“Come in,” he ordered, standing to the side to let me in.

I did, trying to be discreet as I looked around at the bare cream walls. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” He closed the door. “I need ten minutes.”

“Okay.” I eyed both him and his drink as he walked around me and headed down the main hallway of his house.

It was impossible not to notice how empty the walls were, or when we walked by the doorway leading into his living room, how there was only a three-seater couch with a massive television in front of it. No framed jerseys or mounted trophies, no signs of who the owner of the house was. The next doorway led into a stainless steel and granite countertop kitchen, big, open and airy, it looked like a more expensive version of something out of an IKEA catalogue.

“There’s water, milk and juice,” he said going in, already tipping his green glass back to chug down whatever concoction he was drinking without a single flinch.

“I’m fine, thanks,” I answered absently, admiring the view of the backyard from the big window above the sink. There wasn’t much to it besides newly laid grass that could use a good watering. Most of the lots in the neighborhood had been old homes that had been torn down to build these new ones, and the house took up so much space it only left a small rectangular yard that didn’t have much room for anything besides a patio set, if he’d wanted one.

Kulti brushed up against me as he leaned into the sink to rinse out his glass.

I leaned away from the view and him. “Your house is really nice.”

He seemed to absently look around the kitchen, nodding.

“Did you just move in?”

“Two months now, I think,” Kulti answered.

What a freaking talker. I watched as he placed his glass inside the dishwasher. “This is a really nice neighborhood.” I cleared my throat.

He shrugged. “It’s quiet.”

Something about what he said nipped me. “No one knows you live here, huh?”

The German shot me an incredulous look I couldn’t comprehend before answering. “No one.” He kept on giving me that strange look. “I’m ready to go now.”

So he didn’t want anyone to know where he lived. That wasn’t surprising, but I let it drop. “Let’s go.”

Kulti had a bag waiting in his nearly empty living room and followed out after me, setting the alarm and locking the door. The Audi he’d been riding around in was parked in the driveway when I peeked through the wrought-iron fence that sectioned off the back part of his house.

“So none of your neighbors know you live here?” I asked again once we’d gotten inside the car.

“No. I leave the house before they do and get back before.”

“What do you do for groceries?” I was really curious about that. “Order them online?”

“I walk. It’s three blocks away.”

All this walking and riding around in cars he didn’t drive, and all these mentions of a suspended license from people that got paid to investigate things… I gave Kulti a curious look but didn’t dig in too deeply. So what? Maybe the signs were all there, but it wasn’t my business to ask, the same way I didn’t want to talk about Amber and her dumbass husband.

“I guess I don’t understand how no one has recognized you. I mean, your face is on a billboard off the freeway by my house,” I told him, shaking my head. Then again, I’d seen his face hundreds of times on my walls. I could probably do an ink blot test and find him.

“People don’t pay attention. I wear a hat, and the only people that speak to me are the elderly in the motorized scooters who need assistance reaching something.”