“Yeah.” He nodded wryly. “Go figure…”

Chapter 11

HAL’S still not answering his phone,” Gus told Vanessa, “so I’m going to take a ride over to his place, let him know what’s going on.”

“Don’t do that, please. Right now, he’s probably sitting in the Inn’s bar, catching up with old friends who came to the wedding,” Vanessa pleaded. She had a sinking suspicion of just which old friend Hal might be catching up with, and if that was the case, she really didn’t want to know. “Anyway, there’s nothing he could do tonight except worry.”

“Or he could be home, sleeping soundly,” Grady offered. “In any case, Vanessa is right. You’ve got two people out there going over the car, two people over at Vanessa’s shop. You probably don’t need Hal, too. At least for now.”

“All right,” Gus said. “We’ll let it go until the morning. But you just pray that this guy”-he pointed across the parking lot toward Grady’s bashed-up rental car-“is done for a while.”

“If he has any sense at all, he’s got to be thinking that he’s pushed his luck enough for one night. He did get away with the break-in without anyone seeing him, but…” Vanessa said.

“Not so sure about that. We’ll be canvassing the neighbors in the morning,” Gus reminded her. “Right now, we don’t know who saw what.”

“True enough,” Grady agreed. “But he walked away from that and from the car without getting caught. This guy is no amateur. He picks and chooses his time and his target, but he’s also opportunistic. He hit the shop when half the town was at the wedding, and he hit the car when everyone was focused on the burglary. Now, I’m pretty certain that the break-in was planned in advance, but vandalizing the car… that couldn’t have been planned. He’d have had no way of knowing that you’d be with me, in that car, and that the car would be parked in the lot down here, but he took advantage of the opportunity. If we believe that he’s targeting Vanessa for some reason-and I believe that he is-he must have seen her get out of my car, possibly when he was finished at the shop.”

“Why would he have even been back near the lot? If he’d just burglarized Bling,” Vanessa wondered, “wouldn’t he want to be far away?”

“I think he wanted to watch-which is another reason I think this is personal. Look, there’s that long dark section of the road out there. He could have been hiding just about anywhere. He’d have watched the police cars head for Charles Street, and he’d have known that was the focus of everyone’s attention. So while the breaking glass would have made noise, there wasn’t anyone around to hear it. Steffie was gone by then, and she was the last one who’d have been in that area of the parking lot, other than Ness and me. Once we were drawn to the shop, he had the lot to himself.” Grady paused to think.

“Or,” Vanessa suggested, “he hit the shop because it looked like exactly what it is: an upscale women’s boutique that does a good business.”

Before Grady could counter, she continued.

“As far as the car is concerned, who’s to say it wasn’t a couple of kids taking a shortcut from the park through the parking lot?”

“What park?”

“On the other side of the trees that run along Steffie’s, there’s a small park. The generally accepted shortcut to Charles Street is through the parking lot.”

“It’s possible,” Grady conceded, “but that’s not what my gut’s telling me.”

“Is your gut psychic?” she asked.

“Instinct, then.” He tried to explain. “I spent nine years in law enforcement. After a while, you develop certain instincts, and you learn to trust them. Yes, it’s possible that Bling was targeted because it looks like a shop that brings in shoppers with money, and is likely to have a few dollars in the cash register at the end of the day. But don’t many shop owners now make their deposits at night? Do you usually leave money in the drawer when you leave?”

“No,” she admitted. “I usually lock it in a safe that I have hidden or I take it to the bank. There was money in the shop last night, though, since I wasn’t going to be there to lock up or to make a deposit.”

“How many people knew that?” Gus asked.

“Just the person who locked up last night, and me. I might have mentioned it to Steffie, but that isn’t something she’d discuss with anyone else.”

“I’m going to have a few officers walk the area from Charles Street through the parking lot and down to the playground, just in case he dropped something or left something behind,” Gus told them. “The more I think about it, the more I’m thinking you’re right about the path he took down toward the parking lot. I think he hit the shop, hid somewhere close by while he waited for the call to come in here so he could watch us answer it. He had to know that in a town like this one, a crowd would be gathering to see what the commotion was, then he’d stroll on up and blend in.” Gus was thinking it all through. “I agree with your friend here, Ness. He wouldn’t have expected to see you get out of that car, but after he did, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to give you just a little more to think about. Besides, with you walking around down on the dock, then in the parking lot, you might have ruined his chance to sneak up to Charles Street, catch the action. That could have pissed him off. First thing in the morning, when it’s light, I’ll have that area gone over with a fine-tooth comb. No telling what they might find.”

Gus walked them past the reception desk toward the door. “Well, with any luck, you folks won’t be needing us again tonight.”

“I understand that the raccoons are making a racket, ma’am. We’ll have a patrol car over there as soon as we can.” Bill Mason, the night dispatcher, waved to Vanessa as she passed. He put a hand over the phone and told Gus, “The raccoons are in Mrs. Brophy’s tree again.”

Gus rolled his eyes. “Tell her I’ll be coming by in about ten minutes.”

He opened the front door and held it for Vanessa and Grady and exited with them.

“I’ll drop you off at home,” Gus told Vanessa, then turned to Grady. “You staying at the Inn?”

Grady nodded and took Vanessa’s arm as they walked to Gus’s patrol car.

“I’ll drive you out after I take Vanessa home.”

“Grady, why don’t you take my car back to the Inn? That way, you’ll have some transportation in the morning to get back into town,” Vanessa said.

“Are you sure you won’t need it?” Grady asked as they got into Gus’s cruiser.

“I walk into town all the time,” she reminded him.

“Then thank you. I’ll take you up on the offer.”

Gus stopped in front of her house. “Maybe I should come in and take a look around. You know, just in case there’s someone in there who shouldn’t be.”

“I’ll take care of it, Gus.” Grady opened the rear passenger door and slid out, then leaned in to give Vanessa a hand and helped her out. “I’ll check it all out before I leave.”

“Hal would skin me alive if anything happened to her.” Gus put the car in park. “Not to mention what Beck would do when he got back.”

“Good point.” Vanessa checked her small evening bag for her keys.

“You used to wear the badge, though, right?” Gus asked as they walked up the front walk.

“Former FBI.”

Gus nodded. “I thought I heard something like that.”

Grady held out his hand and Vanessa handed him the keys. He unlocked the front door, and Gus held him back, his hand on his holstered handgun.

“Give me a minute to clear it,” he told them.

Grady and Vanessa waited in silence in the dark until Gus came back and turned on one of the living-room lamps.

“Everything looks fine,” he told them. “No sign of anything amiss.”

“Thanks, Gus,” Vanessa told him.

“Anything weird happens, you hear any noises, you call the station and I’ll be right out.” He went out onto the front porch. “And we’ll be driving by throughout the night. Make sure you lock that door as soon as Grady leaves.”