She shoved the notebook and pen into her jacket pocket and moved back into the tree line, two steps, three, until the shadow of the canopy swallowed her. Then she went still and waited.
The footsteps moved off the gravel and onto the soft ground, and then slowed, to the careful placement of someone walkingthe space in a pattern. Starting near the cabin, then working outward in precise, concentric circles. Morgan stood in the shadows and watched the figure come into view through the trees.
He was tall. Dark-haired. Well-built.
She sucked in a breath, because she’d seen him twice before. Once at the café on the day she’d arrived. Then a few days later, standing in the town square, staring at her through the diner window.
What was he doing here? Was he with local law enforcement? Or just a curious local?
He paused at the sight line she'd been standing in sixty seconds earlier and looked at the cabin the way she'd looked at it—not with the casual glance of a curious local, but the sustained, systematic read of someone who didn’t believe the brief news coverage was telling the whole story.
Then he crouched, reaching for something in the leaves near where she'd been standing. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. It was small, dark, and impossible to make out from where she was standing.
Morgan grimaced, watching him look at whatever it was for a long moment. What had she missed?
He straightened, did a slow scan of the clearing with the deliberate attention of someone who had realized he wasn’t the first here today.
Morgan didn't move. Didn't breathe more than she had to.
His gaze moved toward the tree line, passing over the shadows where she was standing without stopping. She exhaled slowlyand carefully, watching in frustration as he pocketed what he'd found. He took one last look around, then disappeared back the way he came.
She waited until the sound of his footsteps receded before she turned and walked quietly away, using the damp leaf cover to muffle her light steps.
She didn't run. She didn't have to. She was just out for a walk on a beautiful day, nothing more.
Morgan was backat Frank's before she reached for her notebook, finding her pocket empty. She stood in the kitchen doorway and checked the other pocket.
It, too, was empty.
She mentally retraced her steps.
The man had crouched in the leaves near where she'd been standing. He'd picked something up. Something small and dark.
Like her notebook.
It was small. Dark. Had a Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office seal on the cover—embossed, professional, and unambiguous about where it came from and therefore who was likely to be carrying it.
“Problem?” Frank said, breaking into her reverie.
She hadn't heard him come in. She looked up.
“No,” she said. “I just… misplaced something.”
Frank regarded her for a moment, then said, “I’m sure it’ll turn up,” and continued on his way.
Morgan stood in the kitchen doorway and thought about a man with dark hair and blue eyes crouching in the leaves. More specifically, she thought about the expression on his face when he'd looked at whatever he'd found.
Intrigued.
So much for keeping her head down and staying off the radar.
8
M. SULLIVAN
PATRICK
The moving job ran long,and the pub shift ran longer. By the time Patrick got back to his place, it was past two in the morning, and the notebook had been sitting heavy in his jacket pocket for nearly fourteen hours.