Henrietta felt her pulse spike at the thought of inside information. “What’s that?”

  “That my son’s not the most responsible person.” He grimaced.

  “You think he forgot to set the alarm?” Ralph asked.

  Everett nodded. “He all but admitted it—shamefully, of course. He can be a bit forgetful or distracted at times.”

  Henrietta leaned back, her gaze going out the window in thought. So, Everett’s prized son Preston could have been the reason the first house was broken in to. Had that led to the other break-ins? Had he shown thieves how easy it had been for someone to get into this community? She discounted the theory almost immediately. There was no way that these break-ins had been committed spur of the moment. Which left many questions unanswered.

  Why was this first robbery so different? Just due to the presence of a biometric safe? Or was there some other reason? It was clear they still had a lot of things left to uncover.

  4

  Henrietta added a few more fake leaves to the front window display. While there was a lawn separating the front of her shop from the sidewalk, she still liked to have seasonal decorations up to make the place look festive when potential customers walked up. She’d added a few real pumpkins this morning and was pleased with the atmosphere it added to the H.H. Antiques. As her mother always said, there was nothing like the look of fall colors to brighten anything up.

  Stepping back, she brushed off the dust from the ledge and searched for her rag. It had to be somewhere… Spinning in a circle, she looked behind her and found it sticking out of her pocket.

  “Nicely done, Henrietta,” she said.

  “You remind me of a dog chasing its tail,” a voice said at the door.

  She started, clutching at her chest where her heart thudded. “Goodness! Everett, you startled me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, coming forward with a handsome, devilish smile. “Definitely a cute dog, though.”

  “What? What dog?” she said, confused.

  “Chasing its—oh, never mind.” He laughed and shook his head. “It was quite a delight to find you on my front porch yesterday. It’s been too long, Etta.”

  At the sound of his familiar nickname for her, she felt a subtle blush creep up her neck. Curse her reaction to the handsome man! They hadn’t parted on bad terms, but she’d been positive it was the right decision at the time. And yet, Everett was one of those men who made you forget things when he was around. Like forgetting the way he took control of every situation, not giving Henrietta a voice. Or how he dismissed many of her thoughts in order to gain his own way. He wasn’t mean or cruel, but he was manipulative.

  Yes, she needed to keep that in the forefront of her mind. Not the reality of his charming smile and easy confidence, which she couldn’t help but find attractive.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light and conversational.

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “You saw me yesterday.” She smiled and then turned back toward the middle of the shop where the register was. Best to keep some distance between them.

  “True,” he said, trailing behind her, “but we didn’t get to talk. Alone, that is.”

  “What’s there to talk about?” Henrietta dusted the counter needlessly and avoided making eye contact.

  “Etta,” he said, his veined hand resting on her forearm, sending shivers up her arm. “Will you look at me?”

  “I’m working with Ralph on this case. Your home was invaded and is therefore part of the case. That’s it.” She managed a weak smile, but he still hadn’t removed his hand.

  “I was hoping that…” His words trailed off and he moved back a step, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “I was hoping you’d come by for…more.”

  “With Ralph?” This time, her smile was genuine, and he responded with a laugh.

  “Fair enough. Are you telling me not to live in the past?”

  She merely offered him a look.

  “All right then. Well…” He looked around at the antique furniture that surrounded them. “I did come by for more than catching up.”

  “Oh? Can I help you with something?”

  “I just learned a few days ago that my aunt passed away.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” She hadn’t met much of his family when they were dating, seeing as they all lived on the East Coast.

  “It’s all right. She was frail, and it was her time. But I’m having them ship anything of value here to Heart’s Grove.”

  “I see.” She was trying to understand how this would affect her.

  “She had a lot of antiques.”

  “Oh?” Henrietta nodded.

  “I’d like you to help me appraise them and then eventually sell them.”

  His request hung in the air between them. It seemed a legitimate reason for them to spend time together, but was this more than that for him? Or strictly business? She didn’t want to lead him on.

  “Look.” He held up both hands in a show of honesty. “Before you commit to anything, why don’t you come out to the house tomorrow when they are delivered. You can make your decision then. Plus…” He looked around the shop. “I assume you can use a few more expensive items. I mean, this Wedgewood is lovely.”

  She was surprised at his knowledge of antique vases, but it felt a little forced. Was there more behind his request, or should she take it at face value? Then again, she could let the antiques do the talking—as she always seemed to.

  “All right then,” she conceded. “I’ll come out tomorrow. What time?”

  He consulted his phone. “One o’clock.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He paused, his gaze pouring into hers. “It really is good to see you again, Etta.”

  She felt the magnetic pull toward him but fought it. She’d been there and been burned before. “I look forward to potentially doing business with you.”

  The look of chagrin he gave her wasn’t lost on her, but she watched him leave with a sense of satisfaction. He was her past, and she was certainly looking toward the future in all things. Doing business with him wouldn’t hurt, but it could never be more than that.

