“Let’s go ahead and do a tour,” Mandaline said, “before we set up our equipment.”
Brad singled Mandaline out as Marjorie led the way. “She’s not senile,” he whispered to her.
“I know.” She glanced at her phone. “It’s not quite eight yet.”
He nodded. “I think I know exactly what’s going on, but we’ll have to wait for it to happen for me to prove it.”
She wanted to ask him what, but Marjorie turned at the door to one of the bedrooms. “This is the master bedroom,” she said as she reached in and turned on the light. She walked across the room to another door. “This is the master bath, where Gerald used to come every night. So if I had to make a guess, maybe this is where the phenomenon happens, as you called it.”
Brad caught Mandaline’s eye and winked. As everyone started filing out behind Marjorie, he stuck his head in the bathroom and looked around.
Twenty minutes later they were outside unloading equipment. “Spill it,” Mandaline asked after he returned from taking a tour around the back side of the house.
He grinned. “A good magician never reveals his secrets.”
She gave Ellis credit where credit was due. He threw himself into the work and didn’t utter a single sarcastic comment about their purpose.
Maybe there’s hope for him yet.
They set up the cameras and sensors. They were about to go dark when an odd, faint pinging noise started. Mandaline glanced at the time as Marjorie’s face lit up. “See? There it is!”
Brad bolted out the front door. A moment later, the noise happened again.
Marjorie frowned. “He’s never done that before.”
It sounded again.
And again.
Brad returned a moment later. “Marjorie, if you’ll follow me I’ll show you what’s going on.”
Everyone followed Brad outside and around the back of the house. He led them to a water softener unit, which had been installed within feet of the master bedroom window.
“Marjorie, did this come with the house?”
She frowned. “I believe so. A company comes out every couple of weeks to service it.”
He lifted an access panel at the head of the unit and changed a setting.
The noise started again.
Her eyes widened. “How did you do that?”
Brad turned his mega-smile on the woman. “It’s set to go off at the same time every day. To complete its cycle. I don’t know why it’s set this early in the evening, usually they set them up to go off in the middle of the night. But there’s something going on in the pipes when it starts its flush cycle, and it’s making air hammer in the pipes. That’s your noise. Sometimes there’s a thing they can add on to the pipes to make that stop happening.” He tweaked the setting back to where it had originally been. “I’ll leave it set to the current time so it doesn’t wake you up in the middle of the night, but here’s how you change the time.” He showed her how to adjust the setting.
“Oh!” Mandaline worried the woman might be disappointed it wasn’t her husband, but Marjorie surprised them. “That’s all?” She laughed. “What a relief! I’ll have my plumber come out tomorrow to look at it. I’m so sorry I dragged you all out here for something so silly.”
“No, it’s quite all right,” Mandaline said, relieved to have the mystery solved so easily and drama-free. “This is what we do.”
“Well, can I at least pay you for your time?”
“No, that’s not necessary. We do this for free to help people.” She paused. “If you wanted to make a donation to a charity of your choice in my friend Julie’s name, that would be greatly appreciated.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll send a donation off to the animal shelter.”
Mandaline hugged her. “Thank you.”
It took them longer to pack up than it did to unpack. They were back on the road by ten, headed to the shop.
Sachi shook her head. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Tarzan. That was brilliant. I honestly thought we were dealing with an early dementia patient.”
Mandaline glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him shrug. “When you’re rehabbing an old house, you learn a lot about plumbing issues. We had a problem with ours, the washing machine would make the pipes hammer like crazy. Remember?” he asked Ellis.
Ellis nodded. “That’s right. I forgot about that.
“So, chief,” Sachi said. “What’d you think of your first investigation? On this side of things, I mean.”
“I have to admit I’m impressed.”
Mandaline kept her mouth shut, but felt a little more of the cloud inside her lift. She could tell from his tone he wasn’t just giving Sachi lip service. He really meant it.
Sachi turned in her seat. “Really? Pray tell.”
“I respect that you take a logical, step-by-step approach to things. You don’t just jump in and assume something is supernatural. Like with our house, you found a non-supernatural cause, solved that woman’s problem, and everyone’s happy.”
“They don’t all go like this,” Sachi said, turning back to the front. “We do have some that leave us scratching our heads.” She shuddered. “Although there was that one house last year that literally left us scratching. We all ended up with head lice from that dump. Blech!”
Sachi bid them good-night while the men volunteered to unload the vehicle. Mandaline certainly wasn’t complaining about the early end to the investigation.
She was definitely in the mood to play considering she’d spent most of the day thinking about tonight. She’d never considered herself much of a morning person before, but with those two in her bed, she now had something to look forward to every morning.
When the men got upstairs, they found her naked in the middle of the bed, kneeling on all fours with her ass facing the bedroom door.
She wiggled her hips at them. “Gentlemen’s choice tonight, boys. Come and get me.”
The men exchanged a look before nearly climbing all over each other to get naked and into bed with her.
Brad got there first and slid under her sixty-nine, grabbing her hips and pulling her down on top of him so he could bury his tongue deep inside her pussy. With his stiff cock waving in her face, she didn’t need any urging to go down on him. She let out a soft moan as his cock filled her mouth, the head brushing against the back of her throat as she took him as deeply as she could. She curled her fingers around the base, stroking him and making him moan into her pussy. He speared her cunt with his tongue, every moan he drew out of her making him moan as the sensation vibrated down his cock and back into her pussy through his mouth.
A deliciously vicious cycle, she thought.
Behind her, Ellis had grabbed a condom and carefully knelt between her legs. “I think I’m only good for one tonight,” he told her. He took his time working his cock inside her, slowly, taking short thrusts and going a little deeper each time. With Brad firmly holding her hips in place, she couldn’t move, couldn’t thrust back against him.
Finally, Brad let go of her hips and she loudly moaned around his cock as she could rock back a little, taking Ellis deeper even as Brad started sucking her clit.
Then Brad reached down and found her nipples and she thought her world would implode. It triggered her first release. She went deep onto Brad’s cock, Ellis’ hands now holding on to her hips and forcing her clit to stay between Brad’s tenacious lips. She was helpless to do anything but suck Brad’s cock, laving it with her tongue as the men wrung another orgasm out of her.