searched the ground quickly, her eyes landing on a three-foot tree limb that had been trimmed from the Bradford pear but not yet taken to the street for pickup. She stepped to the side, dropped down and grabbed the limb, then stood and prepared herself for confrontation, the only choice she had left.
“Hi,” he said, his voice calm and even.
Reva relaxed, but she did not drop the branch. “Hi. What the hell are you doing skulking around the neighborhood?” She didn’t want to point out that she’d caught him watching her house.
“I’m not…” He hesitated. “Was I skulking?” His face was mostly in shadow still, but she could see his reaction. A reluctant half smile transformed his hard face. “I can see how it might’ve looked that way. I’m renting a room across the street. Just got in an hour or so ago, and I wanted to have a look around.” He moved forward and offered a hand. “My name’s Dean Sinclair.”
Reva stepped back. Maybe he was telling the truth, maybe not. She wasn’t about to drop the tree limb and shake his hand, even if he did sound normal and reasonable, and was dressed in a suit, dress shirt and tie. She wasn’t going to give him her name, either.
As she retreated, he came to a halt. His half smile faded. “You’re not going to hit me with that stick, are you?” There was a hint, just a very slight trace, of something dark in that question. The gut instinct she rarely trusted made her glad she hadn’t dropped her makeshift weapon.
Crime in Somerset was practically nonexistent, unless you counted littering and the occasional offense of loitering. And trespassing, Reva thought as she narrowed her eyes. Not exactly a heinous crime, but still, something about this man set her teeth on edge. The fact that she’d caught him spying on her house didn’t help matters any.
“Not if you don’t give me a reason to,” she answered.
Casual as you please, the man crossed his arms. So why was she so sure there was nothing at all casual about this man?
“There are some great old houses in this neighborhood,” he said, his voice soft and deep. “I was just walking around, checking them out. I’m interested in nineteenth-century architecture.”
“You can actually see the details of that architecture better by daylight,” Reva said sharply.
“Like I said, I just arrived in town.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I couldn’t wait to have a look around. Do you live close by?”
“No,” she said. “I’m just walking around in the dark admiring the architecture.”
That response got another half smile out of the stranger. Dean whatever. He definitely didn’t look like a criminal, but he didn’t exactly look harmless, either. Beneath that suit he was physically fit. She could tell by the way he walked, the way he held himself. There was no softness about him, unless you counted the voice that was slightly touched with a Southern accent.
Reva was always wary of the opposite sex, especially men like this one. This Dean fellow was hard, cocky and not where he should be. Architecture my ass.
“I’m leaving,” he said, taking a step back. “I would say it was nice to meet you, but you never did tell me your name.” He paused, but she did not fill in the blanks for him. “And I can’t see your face,” he added, dipping his head to one side as if that might help. “Not with that cap shadowing it. But if I ever see an overly suspicious woman walking down the street carrying a big stick, I’ll be sure to say hello.”
Reva hefted the limb in her hand, making sure her grip was firm. Was he flirting with her? Impossible. She decided not to respond at all.
“Sorry if I gave you a fright,” Dean said.
“You didn’t give me a fright,” Reva insisted.
Dean nodded, apparently not believing her for a moment. Could he hear her heart thudding all the way over there? Or did he detect the tremor in her voice?
“I guess I should save my examination of the town for daytime hours from now on. I didn’t know they rolled up the sidewalks so early here.”
“Now you know,” Reva said sharply.
“Good night, ma’am,” he said with a tip of his head and a quick turnabout. Reva watched as he walked across the yard, across the street and directly to Evelyn Fister’s front door. She glanced down the side driveway of the three-story house where Dean claimed he was staying and caught sight of the rear end of a strange car parked there.
Okay, so maybe he’d been telling the truth. Maybe.
She carried the Bradford pear limb with her as she walked toward home.
Stakeouts were not Dean Sinclair’s favorite part of the job. Sitting for hours, days, sometimes weeks waiting for something to happen was a tedious but necessary part of being a deputy U.S. marshal. Despite a good night’s sleep, this stakeout was already getting on his nerves, and he and his partner, Alan Penner, had only been in Somerset, Tennessee—population 2,352—for thirteen hours.
Alan, who’d been on duty while Dean slept, stood up as Dean exited his bedroom of their rented apartment. He was obviously tired after more than six hours at his post. Once thin and wiry, lately Alan had been sporting a paunch, evidence that his wife was determined to keep him well fed. A couple of years older than Dean, his dark hair showing a few new gray hairs at the temple, Alan was still on the green side of forty. By a few months.
Their new residence wasn’t actually an apartment; they’d rented the entire third floor of a house that had been built about 1820. Everything squeaked, squealed and needed to be painted. Still, the place had a kind of quaint charm.
The main room on the third floor had been referred to by their landlady as “the upstairs parlor.” The furnishings were older than the ancient landlady herself, and a few of the upholstered pieces had a distinctly musty odor. But it was clean and as close to Miss Reva’s, the restaurant across the street, as they were going to get.
There were two bedrooms, one on each side of the parlor, a bathroom down the hallway, and rooms they would not need or use across the way.
Stretching and turning away from the telescope situated on a tripod near the lace-curtain-covered window, Alan twisted his thin lips. “One person has entered the house this morning.”
“Already?” It wasn’t yet 8:00 a.m., and the restaurant situated in the old house across the street didn’t serve lunch until one.
“Yeah. She didn’t look at all like Pinchon, though. She was maybe five feet tall, white-haired, weighed about eighty pounds, and she’s probably ninety-three years old.” Alan yawned and shuffled toward his own room for a few hours’ sleep.
The lens on the telescope Alan had been manning was aimed unerringly at the antebellum house on the other side of the street and one house down. Dean sat in a chair before that telescope, his gaze trained on the large white house. The subject of this stakeout, one Reva Macklin, actually lived in the guest house behind the structure, which had been converted into a popular restaurant. They could only get a partial view of the guest house from this vantage point. The north side porch of the main house and a couple of trees, in full leaf in an overly warm May, got in their way.
Which was why Dean had ventured out last night, only to get