  He left the faint scent of expensive cologne in his wake but nothing more. As Henrietta turned back to the next item on her list, she heard the door open again. Was he back already? Perhaps he’d found another angle to finagle a dinner date out of her? She suppressed a grin at the thought and turned around.

  “Ralph!” She blushed but for an entirely different reason.

  “Hey ya, Henri.” He wore a scowl that deepened the frown lines on his forehead into angry Vs.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “There’s been another break-in.”

  While no one could say that Ralph was a soft person, he was far from a brute. Henrietta watched in awe as the tough-as-nails, former-cop turned into a cuddly teddy bear at the sight of the young woman crying on her front lawn.

  “Now, now, it’s going to be all right,” he said, gently patting her upper back in a fatherly manner. “No need for those tears.”

  “But-but,” she sobbed, “they took everything. What will Patrick say? He’s always on me to lock everything up, and I thought I did…but now I’m not so sure.” More tears followed this admission as Ralph sent a hopeless look at Henrietta.

  “Perhaps,” she said, stepping up and ducking down to smile at the woman, “there’s more going on here than you realize.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, sniffing and wiping her tears with the only clean napkin Ralph could find in his truck.

  “You said that the back door was unlocked?”

  “Yes.” More tears brimmed in her wide brown eyes.

  “Just hold on there.” Henrietta calmed the woman with a hand on her arm. “That may not have been your fault.”

  The woman’s eyes snapped to Henrietta’s. “What? What do you mean? It’s a coded alarm. There’s no way anyone got in without the code.”

  What the woman said was true. Henrietta had looked into the alarms used in the last several houses. Oddly, they had all been very similar in functionality and, with the exception of Everett’s house, had used the same alarm company.

  There was no way around the coded system unless you had a code. So that meant one thing: the burglar had the code.

  “Who has access to your home, Mrs. Rhode?”

  She blinked rapidly, her eyes turning to the sky in thought. Behind her, policemen went around the property searching for any clues left behind, but Henrietta was afraid that the woman’s self-admitted carelessness had already prejudiced the detective toward her leaving the door unlocked.

  “Just me, my husband Patrick, and our maid Elaina. But she’s trustworthy, I promise you that. She’d never do something like this. She’s a grandmother, and I’ve known her since I was young.”

  “Could she have told someone else? Perhaps on accident or out of coercion?”

  “Oh goodness, you don’t think she’s in any trouble, do you?” Cyndi asked, her eyes going wide.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Henrietta said, getting a look from Ralph. “I don’t think anyone gave up the code.” Now both sets of eyes were on her. Ralph with a raised eyebrow and Cyndi with astonishment.

  “What are you thinking, Henri?”

  “You’ve no doubt heard of the robberies going on in the area, right, Mrs. Rhode?”

  “Call me Cyndi,” she insisted. “And yes, of course. That’s why I’m so confused. I know I locked the door.”

  “And you said your husband is where?” Henrietta asked.

  “In Canada on business.”

  There was that Canada connection again, but Henrietta didn’t have time to think about that at the moment.

  “I think somehow the robbers obtained your access code. I don’t think you left it unlocked. A woman alone with knowledge of the current break-ins wouldn’t be so absentminded to leave a door unlocked,” she observed.

  Ralph looked skeptical, but she knew that he would reserve his comments until they were alone. And perhaps she was wrong, but it still seemed the most logical reality to her. Also, she had a gut feeling—something Ralph would appreciate—that this robbery was involved with the others in the area. It would seem logical to assume so, even if the modus operandi was different. The police often only looked at M.O. in these situations. She had a feeling they wouldn’t rule out the possibility that it was connected, but they would see the differences as a strong factor that it might be a separate case.

  Thanks to Ralph’s connections with the police force, he had walked inside the house, careful not to disturb the crime scene, and had seen the damage the robber had wrought.

  “I mean, the more I think about it, the more I’d all but swear I locked it, but at the same time…” The distraught woman sunk her hands into her curly brown hair and sniffed violently. “I don’t know.”

  “How about this,” Ralph suggested. “You go to your mother’s house, like you said you could, and rest up a while. We may need to talk to you again—as I’m sure the police will too—but you’ll be no help to anyone if you are too worked up to think clearly.” His tone was gentle and she nodded slowly, taking a fortifying breath.

  “We’ve got your number,” Henrietta added helpfully. “We’ll be in contact. And here.” She handed the woman her card. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call.”

  “Thank you,” she said, looking between them.

  They watched her get into her car and drive away as the police wrapped up what they were doing with the house. They had been allowed to speak with her after she’d been questioned by one of the officers, now it was up to the investigation of the property and the other evidence that the police would track down to come to a conclusion as to what happened.

  “Okay, spit it out, what do you have going on in that mind?”

  Ralph’s words were gentle as they stood at the edge of Cyndi’s property and watched the officers travel in and out, the occasional flash from a camera disrupting the mid-morning quietness of the neighborhood.

  “I know that your friend, the detective, is saying this is completely different from the other cases, but I don’t think he should dismiss the connection so easily.”

  “He’s not.”

