Page 34 of Midnight Secrets

But I’d have to go back to Claire’s to get it. My phone was still in my truck.

Staring into the darkness, I listened, hoping to hear him crashing through the brush. But not so much as a twig snapped. Either he was hunkered down, waiting for me to leave, or he knew the woods well and could move with much more ease than me.

It really could be either. Some people who lived around here spent more time outside than in.

Frustration clawing at me, I backed out of the woods and jogged back to Claire’s. By the time I reached her house, a cruiser sat out front, it’s red and blue lights bouncing off the house and lighting up the street.

A quick peek in the car’s windows revealed it to be empty. I headed toward Claire’s front door. The officer must be inside with her.

The knob turned easily under my hand as I let myself in. Officer Rich Kreiger and Claire stood in the living room, Pebbles clutched to Claire’s chest. She barked when she saw me and squirmed in her owner’s arms.

I wasn’t sure if that meant she was happy to see me or wanted to bite my fingers off. She hadn’t been too pleased when I scooped her out of my yard earlier—or when I halted her escape the other morning—but she’d settled down and been rather friendly in the truck on the way over here.

“You lost him, didn’t you?” Claire’s shoulders slumped.

I nodded. “He ran into the forest off Crane Road.”

“Why didn’t you call?” Kreiger spoke up. “I could have headed there and helped establish a perimeter.”

“I left my phone in my truck.” A grimace stole over my face. You’d think I was a rookie, pulling a move like that. But I hadn’t been anticipating a foot chase.

“I’ll call it in. See if Juneau can lend us their dog.”

I waved him off. “I wouldn’t bother. By the time the K-9 unit gets here, the guy will be long gone. He probably already is. Get some other officers here, though. We can retrace his path and make sure he didn’t ditch anything.”

Kreiger’s head bobbed once. “On it.” He stepped out of the room to radio dispatch.

“You doing okay?” I quirked an eyebrow at Claire once Kreiger left.

Her mouth flattened, but she nodded. “Yeah. Did you see who it was?”

“No. It was too dark, and he had a hood up. All I could tell was that it was a man a little smaller than me. Do you know why someone would want to break into your house?”

The small frown wrinkling her forehead deepened. “I’ve been wondering the same thing, but I can’t think of a reason. I don’t really have any major real estate transactions in the works right now. At least, nothing that someone would risk breaking into my house to get a look at the contracts for.”

“What contracts are you working at the moment?”

“A couple of houses, and my friend, Mina, is in the process of buying the space attached to her coffeeshop so she can expand her business. That’s it.”

“What about a rival? Are any of those contracts lucrative enough someone would want to steal them from you?”

“Maybe just Mina’s, but the only real estate agent in town who would do that is Miranda Bennett, and she’s representing the seller. She’s privy to all the same information I am, so she’d have no need to break in to get the contract.” She waved a hand, dismissively. “If this were about real estate, my office would be the far more likely target.”

“Possibly. Do you bring work home a lot?”

Claire lifted a shoulder, then scratched at Pebbles’s head. “Here and there. I try to get everything done at the office somy evenings are for me.” She met my gaze. “There’s a reason I sell real estate here and not in some major market. I’m not a workaholic. I like my free time.”

“Okay.” I chewed on the corner of my mouth and glanced toward the stairs. “Have you been upstairs yet?”

“No. Officer Kreiger said we should wait for you. He didn’t want us to disturb any evidence until you had a chance to process the scene.”

“Good. I need to run out to my truck and get my crime scene kit. Hang tight.”

At her nod, I turned and jogged outside, past Kreiger, who still talked to dispatch, coordinating resources. They probably had to call in backup from Juneau or from another state office. Parker’s Landing wasn’t big enough to have more than two officers on duty at any given time. Although I didn’t count toward that total, since I was a special detachment.

Reaching my truck, I opened the back door and took out the small duffel I kept stored on the floorboard. It contained a digital camera, fingerprint powder and cards, some evidence markers, and evidence bags in assorted sizes. I’d carried something similar in North Carolina but rarely used it. There, most cases I worked for the state bureau of investigation had an actual forensic unit dispatched to process crime scenes. Up here, though, those were reserved for the biggest cases. Parker’s Landing didn’t have a forensic team. We had to borrow Juneau’s or the state’s for major cases. Everything else, the police units processed.

I closed the truck door and glanced up as I backed away from the vehicle. A shiver of unease skittered down my spine as I stared into the flickering shadows. I could feel eyes watching.

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