by Lena Gregory
“How’d they do that?”
“I don’t remember. I was just a kid at the time.”
“It’s been empty that long?” Gia asked.
“Ha ha.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Savannah shot her a grin. “Why do you think it was so cheap?”
Savannah slowed as she passed a small cottage surrounded by woods on three sides but didn’t stop. A row of hedges crossed the front of the property with an opening just wide enough for the driveway.
Luckily for Gia, Marcia Steers apparently liked her privacy.
“Where do you want me to park?” Savannah asked, as she continued toward the end of the block.
“I don’t know this area well. Can we park on the street behind the house and cut through the woods?”
“There’s no street behind the house, only a nature preserve.”
Gia looked over her shoulder at the quiet residential block. Marcia’s neighbors seemed just as interested in their privacy as she was in hers. Many of the houses boasted hedge walls or fences with gates. “Do you think anyone will notice if we just park in the driveway?”
Savannah stopped at a stop sign on the corner and waited. “I doubt the neighbors would think much about a car in the driveway. They probably haven’t yet heard she passed away, but who knows how long the police will be able to keep it quiet.”
“If past experience is any indication, it’s probably all over town by now.”
“True.” Savannah hit the turn signal and made a left. “We’ll park on the next street over and just walk around the block. This way if anyone shows up to search, we can go out the back, cut through the woods and across the street, and circle back around to the car. Besides, chances are, anyone coming to search would come in from the main road.”
She was glad Savannah was at least thinking clearly, because all Gia really cared about at that moment was getting into that house. “Sounds good.”
Once they parked, Gia resisted the urge to run toward the house. No sense drawing attention to themselves. She and Savannah strolled casually down the street and around the block. Neither of them said anything. Gia’s thoughts were too chaotic to focus on conversation; the events of the past few days weighed heavily upon her. Fear of getting caught hammered at her, and she just wanted to be done and get out of there.
Once they started up the driveway and the hedges offered at least some cover, she was more able to concentrate. She handed Savannah a pair of gloves and pulled on her own. “How are we going to get in?”
“I don’t know yet.” Savannah pulled on her gloves and looked around as they climbed the steps to the front porch. “But the note said there was a spare key on the porch.”
Even though Marcia wasn’t married, Gia didn’t want to take any chances. She pressed the doorbell and waited.
Savannah lifted a flowerpot and looked underneath; then she peeked under all the cushions on the wicker chairs and love seat.
When no one came to the door, Gia joined her searching the wraparound porch. She hit the jackpot with the third planter she checked. She lifted a fake rock out of the planter and held it out to Savannah. “I found it.”
“Okay, let’s hurry.”
She opened the false bottom and removed the key, then looked up and down the street once more. All quiet. It was now or never. She unlocked the door, opened it, and poked her head in. “Hello?”
“Anything?” Savannah whispered from right behind her.
“No.” She entered the foyer and held the door for Savannah, then glanced around the street once more before shutting the door. “Let’s split up. Her note said the documents would be on the table, but it didn’t say which one. I’ll start in the kitchen.”
“I’ll look for a desk or an office or something.”
The kitchen didn’t take long to search. A frying pan filled with water was soaking in the sink, and a plate containing half an omelet sat on the table beside a half-empty glass of orange juice and a full cup of coffee. She felt the cups. Both were room temperature, so she had no idea whether Marcia’s breakfast had been interrupted that morning. Perhaps she’d left her breakfast and run out the day before in her haste to see Gia. Though that didn’t seem likely, she couldn’t rule it out either, since Marcia had still been wearing the same clothes she’d worn to the café the day before when Gia had found her at the lake.
A quick search of the rest of the kitchen came up empty. Other than a Post-it pad, which she flipped through and found blank, there wasn’t another piece of paper in the kitchen.
Giving up, she headed to the living room and found Savannah hunched over a small desk. “Anything?”
Savannah shoved the center drawer shut. “Nothing. A stack of bills, a few receipts, and a cookbook. That’s about it.”
“Did you look for an office?”
“Yes. She doesn’t have one. One of the spare bedrooms is a guest room and the other a workout room.”
“Did you look through the master bedroom?”
Savannah shook her head. “Not yet.”
“All right, let’s do that and then get out of here. Snooping around a dead woman’s house is starting to give me the creeps.” Not to mention a major case of guilt.
She followed Savannah to the master bedroom at the end of the hall. Dust motes floated in the sunlight streaming through the window. A frilly pink bedspread lay smooth over the bed, throw pillows arranged neatly along the headboard. So Marcia had time to make the bed before breakfast. If she’d slept in it, at least. Could be she’d stayed over…somewhere else. Maybe that’s why she still had on the same outfit.
Savannah pulled out one drawer after another, rummaging through the clothes, then shutting them and moving on. “There’s nothing here.”
Gia felt along the top shelf of the closet, searched through an assortment of shoe boxes, all containing strappy sandals with stiletto heels. The woman sure had a thing for shoes. She flipped through the pages of a few photo albums, what appeared to be vacation photos, skimmed through a couple of paperbacks on the nightstand, then gave up.
