Full Disclosure (Real Estate Relations Book 1) Page 2

  Jody, the real estate broker who oversaw our own office’s transactions, was a stickler for the rules. I didn’t doubt she’d lay down the law.

  “What was Sherrilyn looking for anyway?” I asked as I pulled into the driveway in front of my listing. It was two stories tall and still had a solid foundation and structure, unlike some of the other aging houses on the street. It was sorely in need of a fresh paint job, and the inside looked like a hoarder’s den – boxes stacked everywhere, no organization to anything whatsoever, layers of grime. It’d probably been a decade since the house had a deep clean.

  “She said she needed one of the files for the sale I’m doing with her on 16th Avenue, but I know I already sent her a copy. She was being crazier than usual, so who knows? She was even pawing through your stuff, and God knows there’s nothing there to see.”

  “Shut up,” I said with a laugh. We both knew it was true.

  “I didn’t even see any files for Ivy Lane. Where’s all your paperwork, man? I mean, I know you gave a copy to the admin, but you need your own copies for reference.”

  “I scanned it all and saved it on my computer. We’re not all luddites.”

  “Fuck off!” Miguel said, laughing.

  Mig was a texting and email whiz, but he relied heavily on the administrative assistant at the office to maintain his website and create his marketing materials. I didn’t have much work history with computers, but I’d done plenty of screen time for my mother when she still lived in town. She used to do freelance marketing and more than once had reeled me into doing some of the online marketing tasks such as posting blogs to websites, updating social media and making slideshows. That was one reason Miguel had thought real estate would be a great fit for me. He said if I could figure out how to market myself online, I’d be leagues ahead of the old-fashioned agents in our small town. They still relied mostly on word of mouth to get business.

  “Listen, I gotta run. I’m going to pop inside this house and make sure everything looks okay.”

  “Sure, man. Be careful and text me when you leave, so I know you didn’t get murdered or something.”

  “Fuck you, Mig,” I said with a laugh. “Way to make me look forward to going inside a creepy old house by myself.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  I walked up to check the doors after ending the call. The house was locked up tight, and a quick tour through the first floor didn’t show any disturbance. The house wasn’t empty, though the contents of the home had seen better days. The decor was something out of the seventies, with orange shag carpeting in the front bedroom and curtains hanging in dusty tatters. The furniture was threadbare and outdated. And the house was cluttered with knick-knacks and other personal belongings crammed onto every hard surface: shelves, the fireplace mantle, side tables and even lined up along the window sills and baseboards of each wall like tiny ceramic sentinels watching over the room.

  It was a bit weird in the light of day. I liked it even less in the dark with Miguel’s words echoing in my ears. Though it was still light outside — dusk came quite late during the summer months — heavy drapes blocked out all but a thin strip of sunlight.

  As I walked through the house, I kept an eye out for beer bottles or cans, cigarettes or anything else someone might have left behind. I didn’t even kid myself into believing I’d know if something was taken; the house was packed too full of random belongings, and there wasn’t much of value that I’d seen.

  Those guys were probably just kids looking for a place to drink. There’s nothing here worth taking.

  The house had the feel of emptiness about it. I couldn’t be sure no one was here, but I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to stay. The place was musty and smelled like a mix of smoke and urine. It was so cluttered, it made me feel claustrophobic.

  One thing was for sure. Reid Bishop had a lot of work ahead of him to get this place ready for market, and every day it wasn’t on the market was a day longer before I got paid. And I really needed a paycheck.

  I hadn’t realized it on the phone with Bishop, but the Winters house was well-known to me and just about everyone else in town. I could still remember when all the kids thought the house was haunted and the old, grumpy owner was some kind of evil troll who ate children for dinner. They used to make a point of running up to the door and ringing the bell, then running away with their hearts beating hard in their chests and the thrill of escaping danger racing through their veins.

  Kids could be such brats. I know, because I was one of those rotten kids tormenting the poor old guy.

