Page 47 of Housesitter

Hell House Client Brief: The local plumber will NOT come back after last time. Try next town over.

Harlow Construction had a website.

They had their boss on the front page. Easy—or Ezekiel, if Shepherd had that right—Harlow was a tall man with shaggy red-black hair and a bony, expressive face. He looked…maybe mid-forties. More likely late-forties, but with good skin care.

“I don’t know what in the teen pregnancy you think was going on around here,” Kel said. “But that is not my grandad.”

Shepherd handed him a photo. It was folded in half, ink peeling along the crease. Kel flattened it out and frowned at the image. He’d seen it before. Ruby, back when she didn’t think she was going to be a Laker for life, posed like a pin-up on the hood of the Mustang. She had her hands braced behind her and her smile almost reaching her eyes.

“How’d you get this?” Kel asked.

“Doncaster dropped it.”

“OK. So Ruby had game back then,” Kel said. He handed the photo back to Shepherd. “It doesn’t mean her dating pool was the Middle School.”

Shepherd leaned over and took the photo back. He folded it again and then held it up next to the screen.

“Who’s that with her?” Shepherd asked. He tapped the photo with his forefinger without needing to look. “Who’s driving the car?”

“Dio,” Kel said. He hadn’t really looked, but… “It’s Dio Madden’s—or whatever name he was using back then—car. Who else would be driving it?”

“The car goes with the house,” Shepherd said. “It was Dio’s car. It’s your car now. Whose car was it back then?”

Kel slouched back in the kitchen chair and crossed his arms.

“Nice try,” he said. “You already told me that Dio was his own grandfather. He just reinvented himself so people would stop asking him to do Just for Men ads.”

Shepherd ignored that and waited expectantly.

It turned out he had more patience than Kel. That wasn’t really a surprise. After a good…five seconds of stand-off, Kel gave in and leaned in to take a pointedly closer look at the photo.

It was Dio.

At least, it could have been Dio.

Maybe.

…it was an old photo taken through a car windscreen. It could have been anyone.

The hair did have a ruddy hint instead of Dio’s sandy curls and, Kel supposed, the face looked a bit long and sharp. He had to admit the smile, even caught in profile, didn’t look like it would fit on Dio’s face.

After a second, Kel reluctantly glanced from the photo to the image on his laptop. He supposed if you squinted…

“All right,” he allowed. “There’s a family resemblance and the family name. So what? Ruby said my grandad wasn’t a welcher; she never claimed he was a saint.”

Shepherd set the photo down on the table.

“He was driving the car.”

Kel rolled his eyes. “OK, you win,” he said. “I’ll admit it. My grandad was an asshole. He probably jacked the car so he could show off for Ruby. Hell, maybe that’s why Dio ran him out of town. Maybe power makes you petty. Check in with me in a few years, and I’ll let you know.”

It was the first time in their relationship—because fuck him—that Kel had seen Shepherd look actually annoyed. Good. Why should Kel be the only one to suffer?

“Why would I bring this up if I didn’t think it was important?”

“Because you like to be the centre of attention.”

Shepherd waved his arms in an expansive, exasperated gesture.