A Margin of Lust (The Seven Deadly Sins #1)(13)

Hadn't Maricela said that agent was killed in a San Clemente listing the day before yesterday? And hadn't Arnold told her he was in town looking at houses in Laguna last week? That would put him in the right place at the right time for both murders.

She jerked away from his touch and sprinted up the last of the stairs. He followed with heavy footfalls. Gwen stood on the landing with her back pressed against the hallway wall.

"Which way is the master again?" he asked.

Gwen pointed. He looked at her with unreadable, reptilian eyes for a moment then walked the way she'd directed.

What had she been thinking to come into the house alone with him? Arnold was not a nice man. He was rude and demeaning. An egotist. His wife had been cowed and bullied until she was nothing but a wraith.

"Do you know the square footage in here?" He stuck his head through the bedroom doorway.

"No. No, not exactly, but I have that information at the office. Maybe we should—"

"I drove all the way down here to see this place again," he interrupted her. "I'm surprised you didn't come prepared."

Gwen bit back a retort. She felt the anger that percolated under Arnold's dissatisfied facade. She didn't want to fuel it. He huffed into the bedroom.

Anxiety slicked Gwen's palms. She rubbed them on her skirt. The idea he was the killer was absurd. Shake it off, Gwen. Shake it off.

If she even hinted that she was suspicious, he was sure to be offended. He was the kind of person who'd buy the San Clemente house instead of this one just to spite her. Then how would she feel? Losing a deal over nothing.

Gwen went as far as the master bedroom doorway and leaned on the jamb. She wiggled one foot in her pump and wondered how quickly she could kick her shoes off if she needed to run.

Arnold went into the bathroom. She could hear him turning on the tap, opening and closing the medicine cabinet, vanity drawers, and cupboard doors.

The Frobishers' things were still in there. Gwen knew she should follow him in and ask that he respect the owners' privacy, but she couldn't. Entering that small, close space with him was unthinkable. She licked her lips with a dry tongue. Her phone. She'd left it in her purse on the table downstairs.

"This'll work." He exited the bath. "Let's look at the smaller bedrooms. I'm planning to use one as an office."

It was his turn to gesture forward. Gwen had no choice but to walk down the narrow hall in front of him. She almost jogged, but Arnold's long strides ate up the space between them.

"I like backsides." His voice was gruff.

Gwen leaped through the doorway she'd just reached and spun around to face him. Her heart rate went wild. What did he mean “backsides”? Her backside?

The room must have been one of the Frobishers' children's. They'd never redecorated. An old brass bed topped with a patchwork quilt took up most of the space. The framed posters on the walls were of things a young girl might enjoy: a Monet waterlily print, the feet of a dancer on full pointe, a kitten tangled in a ball of pink yarn.

Gwen scanned the space for a weapon. There was a lamp on a side table topped with a frilled shade. Like everything else in the room, it looked delicate. She needed something sturdier, wood or metal. Something blunt.

Arnold slipped a hand into his jacket pocket. Did he have a gun? A knife? He'd gone through the bathroom cabinets. Could he have found a straight razor? Gwen's mind filled with the memory of Sondra Olsen's bloodied corpse.

She heard the whine of a siren in the distance, and her chest tightened. No one was coming to her rescue. No one knew she was here with this man. She hadn't even told Maricela.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Gwen sidled along the edge of the bed toward the lamp with the lacy shade mumbling a prayer under her breath. She promised God she'd become more thoughtful, more cautious, that she'd slow down if only...

"The back side of a house is always quieter," he said. "I find street noise so distracting when I work." And out of Arnold's pocket came a tape measure.





Chapter Nine


"So, wait, you were going to hit him over the head with a lamp?" Maricela asked, eyes wide over her wine glass.

"It was all I could find," Gwen said. "I almost fainted. I was so relieved when I saw that tape measure come out of his pocket."

“What did he say? He liked your butt?" Caroline had squeezed up to the table next to Maricela.

It was happy hour at The Leaky Barrel, a wine shop and tasting room a few doors down from Humboldt. It wasn't the most elegant spot in town—too dark and dim. It had been decorated to look like an old sailing vessel. Everything was lined with wood: wood shelving, wood floors, wood paneling on the little bit of wall visible between bottles. Gwen half-expected to feel the sway of waves beneath her feet when she stepped through the doorway. After a few glasses of wine, the illusion was known to cause seasickness. But it was convenient, and it was a Friday night tradition.

"No, I thought that's what he was saying. He said," Gwen lowered her voice in a fair imitation of the now infamous Arnold Paul, "'I like backsides.'"

A loud gong announced Lance's entrance. A ship's bell—large and brass and covered in a green patina as if it had been exposed to the elements for years—was affixed to the front door of the shop. It was another affectation; one Gwen found annoying.