“Shouldn’t you wait for Jase?” Cory said, sending Luis another serious look.

“I hate to make Thomas wait,” Luis said. “Jase and Hunter might not be back until later this afternoon. I’d like to show him the house and talk things over now.”

“But Jase listed the place with a Realtor,” Cory said.

“Won’t that be a problem?”

Thomas smiled. “Not a problem at all,” he said. “If it’s a matter of paying a commission, I’d be more than happy to pay. I’d hate to see anyone go short of a buck because of my eagerness. It will be the easiest commission the Realtor has ever made.”

Cory looked Thomas up and down and frowned again.

Then he jerked his head and said, “Luis, can we talk in private for a moment?”

Luis followed him to the other end of the patio where Thomas couldn’t hear them speaking. “What’s wrong? This guy is wonderful. I’ve never met a sweeter old man. Don’t you love the way he pronounces his name?”

“I think you should wait for Jase before you decide anything,” Cory said. “I know it’s none of my business, but I’m only looking out for you guys. There’s something creepy about this guy, and I’m not buying all his bullshit about being a writer and having a church. I don’t even think he’s a real reverend. You know they get their certificates and degrees on the Internet these days.”

Luis shrugged. “I don’t care about any of that. He seems like a nice, pleasant person. He’s absolutely harmless.

And if he makes things up and reinvents himself a little, who am I to judge? Besides, I’m not going to sign anything today.

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I’m going to interview him and show him the house. Then Jase can make the final decision.”

“Well, I guess that’s okay,” Cory said.

Luis turned and started back toward the house. He smiled at Thomas and said, “Cory wanted to ask me about something he’s doing down at the barn. Let’s go inside, talk for a few minutes, then I’ll drive you down and show you the house myself.”

But as they were walking toward the back door, Cory lifted his deep voice and said. “I’ll be right out here if you need me, Luis.” Then he sent Thomas a stern glance and said, “And if you want me to go with you when you show the house, call.”

“Thanks, Cory,” Luis said. “I’ll see you later. I’ll bring something down at lunchtime.” Then he turned to open the back door for Thomas.

As they entered, Thomas smiled and said, “Cory certainly is a protective young man. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he didn’t trust me.”

Luis smiled. “He’s a great guy. You’ll like him once you get to know him. It’s just that he’s a local and they are all very protective when someone new comes to town.” Then he escorted Thomas to the kitchen table without a hint of reservation. He was so excited about finding such a perfect tenant for the house at the end of the road, he couldn’t wait to start asking Thomas more detailed questions about his background. It wasn’t just because Thomas wanted to rent the house. Luis had always been extremely fascinated by anything psychic, and this guy was simply too good to resist.

Chapter Three

By the time Jase and Hunter returned from fishing, lugging a wet clump of freshly caught shad across Luis’s nice clean floor, Luis was about to take Thomas von Klingensmith out to show him the rental house. It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. Luis and Thomas had been sitting in the kitchen talking most of the afternoon away, and they’d lost track of the time. When Jase walked into the kitchen, they’d finished their third pot of coffee and Luis had just heard about the time Thomas had played the organ at some famous cathedral in Europe. It came out in conversation that Thomas wasn’t only a reverend, spiritual author, and psychic, but he was also an accomplished professional organist who had played some of the best organs in the world.

Luis introduced Thomas to Jase, then put the shad on ice and took Hunter upstairs to bathe him. Jase took Thomas down to check out the house. Hunter had worms in his shirt pockets, a frog in his jeans, and he smelled more like shad than the shad did. And Camp wasn’t much better. The dog’s blond hair on top of his head and around his feet was matted with river water and sand, the only hair the poor bald Chinese crested had on his entire body.

When they came back downstairs an hour and a half later so Luis could start preparing dinner, Jase’s truck pulled up outside and Luis and Hunter went out to greet him. Jase climbed out of the truck and smiled. He told Luis he agreed Thomas was the perfect tenant for the house at the end of the road. Then he held up a check for two months’ rent and told Luis that Thomas had signed a two-year lease and was moving into the house the following week. Luis hugged Jase and said he was thrilled and that he had a good feeling about Thomas he didn’t get often. Then he took Hunter into the house and told him all about the wonderful new neighbor, Reverend von Klingensmith, who was going to be living in mean Angus Bernie’s old house.

“I don’t want you getting too friendly with him too soon,” Jase said as he crossed to the back staircase so he could shower before dinner. Luis didn’t say anything, but Jase smelled a little fishy, too. When they were childless they used to eat dinner at eight or nine o’clock at night. But when Hunter came into their lives, they started eating dinner around six or six thirty.

Luis frowned and stared down at the sink. He’d opened a bag of fresh string beans and he was preparing to wash and julienne. “I’m just going to be friendly,” Luis said.

“I’m not going to start hanging out with him. I’m not an idiot, Jase.” Sometimes it bothered Luis that Jase always considered him so flighty and carefree, almost as if he were a ditzy, dumb-blond type without a brain.

Jase smiled. “I know you,” he said. “You’ll be over there all the time, inviting him here for dinner every night, telling him your whole life. You’ll be asking him about his psychic abilities and trying to get him to do séances and God knows what. I think we should take it slowly. After all, we really don’t know anything about him. And he did make it clear he wanted his privacy.”

Sometimes Jase was so level headed Luis wanted to scream. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll take it slowly.” But he didn’t agree. If Thomas had wanted so much privacy, he wouldn’t have been so talkative and open the first time Luis had met him. Thomas, as far as Luis could tell, loved people and he loved companionship. He was probably very lonely.




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