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Mario walked over and opened a cabinet, then pulled out a set of keys and tossed them to Laine.
“I figured that you’d want to go over. It was cleaned on Friday.”
The two of them left out the back. “Do you want to ride or walk?” she asked.
“We can walk,” he said. “Then you can tell me more about what you thought of when you walked back and forth. I bet you did it at night too.”
She laughed. “Never when it was dark,” she said. “Even though the property is fenced in and has a security gate, it isn’t Fort Knox. And my father never wanted to worry about wild animals or me getting hurt on the walk. It was a rule that I had to take the cart back and forth or my mother had to drive me.”
“Drive you?” he asked.
They started to walk what looked to be a faint path. “There is a long driveway that connects the houses. When you come in the front gate to my father’s you can take a right and continue along the side of the property to get to our house.”
“Guess that made delivering the mail a pain for the mailman,” he said.
She giggled. “Very cute. No, the mail was left at the boxes outside the gate. If packages were delivered they were let in the gates.”
“So the gates are shut all day and locked?” he asked. It felt like overkill, but then he realized with the property as vast as it was, it’s not like they could keep an eye on strangers everywhere.
Which led him to believe there were cameras all over the property too.
“They are,” she said. “They would be buzzed at the gate, then either Mario, the housekeeper or the groundskeeper would letthem in. All three would be notified at once either by intercoms in the house or their cell phones. Technology is a wonderful thing. My father works from home a lot, so he could do it too if he was available. My father has a few employees that come here to work a few times a week.”
“Really?” he asked. “They’ve got offices here?”
“There was a wing added on at one point. My father’s office is part of the main house, but a wing was added to that and can be accessed from his office rather than having employees going through the house if they don’t need to. They come in the front door, then go through my father’s office. They’ve got a few offices, a bathroom and a mini kitchen in there.”
Carson laughed. He shouldn’t be surprised that Caleb tried to make his life as easy as possible.
“Your father drives though, correct? Or does he have a driver take him places?”
“Both,” she said. “He has a driver take him to work most days just so he isn’t parking and is dropped off by the front. Though he does have a spot by the front too. But he does drive. Maybe not as much as he used to because it’s more convenient to have someone drive him, but I know he does it to stay fresh.”
They pulled up to the house Laine grew up in. One of the houses. A ranch that was bigger than her current house. Probably double the size as she’d said.
No, this was no guest house. He was guessing it was over two thousand square feet.
“This is nice,” he said.
“Which is why people said things. My father didn’t want it to seem as if it was a guest house.”
“Is it empty now?” he asked.
“It is,” she said. “Right now. The housekeeper and others that work in the main house come daily. They don’t live that faraway. The groundskeeper has a smaller home at the end of the property on the other side of the barn.”
He had seen that but didn’t think much of it. “A nice perk,” he said.
“It is. It’s not as big, but the family that lived there when I was still at home had two kids younger than me. No clue where they are now. Last I knew the person living there now is older and lives with his wife. Their kids are grown. I think my father would let someone live here at some point, but he leaves it empty for me.”
She unlocked the door. “Do you think he hopes you’ll come back?”
This was news to him.
“No,” she said. “He knows I’m not far away and love where I am. He’s been to see me twice, but I know it’s not an easy trip for him. Maybe he’ll do it more now that we came this way. But he keeps it empty in case I ever get the inclination to spend time painting here.”
“You said your mother married Stewart when you were ten and lived here with you too?”
They were inside now and he saw the open area. A nice big living room, dining room and kitchen with an island and seating area to the side. You could see everything from the front door. He was guessing bedrooms were on each side.