  There was plenty of gossip about old Mr. Winters, and now that I was an adult, I knew the man wasn’t a predator, but a grieving father. He’d become a shut-in after his son, Aaron, died in a boating accident. Aaron had been a newlywed and his wife had been young enough that she’d remarried years ago. I didn’t even know her name. I’d heard most of the story from my mom before she’d become a snowbird and retired to Arizona.

  Finishing a sweep of the house, I returned to my car, not sure what to do next. There were no signs of forced entry and no evidence the two guys the neighbor had spotted had ever been there.

  Shrugging off the niggling worry about whether I should notify my client of the incident, I headed to my next appointment. I couldn’t do anything about it now.

  ***

  Reid

  When I stepped into the Moore Security conference room with its glossy table and smart screen projection system, my “witness” stuck out like a sore thumb. One of these things doesn’t belong.

  If he’d grown up upper middle class and stable, it didn’t show then. His eyes shifted restlessly, his gaze roaming the room and taking in each detail. His dark hair hung lank around a sharp face, and the smell of sweat lingered in the air.

  I glanced at the slim file Dunn had given me, taking in details about the man I’d be protecting with my life.

  Huy Pham, 22, Vietnamese-American. Five feet six inches tall, 160 pounds, some of which had to be muscle because he was slender in build. College graduate, which surprised me. He had a business degree, which made me snort. He’d put that to interesting use, building up a drug business with his brothers that must have been at least somewhat successful to draw the attention of the gang.

  Huy didn’t show much fear. His gaze held steady as I entered the room. He didn’t look intimidated. He didn’t look afraid he might die. If anything, he looked bored. Or he would have, if I didn’t understand body language as well as I did. The fidgeting in his seat was more than a hard chair under his ass. He was uneasy. The nibbling on his thumb nail was more than a nervous habit of a lifetime. His nails were short but neatly trimmed. He wasn’t a nail-biter. Not under ordinary circumstances anyway.

  “Huy, this is Reid Bishop. He’s agreed to take you somewhere safe.”

  Huy barked out a laugh. “Nowhere is safe,” he said in a rough voice.

  His emotions rode close to the surface, but they didn’t break free. He was a tough kid; I’d give him that. To see your brothers gunned down ruthlessly, then come close to dying yourself when you were supposed to be in a safe house? Most men would be shaking in their boots.

  His sweats and T-shirt were stiff, encrusted with blood. They’d been attacked in a safe house, where Huy had essentially been living on lockdown, and he’d been brought directly here by the looks of him.

  “Can we get a few minutes?” I asked, effectively clearing the room.

  Dunn had left Huy with the suggestion that we move him as soon as possible. Moore didn’t want to know anything about our destination. But I needed to exchange more than a nod with him before we hit the road.

  “Make it quick,” Moore said, as he opened the door.

  I nodded, then glanced at the state of Huy. “Send someone to get some clothes for him, maybe?”

  When I closed the door, he fixed dark eyes on the file in my hand. “That my life story?”

  I hefted the file in one hand. It wasn’t so thick, and Huy
wasn’t so old. There was time for him to rewrite his story.

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  His eyebrows rose, and he sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. Huy had relaxed, but it was mostly for show. “That so?”

  “Look, Huy,” I said, pulling out a chair to sit opposite him. “This doesn’t just have to be a shit show.”

  “No?”

  “No. It can be a chance to start over,” I said.

  He smirked. “They gave me a fucking after-school special to protect me? I might as well buy my casket now.”

  I tapped the file with a finger. “You did some shit. You’re in it deep now. You want to live through it? Listen to me. Do what I tell you, don’t be an idiot, and you’ll make it to trial alive.”

  Huy listened as I ran him through my plans to take him off the beaten path, to Fields, Kansas, where I had a house waiting. I skimmed his file while asking him questions, and put together a quick sketch of the guy before me.

