Page 57 of No More Hiding
He laughed. “I know. I didn’t have one and I ordered most of my furniture online. I didn’t measure as well as I thought. The room looked smaller when it was empty but now it’s bigger with the small table. I never use it anyway.”
“I didn’t think you did,” she said. “Can I take a guess other than family I’m the first person in your house?”
“Yep,” he said. “That’s why it’s not that clean.”
It wasn’t dirty in her eyes. There were dog toys scattered throughout, but that was charming more than anything. The kitchen didn’t have dirty dishes in the sink, the counters were wiped down, but things were haphazardly placed.
More than anything, it wasn’t her taste or slightly cluttered. “It’s not dirty,” she said.
“I’m not a messy person as much as my mother likes to pick on me for that. I will admit though when she came barging in here weeks ago to put me in my place, I had a buildup of trash bags in the garage and my recycling bin was overflowing. There were a ton of empties in my office on top of it.”
“Really?” she asked. She did see two empty water bottles by his sink, but nothing crazy.
“I’d forgotten to get the pails out for pickup for two weeks in a row.”
Now that she could believe more than anything. “What does that door go to?” she asked on the other side of the dining room.
“My office. It wasn’t big enough for a bedroom in my eyes. It has what I consider a tiny closet that the previous owners were stretching to make this a four bed, two bath.”
She popped her head in and looked. “That’s a lot of monitors.”
He laughed. “I could use more, but it’s fine.”
There were three on a big L-shaped desk that took up a lot of the room. There was a dog bed on the floor next to the desk and she could see man and best friend spending their days together in here.
“There is a nice big window that looks out to the backyard.” No window treatments on it and she would have left it that way too for the sunlight.
“As Sammie gets older, I might put a dog door somewhere for her to get out to the yard if she needs to go out. I could see her well enough from here if I wanted to.”
“But then it’d be an excuse for you to not get up from your desk,” she said, smiling. She noticed three laptops too but figured since he had so many monitors they were all for work. Or maybe two were and the other personal.
There was a buzzing sound, then bells chiming suddenly. “Is that your phone?”
“Shit,” he said. “It’s my work phone. Can you give me a minute?”
“Sure,” she said, frowning. It was a holiday and she couldn’t believe someone would be calling him. And last time he’d gotten a text on his personal phone, but this one he pulled out of the desk drawer. “I’ll let Sammie out in the back if you don’t mind.”
He nodded his head yes as he shut his door on her. That was odd, but he did work for the government. She knew IRS agents who had to follow strict protocols so she supposed this might be something along those lines.
“Come on, Sammie. Let’s go play in the yard.”
She opened the glass doors, and the puppy took off running in front of her. She found a ball and started to toss it while she looked around.
There was a patio set with a big umbrella and she’d bet that was where Brent did most of his work when he was outside.
When she saw the automatic ball thrower next to the table for the dog, she started to laugh. Funny but efficient. She was learning that was how Brent was.
He joined her five minutes later. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine. I just found it odd you’ve got a Batman-type phone and get calls on holidays.”
He stilled and didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “I don’t get them often,” he said.
“I’m only teasing you. Guess there is some data someone wants you to analyze.”
He hesitated. “They wanted to let me know I’d be getting a package tomorrow and to keep an eye out for it. I tend to ignore the doorbell ringing.”
She laughed. “That I can understand.” She wanted to know what the package might be from work but then told herself that it wasn’t her business. He’d tell her if he wanted to. Or if he could.