Kellan moved in behind him and stared over his shoulder as he started hunting down the file. “Why do you think that?”
“Because her grandmother left her a house,” he explained as he located the document on his hard drive that had been prepared by a Malcolm Gates, esquire. At the time, the man had advised Belle that the will would take a while to go through the probate system.
“How did I not hear about this?” Eric looked over his other shoulder.
“She needed someone to look at the will and the transfer documents. By the time she received them, her grandmother had already been buried. I think she was sad that she’d never get to know the woman. Apparently, she only met her grandmother once. I guess her father and his mother had a falling out and they never repaired it. When we talked about the house, Belle didn’t know what to do. She wondered if she should donate the house to the city as a historical site because she didn’t have the money to fix it.”
“She still doesn’t, does she?”
“No, but if she gets a new job there or fixes it up herself…” Tate shrugged. “You know how she can be when she’s determined.”
“Yeah.” Kellan glanced down at the address on Tate’s screen and whistled. “Shit. That’s right in the middle of the Quarter. That’s a multimillion dollar property. Fixing it up would make it worth a few months of Ramen noodles and bologna sandwiches.”
Tate frowned. He hadn’t known that. “I never saw any documentation about the value. If they sent anything like that to Belle, she didn’t forward it to me. She just said the place needed a lot of work.”
“She’s going to go there and sink herself into refurbishing that property, isn’t she?” Eric asked.
The challenge would call out to her. “I’m almost certain of it.”
“How can we be sure?” Kellan said. “I don’t want to waste time on a wild goose chase.”
“If we rent a car and drive to New Orleans, it’s roughly eight hours,” Tate pointed out. “Even if we were able to catch the next flight, by the time we factor in check-in and wait times, it might not be much shorter.”
“She would have to get into contact with the lawyer to make sure it’s out of probate. If it was, someone would need to let her into the house, get her keys, and have her sign some paperwork to transfer the ownership.”
Eric groaned. “So she called him. Awesome. She bought a burner phone that we can’t trace and she’s going to use it for all her business.”
“Not necessarily.” Kellan grinned. “Do you remember how we tried to teach Belle to put contacts into her phone and she still wouldn’t do it?”
She kind of hated technology, Tate recalled. “Yeah. She would have to get the attorney’s number from an e-mail. She might dump her phone, but she won’t change e-mail accounts.”
Belle wouldn’t even know how. Thank god for that.
“Still, her e-mail is password protected,” Eric pointed out.
Tate felt himself flush. Shit. Yeah, this might be the stuff he didn’t want to admit to.
“You know her passwords, don’t you, you magnificently perverse asshole?” Kellan slapped him on the back.
He pulled up her e-mails because there was just no comeback except that he was her perverse asshole. He sifted through her messages and found what he needed. He also read that, according to the lawyer, the house Belle was very likely settling into at that moment was notoriously haunted.
Lucky for him, he didn’t believe in ghosts.
“Let’s get packed.” He closed the laptop. They were headed to the Big Easy.
Chapter Eight
“I think you’re wrong about them, hon.” Kinley’s voice sounded through the speaker of her new phone.
Buying a new phone and changing her number had been Belle’s idea because she’d suspected her former bosses would call, at least to settle any items related to their business. She couldn’t stomach the thought of talking to them in cold, business-like terms. She’d left her office passwords and the statuses of her most important tasks with the intern—whom she hoped would remember all the information. He said dude a lot and often reeked of herbs that were illegal in most states.
She dusted off the gorgeous Queen Anne desk she’d found in what seemed to be her grandmother’s office. The heavy cherry-wood antique anchored the room now with its elaborate moldings, scroll work, and mahogany inlays. After vacuuming the dupioni silk drapes, Belle had scrubbed the stained glass windows, and now sunlight poured through. She wasn’t completely sure, but she thought that might be actual Tiffany glass. The huge chandelier in the dining room certainly was. In fact, everything in the house, while old and dusty, was classic, well made, and worth a small fortune. Her grandmother had possessed amazing taste. Who knew palm reading was so lucrative?
Now soft afternoon light illuminated the whole room, and Belle surveyed all her hard work with pride. Thankfully, that hard work had prevented her from dwelling too much on her former bosses—at least until Kinley’s call.
“I don’t want to talk about them,” she said to her bestie. “I just want to forget them and move on.”
“Do you really think it’s that easy?”
No, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try.
“Sir is doing really well. I think he likes it here. He’s napping in the window seat.” His little puppy chest rose and fell with each breath. His paws moved as though he was running in his sleep. Puppy dreams. Belle smiled faintly.