location on Mission Canyon Road was that because the area was older—Nick’s house was built in 1963—the plots were large, which made privacy easy to achieve with the natural barrier of trees. So many damn trees. It was like driving through a forest, and when you happened to catch sight of a house, that was a surprise.

Nick’s California redwood home was set back quite a ways from the main road, well shaded under the canopy of vegetation, and I was thinking, as the cab dropped me off, that the neighbors would have been even more thankful for the privacy and the space between each property if they’d known about the decibel level of the music. I was already horrified at the lack of security, the front gate wide open, the security camera inoperable as far as I could tell. Cars lined the long drive on both sides, making coming or going a nightmare, and now I was faced with an open front door that people were strolling in and out of. The cab driver helped me get my garment bag, rolling suitcase, and duffel out of the trunk and then turned and looked at me, squinting.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to a hotel?” he said, eying the people laughing and stumbling, drinking and smoking. “I know a lot of good ones.”

It was kind. We’d talked a bit, and he knew, in even that short time, that this whole drunken debauchery vibe was not me. Also, I wasn’t dressed like anyone here. I was in my black Hugo Boss suit, white dress shirt, and burnished mahogany cap-toe oxfords. I was trying to make a good first impression, but realized that I should have worn jeans and a Henley since God only knew who I was going to have to throw out of the house.

“I’m good,” I told him, giving him cash for the ride from the airport, with a twenty-dollar tip. “Remind me, is pot legal here?”

He nodded. “Yeah. And you’ll smell it everywhere you go. We’ve got a lot of farms here, drives the vintners nuts.”

“Well, yeah, I would think so.”

After the cab drove away, I stood in the circular driveway for a moment, getting my bearings, staring at the open door, trying to calm the wave of irritation that washed over me. Already, seeing people traipse over flowers, dropping lit cigarettes on the sidewalk and in the gravel, seeing them knock over potted plants, I was annoyed. What kind of barn were they raised in? I walked in the front door and located the hall closet, stashed my things there, and then went to look for my latest assignment.

The house felt like a retreat nestled somewhere deep in the wild, the interior all polished hardwood and exposed beam ceilings. Four sets of double doors opened out onto a deck and a stunning outdoor area, complete with benches and a fountain, that looked out into the wooded canyon, and I would have loved it and felt utterly at peace there if not for the thumping music and suffocating crowd.

In the large chef’s kitchen with high-end appliances and an eat-at island, I finally found Brent Donovan, the caretaker Nick had fired but Cox had rehired, where he was pouring drinks as another man leaned over the island, clipboard in hand. They were yelling at each other over the music, trying to be heard. I tapped Brent on the shoulder, and after he held up his hand twice to make me wait, I finally grabbed his bicep and swung him around to face me.

“The fuck do you want?” he roared at me.

Or most likely it was a roar. His frustration and exasperation were conveyed by his facial features, which were twisted into red-faced anger, rather than the