24. Gideon

It broke my heart to see Kai so frazzled, upset, and torn up at the scent of his new mate. He’d come such a long way from the time he first scented me. At least this time, he understood what he was feeling and didn’t think the poor guy was a stalker. Maybe he didn’t fully get it, but definitely more than the first time.

But what could we do about it? It was a home for sale. A thousand people had probably been through there just since we left and who knew how many more before then.

“It’s like going on a wild goose chase in the desert.” Kai sighed, his frustration evident. “Why did I have to scent someone in a house that was for sale? It wasn’t even that we ran into him at his job after he was done working for the day. That would be easy. We could just go back to that place and wait for him.”

He’d obviously been playing the game of “what if” in his mind. That game had no winners. None. And with the market the way it was, he was right. Who knew how many people had walked through there. Probably a bazillion or two.

But we had to try, and we promised our mate we would do exactly that. He asked us how we could be willing to do this, willing to help him find yet another alpha. The answer was simple.

“Because we love you.” Dante pulled him into a hug.

“And besides.” I wrapped them both in my arms. “BOG-two is the best deal going around.” At least that got a chuckle out of my mate.

First thing the next morning, we all walked into the realtor’s office. This wasn’t the kind of thing we’d be able to do over the phone. She might’ve been a shifter, but that didn’t mean she understood enough of what Kai would be going through to break the rules. And there was no way what we were going to ask her for wasn’t against some rules and possibly a few laws. We wanted client information. And then there was the very real possibility it wasn’t even her client to begin with.

Had it not been our only option, we wouldn’t have put her in that position. It wasn’t fair to her. But it was more unfair to our mate to let him suffer this way. And there would never be a day I picked anyone over my mate. Not a single one.

“Oh, did you guys change your mind on one of the places?” she asked brightly.

That ended quickly when we told her why we were there.

“The last place we were in, we scented someone, someone we need to get in contact with. We were hoping to get a list of names from you.” Dante did the speaking, which was good, because I wouldn’t have been as polite. Our mate was hurting, and he was getting very close to giving birth. We needed this figured out before he did, and I didn’t have time for niceties.

“Oh, I can’t give you that kind of information. I’m not sure why you thought I could. If they did something wrong, the police are your best option,” she said.

She’d completely misread the room.

“We’re not looking for someone who did something wrong,” Kai’s voice squeaked. “I scented my mate… one of them, anyway.”

Her mouth formed a circle, and she walked back over to her desk and started typing away at her computer. “I can’t tell you anything, but if you happen to look over my shoulder? Really, there’s nothing I could do about that, is there?”

We went and stood behind her. She tapped away, looking at the list of disclosures that were requested yesterday. Thankfully, the house in question was part of her agency. It wasn’t one of her listings, but she had all sorts of records in the system that unaffiliated realtors wouldn’t have access to.

“This is weird. It looks like you were the only people who had been there this month, aside from the agent tour and the owner, that is.”

“Agent tour?” I asked, completely clueless about what that was.

“Yeah, it’s when we have an open house, but instead of inviting possible renters or buyers, we invite all the agents from local agencies to come and look around. It will help them pair it up with one of their clients better than a regular listing could.” She pushed back her chair.

“I thought places went faster than that.” Wasn’t that why she told us we had to pounce on anything close to what we wanted before someone else did?

“That’s the weird thing. We don’t really do them that often anymore, not with the market the way it is.” She went back to tapping away on her keyboard. “Oh, it looks like this house started the lease process three times and has had each of them fall through. That’s probably why they had the agent tour. It’s not telling me why they fell through, though. Probably didn’t pass the final credit or background check or something.” Whatever that meant.

“So we have to go to all the agencies?” Kai asked. He wasn’t mad about it. If anything, he sounded a thousand times more hopeful than he had since we left the house in question.

“You can. But for this, I can give you a list of the agents that were there. They’re not clients, so there’s no client privilege.”

She printed them out. “I don’t know if they’ll do you any good, either, but it’s worth a try.”

“Wait a second.” She took the list back. “Let me cross off the ones I know it’s not.”

“How do you know what to cross off? Fate doesn’t really give us who we think we should have or anything like that. It’s not a science.” I didn’t want her knocking off anyone only to discover they were the one.

“No, but I’m pretty sure that fate’s not going to give you an 80-year-old man,” she said, crossing one off.

She had me there.

“A woman?” she asked, and Kai shook his head.

“Okay then, here’s a bunch more. I’d cross off the assholes, too, but fate gives them mates as well.” She chuckled.

“Some of them are assholes?” Kai asked, his apprehension close to the surface.

“I was teasing,” she replied.

I wasn’t sure she was, but I was glad that she told him so. “Here you go. Any with the green star next to them are closed today. Someone in their office might be able to help you, though.”

I wanted to hug her. She gave us so much more information than we had hoped for.

“Thank you.”

“I hope you find him,” she said. “And when you do, we should reevaluate what size place you need.”

I didn’t even think she was kidding.