How to Score (5 page)

The dog lunged toward him, his pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Alarmed, Walter pulled his hands from the pockets of his khakis and stepped back.

“Down, Joe.” Sammi used both hands on the dog’s collar to pull him back. “Sit.”

The dog reluctantly obeyed.

Sammi looked up sheepishly. “Sorry. Sometimes his greetings are overly exuberant.”

The dog’s stump of a tail thumped on the floor. Walter relaxed a little. At least the monster looked friendly. “Got yourself a pet, I see.”

“Oh—I hope you don’t mind.” Sammi’s brow scrunched together over her hazel eyes. “I didn’t think to ask about your pet policy.” She talked fast, as if she were trying to chase away his objections. “He’s completely house-trained, but I’ll be happy to put up a deposit for him if you’d like.”

Walter waved his hand. “No, no. Not necessary.” He didn’t allow pets on any of his other rental properties, but in this case, it didn’t matter. The condition of the house was not likely to affect the property value of the place, because anyone who bought it was likely to tear it down.

“Well, come in, come in.” Sammi stepped back, her hands still on the dog’s collar.

Walter walked into the tiny foyer and paused. He hadn’t been inside the house since she’d moved in. He’d given her carte blanche to do whatever she wanted to the place, and boy, had she been busy. The place looked like a million bucks when they’d first bought it in 1980.

He’d never thought much of the house—it was small, oddly shaped, and plain as a box—but Helen had thought it was adorable. Style moderne, she’d called it, pronouncing it the French way, with the first word sounding like “steel.” For the longest time, he’d thought it must have a metal frame.

He and Helen had been living here when he’d bought the sprawling Georgian house in south Tulsa. To his shock, Helen had suggested forgoing the new place and staying here. Walter had scoffed. How would people know he was successful if he lived in a nine-hundred-square-foot shoebox? He was proud of the way he’d managed to invest his earnings from his job at the power plant and turn a handsome profit.

But Helen had loved the neighbors, the schools, and the location. She’d said they had all the space they really needed. She’d thought the house was unique and charming.

Walter saw nothing charming about it. The place was squat and square, with a flat roof, stucco exterior, and oddly rounded front corner.

They’d had an argument over it—one of the worst in their forty years together. Walter had stormed out in anger. As usual, Helen had given in and Walter had gotten his way.

God, how he regretted that now! He regretted ever telling Helen no about anything. If he’d had one iota of an inkling how much he’d miss her when she was gone, he’d have gone along with every one of her crazy ideas.

Which hadn’t been all that crazy, in retrospect. She’d only wanted things like a family vacation, or Walter taking a day off now and then, or the two of them signing up for ballroom dancing lessons—things that would have given them more time together. Good Lord, what he’d give for more time with her now.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” Sammi pulled him back to the present by motioning to the sofa. Moss green, curved, and upholstered in a fan shape, it reminded him of something out of an old movie. The house smelled like popcorn.

His chest tightened. Popcorn and old movies were two of Helen’s favorite things.

“What do you think of what I’ve done with the place?” Sammi asked.

“You’ve made it look real nice,” Walter said, sitting down.

But it was like putting lipstick on a pig. New paint and tile didn’t change the fact that the house was falling apart. It needed a new roof, new stucco, a new chimney, and extensive foundation work. He’d put in some new electrical wiring a few years ago and patched up the plumbing, but both systems needed complete overhauls.

The dog stood up and barked. Sammi tightened her grip on his collar. “I’ll put Joe outside, and then I’ll be right back. I have a proposal I want to run by you.”

Oh, Lordy—not another one. Over the last few months, Sammi had hit him up with all kinds of propositions. First of all, she’d dug up a bunch of historical information about the place and pestered him to apply for a historical-property designation. Apparently the place had been designed by some hotshot art deco architect back in the 1930s. Walter had refused, of course; a historical designation would only limit his options.

Next she’d wanted him to sink thousands of dollars into the house so she could get a mortgage. When he’d refused to do that, she’d tried to negotiate a lease-purchase agreement, but he had no intention of getting locked into that. Lastly, she’d offered to use her own money to pay for repairs as she could afford them, but Walter had vetoed the idea because of liability concerns.

