“See what? What is it?”
I pointed. “I thought I saw someone sneaking between those two buildings.”
Mac was immediately on alert. He stared at the area I’d pointed toward. “Which way did he go?”
“He went north.”
Mac took off running toward the north end, staring at the buildings as he moved, trying to catch a look at the guy in between the structures. At the end of the row of buildings, he stopped, looked around, then shook his head and jogged back. “Sorry, love. I didn’t see anyone.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “Pretty sure I wasn’t imagining it.”
“Of course not, but he’s probably hiding now. Can you describe him?”
I shut my eyes to bring back the fleeting image. “Baseball cap. Orange, I think. Giants. Or Oregon Beavers, maybe?” I glanced up at him. “We’ve got a lot of Beaver fans around here. They had a good season last year.”
“Remember anything else?”
“Yeah. Dark hoodie. Black or navy blue, I think. And blue jeans.”
He nodded pensively. “Okay.”
“I guess it could’ve been a woman.” I scowled and shook my head. “Or heck, maybe I imagined it after all.”
He scoffed. “Orange hat? Blue hoodie? You wouldn’t have imagined such a specific outfit.”
I set my teeth, certain of what I’d seen. “No, I didn’t imagine it. I saw him.”
The question now was, who was he and why was he sneaking around?
Chapter Three
On the drive back to town Mac pulled out his cell phone to call the developer.
“Hey, Rachel,” he said. “It’s Mac Sullivan. How are you?”
He listened to the woman for a quick moment, then said, “I’m good. Listen, I’d like to move my tour of the Gables to tomorrow. Are you available?”
She had one of those bright, assertively loud voices that could be heard without benefit of the speaker. She was saying how much she would love to meet him up there tomorrow morning.
“Great,” Mac said. “I’ll see you at ten o’clock. Hey, by the way, do you have anyone working up there right now?”
“Oh no, Mac,” Rachel insisted. “We opened up the grounds and buildings a few weeks ago to allow our new lessees to do an assessment of all the work to be done and the equipment they would need. But then we locked it up tight because our own people still have a lot to do before the lessees can get started on their individual spaces. We don’t plan to open it again until the day of the groundbreaking next week.”
Mac grinned at me while he spoke to Rachel. “But you’ll let me go in there, right?”
I heard her trilling laughter. The woman sounded overjoyed. And why not? She was talking to Mac Sullivan. Who could blame her for getting all giggly?
“As an investor,” Rachel explained, “you will always be allowed to come and go whenever you want. Just be sure to give me a call first and I’ll meet you anytime.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Oh, and Mac,” she continued. “I must caution that it’s not safe to wander around alone up there. Not just yet. By the time we open it up to the tenants and their construction crews next week, everything should be perfectly safe and wonderful.”
“Good to hear. Thanks, Rachel. See you tomorrow.”
He ended the call and looked at me. “No workers are up there, according to Rachel.”
“I heard her.” I huffed out a breath. “But I saw someone. If Rachel doesn’t know anything about it, then the guy must’ve broken in.”
He grabbed my hand and held it. “Look, it could be perfectly harmless. Maybe some guy wanted to get a head start on cleaning and prepping his space.”
“Maybe.” I nodded. “Okay, yeah, I’m sure it’s completely innocent. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You don’t sound any more certain of that than I am.”
“Because I’m not. I guess it’s because he was trying really hard not to be seen.” I pictured the guy again. “He was running, but he looked, I don’t know. Furtive, I guess. Sneaky. Like he knew we were there and he didn’t want us to see him. You know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
I worried about it for another moment, but I had to wonder why I was worried. Was it because of my tendency to stumble onto murders? Boy, I hoped not. Finally, I waved the worries away. “I’m making too much of this.”
But Mac wasn’t ready to let it go. “Your instincts are usually right on. And look, it’s not like the place is very secure. Anyone can climb a chain-link fence.”
“And we didn’t go all the way around the property. Maybe there’s a spot where the fence has been pulled down.”
“Totally possible. But look, instead of dwelling on it, let’s just assume the guy you saw was a new tenant who wanted to get in there for some reason. But he knows he’s not supposed to, so when he saw your truck drive up and saw us walking around, he thought he’d better be careful. He thought he had to sneak around instead of just walking over and saying hello to us.”
“That’s probably all it was.” But I decided right then to call Eric as soon as we got home and ask if he had assigned anyone to patrol the Gables property. Enough strange things had happened in Lighthouse Cove over the last few years that I didn’t want to take a chance on something going wrong with this huge new project.
* * *
* * *
Mac stayed over that night, and the next morning as he scrambled some eggs and buttered two pieces of toast, we talked about his expectations for the meeting with the Gables developer later that morning.
I poured more coffee for both of us. “It sounds like you’ve made up your mind to invest in the project.”
“After we went up there, I thought about it all afternoon. It’s a fabulous location and even though I haven’t seen the inside, I’m really interested. So I talked to my business manager and my agent, and then called my broker. They’re all for it. But you’re the one who ultimately convinced me. And the fact that Jane is involved is one more reason to go for it.”
“You’re going to make Rachel’s day,” I said. “She sounded positively giddy over the phone yesterday.”
“Well, let’s not forget I’m giving her a boatload of cash.”
“Boatloads of cash always make me giddy.”