“I can’t find anything either.” She stood in the center of the room and looked around. They had to have missed something. She thought of the boxes and boxes of paperwork she’d had in the garage when she’d first moved into her house. There were still boxes there she had no clue what to do with. “How can anyone have so little paperwork?”
Savannah pursed her lips and looked around. “It doesn’t seem possible. I think we must be looking in the wrong place.”
Gia dropped to her knees and lifted the corner of the bedspread.
“Anything?”
“I don’t know.” She reached under and pulled out a shoe box. “Probably just another pair of shoes.”
Savannah sat on the edge of the bed.
Gia lifted the lid. “Bingo.”
“You found them?”
“I’m not sure, but there are papers in here. Do you think we should just take the whole thing?”
“Let’s just see what it is quick. If it relates to the café, we’ll take it and get out of here. Otherwise, you can just put it back where you found it.”
“Okay.” She sat next to Savannah on the bed and set the shoe box between them. The first envelope Gia opened contained a letter from someone named Hank, proclaiming his desire for Marcia in way more explicit detail than Gia needed to know. “Well, I wish I hadn’t read that.”
Gia put the letter back in the envelope and set it aside. The next envelope held a stack of pictures—Marcia and Hunt at the beach, a theme park, in the woods, in front of Hunt’s jeep, both smiling, Hunt’s arm usually slung around her shoulder.
Savannah took the pictures from her and slipped them back into the envelope. “It was a long time ago, Gia.”
She shrugged, but she didn’t try to deny the hurt. “What
ever. It’s not like Hunt and I were seeing each other or anything.”
“Come on.” Savannah reached across the box and held Gia’s hand. “We both know you and Hunt were headed toward a relationship. Heck, you probably still are. Hunt never really got too serious with a woman, but he didn’t cheat either. If he was seeing someone, he wouldn’t fool around with anyone else. Even if he wasn’t quite sure where the relationship was headed, I’ve never once known him to sneak around.”
Gia couldn’t deny the bit of relief Savannah’s words brought. Maybe Hunt just needed time. Maybe he just had a lot going on. She’d almost reached the bottom of the stack of papers, and they still hadn’t come across anything related to the café or any other zoning issues. It seemed the box contained only personal items, and another pang of guilt shot through Gia at the thought of intruding on Marcia’s privacy.
Savannah opened the last envelope and shuffled through what appeared to be a pile of pictures. When she’d almost reached the bottom of the pile, she gasped.
“What? Did you find something?”
“I found something, all right.” She glanced up, put the stack of pictures back together, and held it out to Gia.
Gia took them from her and started to shuffle through them. Marcia dressed in skimpy lingerie, in several compromising poses. “Any special reason you’re sharing these with me?”
“Just keep going.”
She looked through a couple more pictures, then stopped when she came to one of Marcia and a man. She was still wearing the same sheer nightie, and the picture appeared to be a selfie of the two of them sitting on Marcia’s bed. “Is that who I think it is?”
“Yup. Turn it over.”
Me and Hank was scribbled on the back of the photo in black ink, followed by what she assumed was the date the picture was taken. “This was just taken a few weeks ago.”
“It seems so.”
“Oh my gosh. Marcia was having an affair with Maybelle’s husband.”
The sound of a car door slamming cut through her shock.
Chapter 6
Gia lurched to her feet. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Savannah started hurriedly putting things back into the box.
Another car door slammed, followed by the muffled sound of a man’s voice.
“Uh-oh.” Savannah stared at her for a moment, eyes wide, then jumped up, frantically shoved the remaining items into the box, and slammed the top back on.
“Wait,” Gia whispered and held up the stack of pictures. “What about these?”
Savannah grabbed them and snatched one from the pile, then lifted the corner of the lid, stuffed the rest into the box, and shoved it under the bed.
Gia stood beside the bed, her gaze darting back and forth between the window and the open bedroom door. “What do we do? Go out the window?” she whispered.
A door squeaked as it opened.
She froze. “Oh, man. We forgot to lock the front door.”
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” An all-too-familiar voice floated down the hallway.
“I know, but I’m here now, so…”
Savannah grabbed Gia’s arm and yanked her to the floor, then shoved her toward the bed. “Get under. Hurry.”
Gia shoved the shoe box out of the way and slid beneath the bed far enough to allow Savannah room to slip in beside her. With her head toward the foot of the bed, Gia could just make out a sliver of the wood floor in the hallway.
One set of work boots and one set of shiny black men’s dress shoes walked toward them.
“They’ve got to be somewhere, and I didn’t see anything in the woods.”
“If she had them with her, they’re probably gone now. You know that, Hunt.”
Hunt sighed. “Yeah, I do. But she was scared, Leo. Really scared.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.” His voice was husky, filled with emotion. “I have to find whoever did this.”
An ache formed in Gia’s chest, and it had nothing to do with fear of getting caught.
