Kell ran his fingers over his stubble. The spare women last night had been invited by Trent in a roundabout way. “When you’re interested, you need to do more than sit back and watch.”
“I’m trying to learn from the Killer.”
“Ask them about themselves. They’re people like you and me,” Kell said impatiently. At twenty-eight, he was two years younger than Trent who by rights should have settled down a while ago. “The next time I meet a couple…” Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he walked off, leaving Trent to assume whatever he liked about the conclusion of the sentence.
He glanced around the downstairs area as he boiled the water in the electric kettle. The place might still have a kitchen but the last update must have been a good fifty years ago. The cupboards, although made out of good English oak were…well, made out of good English oak, which meant each had been lined with paper that didn’t stand a chance of protecting the wood. The insides had rotted, but the doors were still good and would scrub up well after he removed them. He planned to put them back again refitted onto a laminate carcass.
His real-life, everyday self was a cabinetmaker. He earned a good wage, but his elder brother, now an architect, had made quite a few dollars out of renovating the worst house in the best street in their old neighborhood. Jay had then married, found himself a better job, and had scrambled out of debt with the sale of his house. Jay’s wife had advised Kell to go into flipping houses, deciding he had the skills. She had proved right. A few months ago, he had sold his first flip, making enough money on the deal to fund a mortgage on this tumbledown house-and-land deal.
The local council, fat and greedy with the profits from suburban infill, had already approved his subdivision plan. Within the next few months, he would do up the old house on this side of the block to exhibit his cabinetry work. For the other side, he also had plans. A while back, the major property development company in the state had hired his small team, consisting of him, a carpenter, and an apprentice, to help catch up on a shopping mall job. Seeing the scope, Kell wanted more jobs with the company, but like every other business in the state, he had to prove himself first. AA & Company only took on the best.
Knowing he had to earn his way in, he spoke to the company’s property manager and put forward his proposition. He would renovate the house on his double block, and if AA approved of the job he did, they would take on the build of the new house on the other side, and share the profits.
The property manager had nodded. “Three months. You’ll want to show your management skills, too.” A handshake sealed the deal.
Kell had no time to waste. This morning, the remaining roof tiles would be lifted off the old outhouses and stacked onto pallets, ready to take to the salvage yard. He could also sell the cleaned bricks from the demolition, the best of the reclaimed wood if he didn’t find another use for the quality lengths, and the old leadlight windows.
This time next year, if AA took him on, he would end up with a good steady income, and the means to expand his business. In the meantime, he had moved out of the caravan he had parked inside his workshop to camp in this house he was renovating. Eventually, he would have the money to buy himself a pretty good home in a classy area. Then, no one would dismiss him as a lowly tradesman.
Chapter 2
Calli checked where to find the nearest vet and wrapped the cat in a towel. One look at her bundle by the receptionist, and she was ushered into a tiny cubicle.
“She’s a pretty girl,” the leathery vet said, his careful eyes and gentle hands checking out the cat, not Calli, who was rarely called pretty, even by men her own age. “She came a long way to find you. Look at the pads of her paws. She has done some travelling.”
Calli cleared her throat, trying to force her voice. “Why would she want to find me? I don’t even like cats.”
“She’s not yours?” His brown-eyed gaze connected with hers.
“She walked into my house. Sorry for whispering. I think I have a touch of hay fever.”
“So, you want me to euthanize her?” He stood back, staring at her, his expression impartial.
“I promised her I would help her if I could.” She lifted her shoulders, blinking at him.
He examined Calli’s expression for some seconds, and then he wiped the cat’s eyes with a wet cotton ball and squeezed ointment into them. “A cream Burmese I would think. De-sexed and starving. Put this ointment in twice a day and clean her eyes as often as need be.”
“Will she be okay?”
He shrugged. “She was looking for someone. It might have been you. No charge if you are planning to give her a home.”
Calli moistened her lips. She could offer the little cat a home until the creature was strong enough to be passed onto someone who liked cats. “Would I be allowed to give her a bath?”
“Good luck,” the vet said, already on his way to the next patient in the next cubicle.
Calli made a nest out of her oldest T-shirt when she arrived home, and put that and the cat close to the milk and fish. “What shall I call you?”
The cat gave her a bleary-eyed blink.
Calli shrugged. “Hobo?”
The cat staggered out of the towel and nosed at the fish.
“Hobo it is. Now, will you be okay while I earn my living? I’ll come back at lunch time and check on you.”
The cat ignored her and daintily sniffed at the food.
Calli changed into her gardening gear: jeans, a stiff new khaki work shirt, and her old work boots. She jammed on a khaki military hat and sunglasses. With her diagram in her hand, she grabbed up a spray can of marking paint and strode over the rolling green lawn to the area of the garden in front of the main house. The cat would either be better or worse when Calli saw her next. She hoped for the former. The sooner Hobo fattened up, the sooner she would find a good home.
The cream paving from the cast iron front gate led straight to the door. Calli planned to change the paving to gray slate, laid French style. The iceberg roses standing sentinel on either side had to go, and not because of the new wider path. For this lovely bluestone house, she wanted a base of blue and silver, forming a softer and gentler, more cottage-like entrance to the old and gracious property.
Without stakes and string, she didn’t attempt to spray the straight edge where the lawn would end at the planned garden bed. Instead, she sprayed a small dot at one end and the other, and filled in the line with a few dashes. As she moved to do the same on the other side of the path, she heard, “You! Out!”
She raised her head. Standing by the front gate, the impossibly handsome stranger from this morning glared right at her. His lowered eyebrows showed his disapproval of her, but she stood, staring straight back at more than six feet of annoyed male, his fists planted on his lean hips, taking his morning neighborhood-watch duties one step too far.
Although conscious that she looked far from her imperfect best, she instantly reacted to his imperious manner. She’d had enough of men telling her what she could do. He could get rid of her neighbor with her blessing, but other than that, he could mind his own business. He appeared to be able to speak civilly to the gangster next door, but not to a harmless woman. As she rose to answer, her throat completely closed over. “Me?” she asked in a husky whisper.
“Put down that can.”
She rose to her full height of five-eight, ready to set him back into his place. Trying again, she forced through, “Now, j—”
“Don’t make me come in and take it,” he said in a dangerous tone.
Backing a little, she held up a placating palm and began a far from ladylike hawking of