“Why do you think that?”
“For starters, the timing. You know where Irene’s house is. It seems very unlikely for someone to show up there at the exact time I have a scheduled showing. If he was trying to rob the place, he would’ve come back when no one was there. On that note, the place is empty, so there’s nothing to steal. Furthermore, when I called my office to let them know what happened, I asked them to notify the client and reschedule their appointment. It turns out the client was new to us, and their contact information wasn’t valid.”
“You think it was a setup and there never was someone interested in the house?”
“That’s exactly what I think.”
“Do you have any idea why someone would want to hurt you?”
I took a moment to decide how I wanted to answer him. Ultimately, I didn’t see any reason why being honest with him would be problematic. “The only thing I can come up with is it has something to do with my ex, but I don’t know why. Honestly, the whole situation with him is odd.”
“How so?”
I continued eating as I told him my story. “Well, the first part is as common as it gets. He confessed to having an affair. Cheating is something I knew I couldn’t forgive, so I told him I wanted a divorce. He packed his stuff and left without any kind of argument. I later found out that was exactly what he wanted to happen when a mutual friend casually mentioned that his girlfriend was living with him at his new place. I filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery, but he wouldn’t respond to anything my lawyer sent him. We weren’t married long and didn’t have any children, so there wasn’t anything to fight over. Actually, we’d pretty much already divided our assets when he moved out, so the lack of response didn’t make any sense. I tried to contact him myself and didn’t have any luck. Then I found out his mother reported him missing. So, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Why do you think the things that have been happening to you are connected to your ex?”
“Because they started around the time I filed for a divorce. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but as things kept happening, I suspected something wasn’t right. Then I moved to Croftridge. Everything was fine for the first few weeks, then the weird things started happening again.”
“Do you think your ex is behind it?”
“I’m not sure. We didn’t end on a positive note, but if he is behind it, I’m not sure what he hopes to gain.”
“Maybe the house,” he suggested.
“No, it’s not the house. It was in my name, and I’ve already sold it,” I said and tried to stifle a yawn.
Dice got to his feet. “I’ll let you get some rest.”
I really didn’t want him to go, but I felt like it would be weird to ask him to stay, especially when I was going to go to sleep. “Thanks.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his phone. “What’s your phone number?”
His question caught me completely off guard. “What?”
“Your phone number. I’ll text you mine so you can let me know if you need anything when you wake up.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said and rattled off my phone number. A few moments later, my phone dinged with a text.
“I’ll check on you in a few hours if I haven’t heard from you.” With that, he was gone.
4
DICE
Ididn’t know what to make of Daphne’s situation. It certainly sounded like someone was out to get her, but based on the limited information I got from her, I didn’t see an obvious reason why.
After leaving her room, I walked down the hall to Byte’s room and knocked on his door. “Come in,” he called and chuckled when he saw me. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you have.”
He opened his laptop and looked at the screen. “Phoenix asked me to look into the man who attacked Daphne, Daniel Garrison. He’s from Cedar Valley and has a rap sheet longer than a drug store receipt but hasn’t served any real time for his crimes.”
“So, he’s a snitch?”
“That’d be my best guess,” he said and leaned back in his chair. “I haven’t been able to find anything connecting him to Daphne. Do you have any information that might help?”
Sighing, I relayed all the details Daphne had given me.