“We will. Now let’s find the papers and get out of here before Captain Hayes shows up with his search warrant.”
Hunt made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a snort, then headed for the nearest dresser.
Drawers opened and closed; then the closet door slid open. Gia kept track of their shoes and footsteps as best she could, but it was hopeless. Sooner or later, they were going to look under the bed. Unless they found what they were looking for. Hope surged for a fraction of a second but plummeted just as quickly. She and Savannah had already searched everywhere. There were no documents to be found. She lowered her head onto her folded hands and awaited her fate.
Something moved in her peripheral vision. She tilted her head to get a better view.
A small black spider crawled across the bottom of the footboard toward her. If she weren’t so deathly afraid of spiders, it probably wouldn’t have been that big a deal. As it was, it took every ounce of her willpower to keep from screaming like a banshee and fleeing the room.
She covered her mouth with her hands to stifle the scream and tried to scoot backward away from the oncoming creature.
The spider dropped off the bed, dangling from a web strand inches from her face.
Gia jerked up and smacked the back of her head on the underside of the bed.
Savannah grabbed her arm and dug her nails into Gia’s flesh. Hard.
Someone cleared his throat.
Gia tried to refocus on keeping track of Hunt and Leo. In her moment of arachnophobic panic, she’d lost track of them. It was no use. Not much else existed for her in that moment other than the small, creepy spider inching his way closer to her. She cringed farther back.
Hunt spoke. “Hold up a minute, Leo.”
“Who are you calling?” Leo asked.
Hunt didn’t answer.
“Hakuna Matata” blared from Gia’s back pocket.
She jerked up and slammed the back of her head on the box spring’s wooden frame again. “Ouch.”
“Get out here.” The bedspread lifted, spilling light straight into her eyes. “You and your sidekick, who I assume is under there with you.”
She scrambled out from under the bed, jumped to her feet, and brushed the dust—and whatever other creepy crawlies might have gotten on her—off her clothes, then cringed and rubbed the back of her head.
Savannah slid out right behind her, stood, and pinched Gia’s arm between her wickedly long nails, which hurt even through the gloves.
Then they both stood staring at Hunt, waiting for him to blow up.
“So…” Leo said, breaking the awkward silence. “This isn’t exactly how I imagined our first double date.”
Hunt glared at him, and Leo looked away, but not before Gia caught the hint of a smile.
Savannah nudged Gia with her elbow, then leaned close and stage-whispered, “A word of advice? Next time you break into someone’s house, you might want to turn off your cell phone.”
“Nice touch.” Hunt pointed to the blue rubber gloves she wore. “You might also want to make sure your foot’s not sticking out from beneath the bed.”
Savannah rolled her eyes.
So she wasn’t a great burglar. It’s not like Hunt wasn’t going to look under the bed anyway. Gia lifted her chin, shooting for defiance, probably coming up short, and aimed a haughty look at Hunt. Her efforts were ruined when something brushed her cheek, probably a strand of hair, and she squealed and swatted at her face.
When she regained control, Hunt still stood staring at her.
She brushed her hair back off her face to avoid another episode. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
Hunt’s eyes went wide. “Me? What am I doing here? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Gia glanced at Leo from th
e corner of her eye.
He was staring at Savannah. The apologetic look on his face was all the warning Gia needed. No help would be forthcoming. She was on her own.
“Did your warrant come through already?” She didn’t bother to censor the bite of sarcasm in her voice.
Hunt didn’t take the bait, though he had to know she’d overheard his earlier conversation with Captain Hayes. “I should arrest you right now for breaking and entering.”
Her heartbeat ratcheted up a notch. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, no?” His gaze bored through her. He wasn’t playing games.
Great. Now what? He obviously wasn’t going to tell her anything. Unless… “Look, Hunt. I know you and Marcia were more than friends.” The admission cut her to the bone, but there was no denying it. “And I just want to say I’m sorry.”
His shoulders slumped, just a little, barely noticeable, but enough for Gia to sense the burdens weighing on him. The last thing he needed was more grief from her. He nodded once in acknowledgment.
The least she could do was cooperate. “Marcia came to see me and said she wanted to meet with me alone. The café was too busy to leave the grill, but I set up an appointment to meet with her today. When I was walking this morning, I practically tripped over her bo—uh… Anyway, then I went to the café to get some work done and found a note from her in my desk drawer telling me to come here.”
He frowned. Finally, some sort of reaction.
“The note said she had documents for me. I don’t know what they are, but, well…” She blew out a breath and tried to calm her racing heart. Captain Hayes had been treating her like a suspect since the day he met her. It was no secret, but still… Heat flared in her cheeks. “The way Hayes treats me, I figured once he got in to search, anything that might have helped me keep the café open would be gone forever.”
Hunt moved closer, until no more than an inch separated them. His deep brown eyes bore through her, searching for something. The truth, maybe? A hint of the woodsy scent of his aftershave teased her. If he leaned just a little bit closer…