  She shot Ralph a look.

  “He’s really not, Henri. Trust me. I know him—he’s a good guy.”

  “I don’t doubt his ability as a detective, but I am doubting his suspicions.”

  “Fill me in as to why,” he offered.

  “First off, like I said, I doubt she forgot to set the alarm. Did you hear when she was telling us about the times she’s forgotten to set the alarm?”

  “Yeah, I noticed that too. Situations of high stress. Doesn’t seem to be the case this morning.”

  “Right. She was going to yoga class and she even thought to mention that she was leaving earlier than she had to because she’d gotten such a good night’s sleep last night.”

  “I noticed that too,” he said with an affectionate smile.

  “Anyway, I don’t think she forgot, and if that’s the case, then that means the robbers had the code. I don’t think her maid would have given it up. Sounds like she’s loyal to the family.”

  “Money can pull some big strings.”

  “True, but somehow, I think these people have special access to the codes.”

  “You told me that’s impossible.”

  “No, I told you the system is nearly un-hackable per the company’s website.”

  “You think someone who’s smart enough to hack into this system is robbing houses here? In Heart’s Grove?”

  He had a good point. It didn’t make sense. “Doesn’t seem possible, does it?”

  “Perhaps the word is probable.”

  “True.” She looked back at the house, eyes squinted. “There’s a way. Somehow, someone gained access to her codes and got inside.”

  “All right, so say that happened, how do you explain the MO changing so dramatically?”

  He’d explained that, unlike the other crime scenes, the house had been ransacked. ‘Totally destroyed,’ as Ralph had put it. That was very unlike the past crime scenes.

  “Something has changed.” At a look from Ralph, she continued. “Obviously something has changed, but to the robber or the situation, not exactly to the motivation or means.”

  “Trashing the place isn’t a change of means.”

  “Not exactly. It’s a change in the attitude of the robber—or robbers—but that doesn’t mean they still didn’t gain access the same way they did before.”

  Ralph nodded his agreement. “What do we do next?”

  Henrietta blinked. “I have no idea.” At Ralph’s laugh, she feigned hurt. “What?”

  “I like you admitting you don’t know something.” He puffed out his chest. “Makes me think you actually are human. That and the terrible book you keep making me re-read.”

  “Hey now,” she said, gently slapping his arm as they walked back to his truck. “That manuscript is going to be published one day. Just you wait and see.”

  “I’ll wait,” he agreed, “but please don’t make me read it again.”

  She grinned, knowing that not everyone could love her work. “I’m sure Hemingway felt the same way.”

  She could almost hear Ralph rolling his eyes as they climbed into the truck. “Henri, whatever you do, don’t quit your day job.”

  “Which one?” she asked, her eyebrows rising in challenge.

  “Both.”

  She turned away as Ralph pulled onto the road. She didn’t need anyone’s encouragement to continue writing. She’d show them all when she became a world-famous literary genius, or at least completely finished her manuscript. She cringed thinking of it sitting at her desk, half-written. All right, so perhaps genius was a little too lofty of a goal in general, but she would get a book published if it was the last thing she did.

  Thoughts of publishing contracts and future book signings in her mind, she turned around for one last look at the Rhode house. Her heart picked up its pace when she saw a shadowed figure one yard down, wearing dark jeans and a black sweatshirt. He was no doubt an observer, but something about him spoke of familiarity and sent a shiver up her spine.

  Her thoughts were yanked back to the present by Ralph’s question of where they should get lunch, but the figure remained in her mind as they cruised around the corner and onto the highway that would lead them back to town.

  Who was it that figure reminded her of?

  5

  The light reflecting off the water was nearly blinding. Henrietta regretted trying to gain one last look before the road curved inward toward The Cliffs and her meeting with Everett Alastair regarding his aunt’s estate. She wrinkled her nose at the thought of seeing him again.

  He was nothing to her—nothing aside from a business connection. She was happily single. Well, mostly happily single. She didn’t need the complication of a man aside from Ralph in her life. Not that Ralph was in her life. Well, he kind of was.

  Henrietta pulled the car into a parking spot and rested her head on the steering wheel. If her mind was any more jumbled, she was afraid she’d have an aneurysm. She wasn’t a sixteen-year-old girl any longer. She didn’t have ‘boy problems.’

  At that moment, Everett stepped onto his front porch and waved at her just as a text pinged from Ralph.

  Maybe she did have boy problems.

  No. She could do this. She was a professional with a shop to run, a book to finish, and a case to solve. Not exactly in that order.

  Steeling herself, she stepped from the car and pulled her purse strap over her shoulder. She offered a subdued nod to Everett as she came up the steps and asked where the items were being held.

  He seemed to sense her need to get down to business and, rather than go inside, he took her around back. She’d forgotten just how large his back yard was and her breath escaped from her lips in a rush at the sight she was met with.

  Everett’s expansive back yard stretched to the edge of a cliff with a stunning water view beyond. But in front of that, there were rows and rows of antique items covering nearly every inch of the paved portions of the back yard.

 

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