“Heartbreaker. Jezebel,” Brendan observed, sotto, as they walked out, photocopied report in hand.
“Shut up,” she mumbled.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, straightfaced.
She held her smile all the way to the car. When he opened the car door for her, she kicked him.
“So sorry,” she said, and slid into the seat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Young Officer Callaghan was right on the money. The real-estate office was exactly four doors down from the train depot. They hadn’t really even had to drive.
As they walked across the sidewalk to the office, Brendan reached and took Laurel’s hand. She looked at him, startled. “Darling,” he said, pointedly.
“Oh,” she said, realizing. Okay, so now they were a young couple looking for a house. She thought it was a premature bit of deception, but maybe they’d get more information if the agent thought there was something in it for—
Her. Definitely a her. The woman behind the desk by the corner window was on her feet in a flash, dazzling them with her smile. She was an archetypal real-estate agent, in her late forties, fake nails and lemon-yellow Talbots suit, overwhelmingly, positively cheerful. California agents had a little bit more subtlety going on, but that was really just a regional veneer. The overall driving quality was the same. It was about sales. Markets were depressed all over and it must be even more true in an out-of-the-way place like this.
Her name was Audra Lennox.
“Morning, ma’am,” Brendan was saying cheerily, and Laurel felt the “ma’am” was a bit of overkill, directed at her. She resisted the urge to kick him again. “I’m Brendan Cody and this is Mickey. We’re brand-new to North Carolina, and Mickey here and I have been driving through the area, looking at properties. Finally occurred to us it would be a lot smarter to consult a professional.”
“You couldn’t be more right about that,” Audra gushed. “I’d never in my life want to come into a new area without some reputable guidance.”
Laurel was already thinking of a million ways this ruse was going to backfire on them, but Brendan breezed right on. “Thing is, we have a good idea of what we want. I believe people around here call it the Old Folger House.”
The agent’s face fell so fast Laurel thought she might have to scrape it off the floor.
“I can’t imagine you’d find that property … suitable. I have so many properties more … more convenient to area amenities—,” Audra started.
“Oh, we’re not after convenience, are we, honey? We are looking to get as far away as we can, and that’s a fact.” He threw an arm around Laurel’s shoulders and squeezed her. Laurel was starting to feel trapped in an episode of the Andy Griffith Show.
She smiled weakly and agreed, “Something out of the way.”
“But my goodness—that old place is a handful. That’s nothing a young couple like yourselves needs to be getting into.” Audra’s eyes grazed Laurel’s left hand, ostentatiously bare of any rings, and Laurel saw her gaze narrow. Busted already, she thought. Some cover story.
“Oh, we’re up for a challenge,” Brendan beamed, oblivious.
“I wouldn’t call the Folger place a challenge. It’s more like a train wreck,” Audra said, matching Brendan’s wattage, but Laurel saw steel under her smile.
“Still, there’s something about it that spoke to us, didn’t it, hon?” He grasped Laurel’s hand affectionately.
“Have you seen the house?” Audra demanded, more suspicious by the moment. Laurel tensed, but Brendan covered smoothly.
“We’ve seen photos,” he said without missing a beat. “Even if it isn’t the place for us, maybe if we could walk through it with you; you would understand what it is we’re looking for in a house, and we could go from there. A sort of shorthand, so to speak.”
Laurel barely kept herself from cringing—it was so obviously a ploy.
And it worked.
They piled into Audra’s vanilla-cream Lexus and she drove them out a largely deserted road past gently rolling farmlands with sleek chestnut horses behind white rail fencing.
The huge advantage of having a real-estate agent in charge was that you could ask all the questions you wanted about the area—history, population, flora and fauna—and there was a good chance of getting a knowledgeable answer. Laurel had to admit—grudgingly—that Brendan had been right to persist. She also had to admit, also grudgingly, that he could charm a bird out of a tree. Which was not, in her opinion, a point in his favor. In the backseat Laurel narrowed her eyes at him and he returned her a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth look.