The bottom line was, it would cost more to fix up the house than it was worth. Nobody wanted a seventy-five- or eighty-year-old home with no master bath, no laundry room, and a kitchen so narrow that two people had to turn sideways to pass each other in it. The home’s only value was its location. Wealthy yuppies or Gen-Xers or whatever the heck they were called nowadays were tearing down homes throughout the neighborhood and wedging oversized faux chateaux onto the small lots.

Sammi reentered the room and sank onto the edge of a low, overstuffed chair across from the sofa. She folded her hands on her lap. “I’ve researched owner financing, and I think it’s a way we can both get what we want. In essence, you’d be my mortgage lender. That way I could fix the place up a little at a time as I could afford it, and when it’s all the way up to code, I can refinance through traditional means and buy it from you free and clear.”

Walter blew out a sigh. She was a sweet girl and he hated to disappoint her, but he really had no choice. He shook his head. “I don’t want to get into the lending business.”

Her brows pulled in an earnest frown. “It would only be for two or three years. And you wouldn’t have any out-of-pocket expenses.”

“You can’t know that, Sammi. Once you get inside the walls, there’s no telling what damage you might find. You’re likely to run into something that you can’t afford to fix, and I’d have to step in. Besides, any money spent to fix this place up is money just thrown away. This house is only depreciating.”

“Not to people who love historical architecture.”

Walter cleared his throat. “The fact of the matter is, Sammi, my real-estate broker thinks I can get forty thousand dollars more than your appraisal without any cash outlay.”

Her face fell. “But that’s all the bank said it would loan me. That’s all I qualify for on my salary.”

Oh, man. She looked like she was about to cry. Walter had never been any good at handling female waterworks. He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “Well, Sammi, you know the situation. The land is worth more than the homes in this neighborhood.”

“It wouldn’t be if you and the other homeowners had asked for a historic-neighborhood-preservation status years ago.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d brought this up. And hell, she might be right, but it was too late now. More than half of the lots in the neighborhood already held oversized McMansions, ruining what the historical-preservation people called “the integrity of the neighborhood.”

“What’s done is done, Sammi. There’s no point in looking back.”

“But it’s
not
done.
This
house could still be preserved. It’s a crime to let it just fall apart.”

It wasn’t going to fall apart. It was going to be demolished. That was the trend in the neighborhood, but she refused to see the writing on the wall.

“At least let me sign another lease,” Sammi implored.

Walter shook his head. “I can’t do that, not with the house in this condition. My attorney told me I shouldn’t even be letting you live here as a month-to-month tenant, truth be known. In fact… ” He hadn’t planned to tell her yet, but while he was here, he might as well go ahead and break the news. “The truth is, I’m planning on moving to Arizona to live near my daughter and grandchildren, and I’m selling off all my holdings.”

Her forehead pleated with worry. “You’re going to sell this house?”

He nodded. “I’m selling it as-is.”

She pressed her fingers together so tightly that the tendons on the back of her hands stood in bas-relief. “You won’t sell it to someone who wants to tear it down, will you?”

No point in sugarcoating it. “I’m going to sell it for the most I can get for it.”

“Which means to someone who’ll tear it down.” Her eyes blazed at him.

He stood with a sigh. “Sammi, I didn’t tell you to argue about it. I told you so you could start looking for another place to live.”

“But I don’t want to live anywhere else!”

I know what you mean.
He wasn’t all that crazy about the prospect of moving, either, but there was really no reason for him to stay in Tulsa. No one here really cared if he lived or died. Helen had maintained all their social contacts, and since her death, he’d lost touch with all their friends. Oh, he’d received a few invitations to go out at first, but he couldn’t bear to be around other couples without her, and after a while, the invitations quit coming.

Which was fine with him. Hell—he’d be lousy company, anyway. Helen’s death had punctured a hole in his life. All of the joy had leaked out, and his world had shriveled like an old balloon.

Apparently he had shriveled, too. When his daughter had come to visit a few months back, she’d been appalled at the amount of weight he’d lost.

