LITMIR.BIZ

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      “He had to go home,” she said, straightening away from the door.

      Brianna’s face fell. “But he forgot to say goodbye.”

      Her heart twisted in her chest before it plummeted to her stomach. This was exactly why she couldn’t call Rafe. Brianna already cared about him, too much.

      “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” She gave her daughter a hug. “He must have been in a hurry to get back to work. Come on, it’s bedtime.”

      “I wanted Mr. Rafe to tuck me in.” With a dejected pout, Brianna allowed her mother to take her back to their private rooms. Clyde followed, jumping up on the bed next to Brianna. He’d been sleeping with her since he was an infant puppy and there was no breaking him of the habit now.

      She tucked Brianna in bed and gave her a hug and a kiss before shutting off the light and closing the door. Back in the kitchen, Kayla kept busy making a grocery list of the bare essentials she’d need for her weekend guests.

      But even as she worked, she couldn’t keep her mind off Brianna’s keen disappointment. She’d known her daughter had been hinting for a father. Brianna had gone so far as to ask why Kayla didn’t go out on any dates like her friend Sophie’s mother did. She’d tried to change the subject, but Brianna seemed to have a one-track mind.

      Going to the memorial hadn’t spurred questions about her dead father, as Kayla had hoped. Apparently, Brianna was more interested in trying to replace Jeremy with someone new.

      And Kayla was very much afraid that Brianna might have picked Rafe as a potential candidate to be her new father.

      The next night Kayla tumbled into bed, exhausted after getting her guests settled in. It seemed like mere seconds later when a sharp scream pulled her from a deep slumber.

      She leaped out of bed, stumbling in the darkness as she sought and found the light switch. She winced and shielded her eyes from the harsh brightness that flooded the room.

      The sound had come from upstairs. She opened Brianna’s door to make sure she and Clyde were all right, and then headed down the hall, through the kitchen and into the great room. Her guests, two married couples, were coming down the stairs from the second-floor loft.

      “I’m telling you, I saw a man trying to get into our room!” The older woman, Gloria Hanover, spoke in a shrill voice.

      “I didn’t hear anything,” her husband, Edward, muttered.

      “I’m so sorry,” Kayla said, hurrying forward. “Did you already call the police? Or should I?”

      Gloria shook her head no.

      “I already checked out their room,” Allen Russell said, rolling his eyes. Apparently he wasn’t too impressed with Gloria’s claim. His wife, Lorraine, went over to stand close to his side. “There’s no one there. And even if there had been someone there, I’m sure her shriek scared him off.”

      “Are you insinuating I’m crazy?” Gloria demanded, facing Allen, her face flushed and her hands propped on her ample hips. “Because I know what I saw. There was a man standing there, his face pressed against the patio door.”

      “There now, no one is calling you crazy,” her husband, Edward soothed, patting her arm.

      Kayla tried to smile, but deep down, a cold fear settled in her stomach. Each of the guest rooms had access through a patio door to the deck outside. And she couldn’t help remembering how the security system had been turned off. “I’m calling the police. If Mrs. Hanover saw a man, then we need the authorities to investigate.”

      Leaving her guests to talk among themselves, she went back toward the kitchen to find Brianna standing there with the dog at her feet. She rushed over to give her daughter a hug.

      “What happened, Mommy?” Brianna asked sleepily.

      She didn’t want to scare her daughter, especially after all the strange events over the past two days, but she couldn’t lie to her, either. “One of the guests heard a scary noise so I need to call the police.”

      Luckily, Brianna didn’t ask too many more questions. Kayla set her down and made the call. The sheriff’s department promised to send a deputy right away. Since everyone was up, Kayla brought coffee, tea and the pastries she’d planned for breakfast that morning to the great room. Playing hostess helped soothe her frayed nerves.

      Had her guest really seen a man? If so, who?

      The deputy’s investigation didn’t take long. He took her upstairs to the wraparound deck. Jeremy had designed the house so that every guest room had access to the balcony outside. The deputy pointed with a grim look. “See these gouges? Looks like someone did try to get in.”

      She swallowed hard, unable to tear her gaze from the evidence. Apparently Mrs. Hanover hadn’t been imagining things at all. Someone had actually tried to break in.

      “I’ll file a report,” the deputy continued. “Could be just a random burglary unless you have reason to believe someone has targeted you, specifically.”

      “Not that I know of,” she said faintly. As much as she wanted to believe in the random burglary theory, the sick dread in her stomach wouldn’t let up. What if someone had targeted her? She couldn’t imagine why, but the thought wouldn’t leave her alone. She forced herself to go back downstairs to where her guests were waiting.

      “Edward, I want to leave right now,” Gloria Hanover was saying. “I’m not staying here another night.”

      “Great, just great,” Allen Russell muttered.

      Kayla’s heart sank, but she didn’t protest. How could she blame them for wanting to leave? They’d been woken up from a sound sleep by a burglar.

      “I won’t charge you for last night’s stay,” she informed the couples graciously. She’d been depending on their fees to help her sagging bank account, but there was no way she could see taking their money. Not after this.

      Dawn was beginning to peek over the horizon as the two couples packed their bags and trooped out the door. After they left, she set her security system and then sank down at the kitchen table, propping her aching head in her hands.

      What should she do? Why had someone tried to break in? None of this made any sense.

      She desperately wanted to call Rafe. Maybe she was overreacting, but as a single mother alone with a young daughter couldn’t help being worried. She had an awful feeling there was something significant behind this recent break-in. There had been too many odd things happening lately.

      And she wouldn’t be able to relax until she understood exactly what was going on.

      On Saturday morning, Rafe returned home to review the plans he and his partner, Evan Marshall, and his commanding officer, Luke Sanders, had made the day before.

      They only had a couple of thin leads to follow up on. They needed a break in the case, big-time. There was no point in continuing their surveillance on Schroeder’s business, considering the local police had Schroeder’s boats taped off as a precaution in case it was a potential crime scene.

      He and Evan had agreed to split up the duties in their attempts to jump-start the investigation. Evan’s job was to begin a preliminary surveillance on Karl Yancy, the recluse who’d taken up residence near Pelican Point, renting a boat slip conveniently located right next to Schroeder’s charter fishing business. Yancy had showed up on their radar because of his timely appearance in Pelican Point, the same week as Bruce Pappas’s sighting on Schroeder’s boat. The coincidence of his showing up when a well-known criminal had escaped was too much to ignore.

      Evan’s theory was that Yancy was involved too, working with Shroeder. No one seemed to know much about the stranger since he didn’t socialize with anyone around the lakefront. And his background information was sketchy, in that it was almost too clean. Which was suspicious enough in itself. So Evan also agreed to do more digging

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