LITMIR.BIZ

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lurched as if they’d hit a pothole. Except they hadn’t. “What? Are you sure?” She hadn’t really wanted to be right.

      “I think so.”

      She twisted around to glance through the back window. “The blue one?”

      “Yes.”

      “I can’t make out who’s driving it. Too much shadow on the road from the trees.”

      “We’re coming up to a bright patch,” Edward said.

      She peered intently at the windshield of the blue car, but the sunlight glinted off the glass. “Too much glare, but I think it’s a man.” What was happening? First the laptop was stolen, then she was run off the road, now someone was following her.

      She spared a fleeting thought that she was glad she’d over-slept this morning—if she had gotten up on time, Edward would also be driving Naomi and Aunt Becca to work with her. As it was, they were both already at the spa, having driven there earlier this morning because Naomi had paperwork to do.

      They were safe.

      But she and Edward weren’t. Initially, she’d been peeved at her father’s insistence that Edward be her temporary bodyguard, but then logic reasserted itself and she was glad for his protection.

      Except now she realized that if someone was really after her, it put him in the line of fire. And she didn’t want that.

      “Let me see if I can lose him,” Edward said. “Hang on.”

      Edward’s truck suddenly veered, throwing her against the window because she had loosened the seat belt and twisted around in her seat. Dust clouded around them for a moment before they continued down the new lane, a dirt track that was smaller than the main road they’d been on.

      The car didn’t follow them.

      “It kept going.” Rachel’s heart settled back down into her chest. “I feel silly, I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place.”

      “I don’t blame you, after everything that’s happened.”

      His approbation warmed her chilled heart.

      Edward knew the Sonoma roads well enough to circle back around to the highway without needing to do a three-point turn. They were just entering the spa driveway when Rachel gasped. “There it is.”

      Directly in front, heading toward them from the opposite direction. As if it had driven past the spa and then turned around.

      As if it had been waiting for them to arrive.

      “Let’s get you inside the spa quick,” Edward said. He jammed the accelerator and hustled down the spa’s long driveway to curve around to the staff parking lot behind the building.

      “It stopped.” She pointed out the back window at where the car had angled into the entrance to the driveway, but then paused. “It’s not within range of the outside surveillance cameras.”

      “Naomi never ordered that the angle be increased?” Edward asked. “After the two murders that happened at the spa last year?”

      Rachel glared at him. “We didn’t exactly expect any more situations where we’d need to videotape a car before it entered the spa driveway.”

      He parked the truck, but they still had a view of the driveway around the trees guarding the opening and the bushes lining the staff parking lot. However, neither of them moved from their seats.

      She squinted at her limited view of the car, which included only a piece of the passenger side. Then she saw the door swing open. “They’re getting out.” Her heart rate sped up.

      “Inside the spa,” Edward barked.

      “No, wait. They’re not getting out. They just dumped something on the ground. Now they’re leaving.” The piece of the car that Rachel could see backed out of view, then she saw a flash of blue as the car sped down the highway.

      She exhaled long and slowly, while her heartbeat thrummed against the base of her throat. Now she understood why excitement could make someone have a heart attack—hers was in overdrive. She inhaled deeply, willing herself to relax.

      “What did they drop?” Edward got out of the truck and headed for the driveway.

      “Wait, is that safe?” Rachel said, also getting out.

      Edward returned holding aloft a laptop case. “Let’s get inside.” He hustled her indoors.

      Naomi’s office was open, and she and Aunt Becca were there enjoying a cup of tea. Naomi read Rachel’s face and abruptly stood. “What happened?”

      “We think we were followed.”

      Aunt Becca gasped. “Are you all right?”

      “We’re fine.” Rachel took the case from Edward and laid it on Naomi’s desk. “A car dropped this at the entrance to the spa driveway and took off.”

      “Is that our laptop?” Aunt Becca leaned over to peer at it. “The one that was just stolen?”

      Naomi opened the case. The computer inside certainly looked like the one they’d just bought. On top was a note, handwritten in what seemed a childish hand.

      My mom made me give this back. I’m sorry.

      “Aw.” A half smile softened the corners of Aunt Becca’s mouth.

      “Aunt Becca…” Rachel remonstrated.

      “He stole the laptop to begin with,” Naomi added.

      “But he returned it.”

      “We should call Detective Carter,” Naomi said.

      Aunt Becca laid a hand on her arm. “Do we need to? The thief seems sorry.”

      “Just because he returned it doesn’t mean he’s sorry. Maybe the laptop was broken when it fell.”

      “Fire it up and see.”

      Naomi and Rachel peered at the start-up screen, but the two accounts Naomi had created—hers and Rachel’s—appeared without problems. Naomi logged in and opened the few files she had on the hard drive, which wasn’t much. “It seems okay.”

      “See? No need to call the police.”

      “No, you should call them anyway,” Edward chimed in. “You never know.”

      Naomi flipped open her cell phone. “I almost have Detective Carter on speed dial,” she muttered.

      Aunt Becca heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I still think this is unnecessary. That poor boy, to think he had to steal. At least he listened to his mother.”

      “Aunt Becca, we still don’t know why he returned the laptop, and there’s no proof his mama made him do it,” Naomi said.

      Rachel privately agreed, but on the other hand, she could relate to her aunt’s feelings that it seemed a bit mean to report a laptop that was stolen but returned.

      “Hello? Detective Carter? Yes, ahem…it’s Naomi Grant….”

      Rachel listened with half an ear, chewing her lip while faintly squirming inside at the Grant sisters needing to call the police yet again.

      The greenhouse break-in had made her irrational. In light of the returned laptop, the blue car this morning made sense—the car was probably not following them at all, but had instead been heading to the spa to return the laptop. It had most likely overshot the spa driveway and turned around, appearing just as they pulled in.

      And the bike accident yesterday probably had been drunk tourists, or tired ones.

      As for the greenhouse, why was she surprised? The industry was cutthroat and her scar-reduction cream promised to be revolutionary. Dad was right, she should have taken greater precautions in the first place to guard the plants.

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