Apples, Appaloosa and Alibis by Maria Swan (feel good novels TXT) 📕

remembered why I despised morning drives. All those cars on the road. Where was everyone headed at nine a.m.? I stayed in the slow lane all the way to my exit, never forgetting this was not my car, and even a little scratch would be added to the bill at the end of the brief lease. What a drag.

I parked next to Scott’s truck. Finally something positive, Scott always brought edible offerings to munch on. The bell chimed when the hefty front door closed behind me.

“I’m here.” I called out. If Kassandra wasn’t at her desk she must be in the kitchen, trading coffee and sarcasm with Scott, our hunky posts and signs installer. The two of them had one of those funky relationships that puzzled people not familiar with our office’s relaxed atmosphere. He was younger than Kassandra, but older than I. We often congregated in the kitchen, and today Scott had brought orange and cranberry scones, perfect. I went to get my coffee mug and joined the conversation. The two of them were always up to date with the latest gossip or, as Kassandra often corrected me, the daily happenings.

Of course, I was mostly interested in finding out the status of The Merger. Kassandra shrugged. “The only thing I know for sure is that both Sunny and Kay aren’t going to be sitting around here much. They seem to be running around with stacks of legal papers every time they come by. I’ll be glad when this is over.”

“This?” was my intelligent contribution to the morning conversation.

“The Wolfman already told me I’ll be in charge of his office installations too, and they’ll increase my salary to reflect that. Works out great for me,” Scott said between mouthfuls of crumbling scone in his mouth.

I sort of expected Kassandra to talk about projected changes to her job, but she didn’t. Instead she lectured me about my task of the day. Boring.

By the time the last crumb had met its fate, a few agents had trickled in. That was my cue to go to my desk and psyche myself up for some good calls leading to new clients. Those of us without a private office, had an assigned desk in the area we called the bullpen. I wondered what the agents at Dale Wolf’s office called their shared working area.

I set up my small desk and cell phone, next to the office landline and the page with “suggestions and questions to engage prospects,” courtesy of Sunny, my wonderful broker.

Pen and notepad, check. When I opened my folder the ripped business card stared back at me. Damn, I had to put it in my purse so I could share the phone number with Tristan the next time he called. And then I looked, really looked at the number, it had a 520-area code. Huh, not Phoenix, not even Maricopa county. 520 was south of Phoenix, yes, Tucson and maybe even farther south. To Mexico?

And just like that, before by brain said no, my fingers punched in the number on my cell. I glanced around to see if anyone one had seen me. Seen me doing what? I could hear the rings—loud, but not as loud as my heartbeat. I counted them. On the fourth one, a click. My whole body stiffened, but it was only a recorded message. “You have reached blah, blah.” No name. And the voice didn’t sound like the gray-haired woman. Pre-recorded? I hung up without saying a word.

Scott walked by my desk, ignored me, and went to talk to a male agent way in the back of the room, probably discussing a sign installation? Lucky guy, a sign meant a new listing. With Phoenix’s hot sellers’ market, a listing was like money in the bank. As the old mantra in my head repeated out loud, “If you don’t list, you don’t last,” the office phone on my desk rang.

“Good morning, Monica Baker speaking. How may I help you?”

“Good morning, Miss Baker, as I was telling your associate, I drove by a property on 8thth Place and Glendale Avenue and would like to take a look to see if it’s something I may consider for a current project.” Well, that was a mouthful. In his defense, the man had such a charming voice, he should do commercials.

I followed Sunny’s guidelines, and pretty soon we agreed to meet at the property at eleven o’clock. His name was Gregory Coste, or so he said. One of Sunny’s workshops for the new agents warned about people providing phony information. Regardless, I would meet the man at eleven.

The property was a rather old four-bedroom, two-bath home on a large lot only a few houses away from busy Glendale Avenue. “A lot of potential,” proclaimed the listing description. In real estate jargon it meant the place was neglected and needed work. The listing agent had been notified and my showing time confirmed. I printed out all the info pertaining to the property and also anything of interest in the same neighborhood. If after meeting my prospect I felt like it was a workable lead, I would expand my efforts, following all of Sunny and Kay’s gems of wisdom to a T. Okay, I didn’t know what to a T meant, but it sounded like a befitting cliché.

With time to kill, how do you kill time? I called the ranch down in Tucson to see how Brenda was doing and if she was planning on coming back soon. She was busy, cooking or something, so she handed her phone to Angelique, and we chatted a bit.

I kept wondering how much Mrs. Dumont knew about my date with Tristan AKA her husband. Told her about picking up the mail as she requested and about the strange woman who stopped by while I was at the house. Angelique asked me the phone number to see if it sounded familiar. I repeated it twice. And I didn’t mention my calling the number. Angelique seemed hardly interested until I