  He was smart, good with numbers, and he was tough. I could keep it simple and put him to work on the house I’d inherited. It was old and hadn’t been well maintained, according to my real estate agent. But something told me Huy wasn’t the handyman type. Besides, being with me 24/7 wasn’t much better than lockdown in a safe house. We’d probably kill each other.

  I planned to take him to a hotel while I contacted my source for ID. We’d have to decide on a name before then, so I took the time to run some ideas by him.

  I wanted a fully American name, so there would be no potential trail via Google or social media. Modern technology was a pain in the ass when you were trying to hide someone. Even a mention of a Vietnamese name could be a clue for the men who wanted to harm him.

  But Huy pushed back. “I’m as American as you are,” he said. “My parents grew up in the US. My grandparents immigrated here, and they never looked back. But I’m Vietnamese too. And if I’m going to go into protection, give up my family and my friends and my history, I can’t give up every shred of my identity. I’m going to be stuck with this name a long time, maybe the rest of my life.”

  “I understand,” I said, “but you’ll be alive. That’s what’s important here.”

  “It’s not like I can hide I’m Vietnamese,” he argued. “Everyone will see that. A name hardly changes that. You can’t make me into an average white man who blends in, even if it would make your job easier.”

  I had to laugh a bit. “Fair enough.”

  We’d just decided on a bland American name — Lee — and a common Vietnamese surname — Tran — when Moore returned. He was followed by an administrative assistant with shopping bags. He set them on the table, and Huy looked inside and huffed a laugh.

  “Not exactly my style.”

  “Time to reinvent your style,” Moore advised. “You’re a new man now.”

  Huy, to be known as Lee from then on, grinned. “Well, speaking of becoming a new man, there’s one more thing,” he said. “I’m gay, and I’m fucking tired of the closet. If I’m going to blow up my life, I might as well get something out of it.”

  He glanced from me to Moore and back. “If you don’t like it, maybe you guys can get me a different guard. Maybe a cuter one?”

  Moore laughed and patted my shoulder as he left the room. “Good luck with that.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “Sorry, kid. You’re stuck with me.”

  Lee Tran, formerly Huy Pham, had just given me an idea for our cover story.

  Chapter 3

  Camden

  I checked the digital readout of the time on my phone: 9:32 p.m. It was late to be showing a house, but after a week of taking every lead I could get to no avail, I was a bit desperate. Miguel had been tossing me leads on any clients he didn’t want, which meant I was scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to potential buyers.

  Every young person who didn’t understand the concept of credit; every couple who had destroyed their credit eons ago but somehow thought they could buy a house on a rent-to-own basis; and particularly the clients inquiring about properties in the under $50,000 category, which were difficult to obtain loans to purchase.

  Frank and Carol rolled up in a rusted-out Ford pickup with a muffler badly in need of repair at 9:40. I was far from a snob — I was living paycheck to paycheck myself — but these people put the hillbilly in Kansas.

  He wore coveralls with no shirt underneath and was missing more than a few teeth. Carol was dressed a little better, in jeans and a T-shirt, but her face was lined from too much alcohol or drug use.

  I was quickly learning you got a gut feeling for whether “buyers” were going to actually buy, although Miguel had once told me a story about a couple of shady customers he’d been certain were a waste of time pulling out a wad of cash. Forget about a bank; they kept their money buried in the backyard.

  I showed them the decrepit bungalow that would cost more to fix than it did to buy. And they were as thorough as you can be at 9:40 p.m. when the sun has set. I wouldn’t advise showing homes in the dark. For one thing, it’s difficult to see all the details of the exterior you might want to note. Secondly, meeting strangers in the dark is a bit unnerving.

  Frank and Carol walked the property line, despite the poor lighting, and inspected each room twice. They tested all the windows and examined all the appliances.

  They spent a solid 45 minutes viewing the property, and I started to get my hopes up. They seemed serious.

  “Give you $20,000 for it,” Frank said finally.

