Under_The_Whispering_Door_by_TJ_Klune

age. He was coldly handsome, though his handlebar mustache made Wallace
want to punch him in the face. He wore a smart suit—one Wallace might have
worn when he was still alive, expensive, cut perfectly to his frame, the plaid
tie completing the look—and a terrible sneer. Wallace watched as he reached
back into his car, pulling out a clipboard. He took a fountain pen from the
inner pocket of his suit jacket, pressing the tip against his tongue before he
started scribbling notes.
“What’s he writing?” Wallace asked.
“Who the hell knows,” Nelson said. “Probably something bad. He’s
always looking for every little thing he can find to use against Hugo. He once
tried to say that we had rats in the walls. Can you imagine? Rats. Odious
man.”
“And whose fault was that?” Hugo asked, stepping back from the door
without locking it.
“Mine,” Nelson said easily. “But I was trying to scare him, not make him
think we had rodents.” He raised his voice. “Mei! Mei. We’ve got company.”
Mei burst through the door, a pot covered in dish soap in one hand and a
butcher knife in the other. “Who? Are we under attack?”
“Yes,” Nelson said.
“No,” Hugo said loudly. “We’re not. Health inspector.”
Mei gasped. “Again? We are under attack. Lock the door! Maybe he’ll
think we’re gone!” She waved the knife around until she glanced at Alan,
who was eyeing her warily. She quickly hid it behind her. “I don’t have a
knife. You were seeing things.”
“You’re dripping water on the floor,” Hugo told her. “Which he’ll hold
against us.”
Mei growled as she spun around and hurried back into the kitchen. “Hold
him off as much as you can. I’ll make sure everything is good in here before
he comes in.”
“Shouldn’t it be already?” Wallace asked.
“Of course it is,” Nelson said as the health inspector pulled on a bit of
peeling paint along the railing to the stairs. “But he won’t see it that way. You
should have seen the look on his face when he came here for the first time. I
thought he was going to have a heart attack when he saw Apollo.” He
glanced at Wallace. “Is that still too soon or…?”
Wallace glared at him. “You’re not funny.”