“Dad, you look like Howard Hughes!” Anne had gasped when she’d seen him at the airport. “Your clothes are just hanging on you. You must have lost twenty pounds!” Her blue eyes, so much like Helen’s, had darkened with concern. “When was the last time you had a haircut, or went for a checkup?”

She’d redoubled her efforts to convince him to move to Arizona, and before he’d dropped her off at the airport for her return flight, he’d conceded. Why the hell not? There was nothing for him here.

Nothing to get up for in the morning, nothing to be grateful for at night. He had nothing but memories, and even those were overrated. The bad ones tormented him, and the good ones just made him miss Helen all the more.

He moved toward the door. “I’m sorry, Sammi, but it’s a business decision. I need to get the most I can out of my investment.”

A girl who looked like she was dressed for a Halloween party appeared in the hallway. She was wearing something that looked like a black ballet skirt over footless tights and hooker stockings. Her eyes were rimmed with black, and her black-and-blue hair was arranged in startlingly stiff-looking spikes. “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation,” she said.

Who the heck was this? Mr. Landry inclined his head politely.

“This is my sister, Chloe,” Sammi said, rising from her chair. “Chloe, this is Mr. Landry.”

“So I gathered.” Her somber expression, combined with her weird clothes and bizarre makeup, made her look like the angel of death. “You know, Mr. Landry, places have energy, and this house’s energy is in perfect sync with Sammi’s. If you disrupt that, you’re going to create negative energy that will ruin your karma.”

He was feeling a little negative energy brewing right now. He forced a smile. “Well, that’s a very interesting theory, but I don’t believe in karma.” The truth was, he didn’t believe in much of anything anymore.

He nodded to Sammi and made his way to the door. “I’ll talk to you more about this later. Have a nice evening.” He headed out the door and down the sidewalk toward his Coupe de Ville. The leaves of the sweetgum whispered dryly above him in the warm September breeze. The tree looked heat-battered and tired. The summer had sapped most of its color, and only the weary, about-to-give-up green of late summer remained.

The leaves looked like he felt, Walter thought as he opened his car door—used up and brittle, with nothing left to do but wither and die.

T
he sky had lightened from night-black to gray, but the streetlights were still on as Chase stretched his quads in Riverside Park at 5:20 the next morning. He usually ran his daily five miles through his own downtown neighborhood, but this morning he’d decided to vary his routine to catch a glimpse of Sammi.

He braced his hands against the back of the park bench and stretched his left leg out behind him. He was pretty sure that spying on a client wasn’t approved life-coach protocol, but Sammi’s voice had intrigued the hell out of him, and he wanted to see the woman that went along with it. Besides, he might learn something that would help him coach her. Maybe she needed to join a gym or see a dermatologist or dentist or something.

Besides, what could it hurt? He didn’t intend to actually talk to her; he just planned to take a quick look. She should be easy to recognize, because it wasn’t likely that any other women with boxers would be jogging on this trail at this hour.

That is, if she even showed. Chase switched legs, stretching his right one behind him and lunging forward on his left. Not everyone who said they wanted help was actually willing to do the work required to help themselves. A woman with a life as screwed up as Sammi’s was likely to have some self-discipline issues.

Well, self-discipline was Chase’s forte—or his Achilles’ heel, depending on how you looked at it. More than one woman had accused him of being overly structured. And hell, maybe he was, but it sure beat the alternative. He’d promised himself he’d never be a lazy deadbeat like his father, and it was a promise he was determined to keep. He drove himself to excel at work, to stay physically fit, to keep his possessions and affairs in order, and, most importantly, to keep his emotions under control. That was the key. If a man didn’t control his emotions, they’d end up controlling him. His father’s out-of-control drunken rages had sure proved that.

Chase set off down the riverside trail, jogging slowly at first, then picking up speed as his muscles warmed. He breathed deeply, inhaling the earthy scent of the river, thinking about the day ahead. He and his partner were currently working with the Tulsa Police Department on a string of cold-case bank robberies, which meant that unless something new broke or they got a hot lead, he’d have regular hours for the next few days. That would make the phone coaching easier. His brother had told him to talk to his clients in a quiet environment, but with the FBI’s twenty-four-hour availability policy, it was likely to be a problem at some point.