  “It doesn’t quite work that way, sir,” I explained. “I don’t own the property—”

  “Huh? Then why are you showing it?” Carol asked. She waved a hand around. “You’re wasting our time!”

  “I’m a real estate agent. I show you property, and then when you want to buy something, I write up the offer for you and submit it to the listing agent, who represents the seller. Then we negotiate on a final price and any repairs we might want to request.”

  “Write it up, then. I’ll give ’em 20k.”

  I grimaced. This wasn’t going to end well, and sadly, it was the closest I’d come to an actual sale. I didn’t want to let it go, even though I knew in my gut I should walk away. I haggled with them over price and then began to explain the financing process — which is where it all fell apart.

  They refused to provide any private information that would allow the government to spy on them, and sadly my hillbillies weren’t sitting on a pile of cash. It went downhill from there.

  By the time I trudged up the outer staircase to my apartment in an old two-story home that had been repurposed into multifamily housing, it was well after 10 p.m. I was tired, hungry and depressed.

  What am I going to do if I don’t close a sale by next month? I can’t keep going this way.

  The thought flickered through my mind, very briefly, that I shouldn’t have left my boyfriend of five years. Austin had a drinking problem, and I had put up with it and his picking fights for his own amusement. But when he took a swing at me, I had packed up my shit and got the hell out.

  If I’d stayed, my financial worries would be lighter — but my heart would be far heavier. I reminded myself of that fact as I planned my sad meal of tomato soup for dinner.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, I stopped abruptly, all thoughts of a pitiful dinner gone. The door hung cockeyed from one hinge, with a gap in the doorjamb that made it obvious it wasn’t latched. Couldn’t latch.

  Gaping at the door, a rush of thoughts flooded my mind. Murderers. Robbers. No, maybe the door just broke. The door didn’t break itself! That’s why they call it breaking and entering. As in a murderous thief breaking and entering!

  My place was a shithole, but generally the door was properly attached and carefully locked, this not being the best neighborhood.

  “Crap,” I whispered, and looked nervously over my shoulder.

  It was pitch black, without even the benefit of a full moon tonight, and the idea of s
ecurity lighting was a joke. I was lucky my landlord fixed a plumbing leak flooding the whole building, much less provided basic safety precautions.

  Cautiously, I nudged the door, and it swung open slowly. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes closed. If there was a criminal rushing at me, I didn’t want to see it happen.

  When nothing happened, I blew out a breath and stepped inside.

  Flicking on the light, I scanned the room, my heart still hammering away at the possibility someone could be there waiting to jump out at me.

  I didn’t see any people, but what I did see made me cry out in distress.

  “Nooo!”

  My thrift-store coffee table was overturned with all the photo boxes I’d stored inside on the floor. Family pictures and greeting cards I’d saved over the years were strewn across stained carpeting that was supposed to be beige but was more of a mottled brown. My blue sofa that looked like it was covered in a grandma’s old drapes was flipped on its back, looking like an insect that couldn’t get up, and the cushions were tossed haphazardly across the room.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. Neither was the fact that my small television that barely worked was upside down and probably put out of its misery for good.

  No, the thing that made my heart wrench in my chest was spotting the box that held my treasured baseball card collection, empty and overturned.

  My father gave me those cards when I was 7, and I’d treasured them even then. They’d only become more precious after my dad died in a work accident at his factory when I was 13.

  Dropping to my knees, I scrambled across the floor to search through the photos and mail in an attempt to find the cards, but they were gone. Only one bent card remained, half-under the sofa: my Pete Rose/Cincinnati Reds card.

  “Assholes! You didn’t have to take the cards! Why the hell ...”

  They weren’t worth much. The Rose card would retail for about $20, I thought, but I didn’t really keep the cards for monetary value. I could see why a thief might grab them all on the off chance that there’d be a few valuable cards in the bunch, but looking around, it seemed as if nothing else was missing. My place was ransacked, but loose change still sat in a bowl on an end table, the one piece of furniture that had escaped damage.