Free The Florentine Deception by Carey Nachenberg Page B

little confused about this part of the floor plan,” he admitted.
    â€œI’ll go check the master. Give me a second.” I slipped out of the powder room and back upstairs to the master bedroom.
    â€œNo recessed lighting here either,” I squawked into the mic. “Wait a second.”
    I noticed that the master had a sliding closet door against the library wall. I slid the dark-stained maple door open. Hanging from the ceiling was a lone, 50-watt bulb.
    â€œNope. There’s a single bulb hanging in the closet, but no recessed ones.”
    â€œThat doesn’t do me any good. I can’t tell where the hanging bulbs are. The wiring is covered by insulation. Give me a minute and I’ll come down and take a look.”
    Steven descended the ladder, tool-belt jangling, and gave both the living room and the master bedroom a thorough examination.
    â€œWell, those are definitely the right lights. Same layout and everything. You see the bulb closest to the bookshelves?” He pointed to the leftmost of the eight recessed lights.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThat bulb is about five feet away from our three mystery bulbs. So if I had to guess, the other three are in between the master and the bookshelf.”
    The thought electrified me. “You think there’s a passage between the two rooms?”
    â€œEither that, or when they added the bookcases, they cut some corners and left the old lighting intact to save money.”
    â€œExcuse me, Mr. Crouch.”
    I nearly jumped at Regina’s voice.
    â€œWhen do you think you’ll be finished? It’s already been an hour and a half.”
    â€œJust being thorough ma’am. I shouldn’t be more than another twenty minutes. So far, so good.”
    â€œOh … oh, good.” Regina gave her best Roberts smile and returned to the kitchen.
    Looking over my shoulder, I whispered, “Why don’t you go back up and see if you can’t poke a hole through the ceiling and see what’s under those mystery lights.”
    Steven grinned widely and, turning his back to the kitchen, pulled out a tiny monogrammed Swiss Army knife. “I’ll be right back.”
    Five minutes later, he took a seat on the bottom stair and finished filling out his forms; if he’d found something, he wasn’t showing it.
    â€œWell?” I questioned, looking over my shoulder.
    â€œWell what?”
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œExcuse me sir, I can’t divulge the results of my inspection until I finish writing my report.”
    I peered again over my shoulder. Regina was walking over.
    â€œAll done Mr. Crouch?”
    â€œYes ma’am. The home looks just fine with the exception of the water damage in the basement.”
    â€œThat’ll be fixed by the seller.”
    â€œThe entire stairwell or just the two broken steps?” I asked. “The entire base of the stairwell needs to be fixed. It’s rotten to the foundation. I’d like that in writing.”
    â€œI’ll talk to the seller and get back to you, Alex.”
    Steven signed and handed a copy of his forms to me. “Here you are sir. The only problem I found was with the staircase, as you pointed out. Everything else is in good condition.”
    â€œThank you, Mr. Crouch,” I said, shaking his hand.
    â€œNo problem, sir. That’ll be $550.00 even. You can make that out to Crouch Home Inspections.” He started upstairs. “Excuse me, I need to retrieve my ladder.”

Chapter 14
    My six calls to Steven’s cell phone during the drive into Santa Monica went directly to voicemail. I wasn’t sure if he’d forgotten to turn on his mobile or was just torturing me. Thirty minutes later, we were sitting at Norm’s ordering lunch from an eighty-year-old waitress in a muumuu and hairnet.
    â€œOut with it,” I said.
    Steven took a faux-furtive look around and leaned in. “There’s a secret hallway between the