and stalked across the lawn to the barn. She let out a sigh and leaned back against one of the huge columns that stretched across the front porch of the house.
“Problems?”
Tanner’s voice sounded from the doorway of the house and she jumped. She’d left him inside earlier to have a sandwich and make some phone calls to Wildlife and Fisheries and see if he could get them to move faster on testing the blood she’d found at one of the work sites. She hadn’t even heard him open the door. Now she wondered how much of the conversation he’d overheard.
“Nothing outside of the norm, lately,” she finally said.
“Is your foreman always so rude to you?”
She frowned. “No, but ever since I went from boss’s daughter to boss, his attitude has gone downhill.”
“You think he could be the vandal?”
“No! I don’t … Oh, wow….”
He sighed. “It hadn’t occurred to you yet. I’m sorry I sprang it on you that way.”
She shook her head. “You’re just doing your job. And no, it hadn’t occurred to me, but I don’t think it’s him. I can see where it would look that way, but I can’t bring myself to believe Emmett would betray my father’s trust that way, even though he’s dead.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to believe it. I’m going to get proof, but I have to tell you, Emmett’s a good place to start. I’ll need to know everything you know about the man, and the rest of the crew, for that matter.”
“Of course. I have personnel files for all of the crew. I’m afraid that’s about the extent of my knowledge of them, but Emmett has been here since before I was born. I can probably tell you anything you need to know about him.”
“Except where he disappears to during the day?”
She blew out a breath. “Yeah, except that.”
He nodded. “If you’ll show me to my room, I’d like to unpack and start on those personnel files tonight.”
“Your room?”
“There’s no hotel in town and I’d rather be on-site until I figure this out. You’re turning it into a B-and-B, right? So I figure you have rooms.”
She couldn’t think of a single good reason to tell him no—at least not one she could openly state without looking like a fool. But the thought of Tanner sleeping under the same roof sent her body tingling in places it had no right to tingle in.
Unfortunately, his idea made perfect sense.
“Sure. I have two rooms ready on the second floor. One on the north side and one on the south. You can have your choice.”
He nodded. “Where is your room located?”
She felt a blush creep up her face. “On the second floor, north side.”
“Then I’ll take the north-side room.”
Her mouth dropped just a bit and she held it there for a couple of seconds, unable to close it or speak. Finally, she said, “You don’t think I’m in danger, do you?”
“Until I can figure out who or what is doing this and their motive, I don’t want to discount any possibilities. If a man is vandalizing your property, then it’s personal, and that’s something I want to explore with you tomorrow. If he doesn’t get you to take whatever action he thinks he’s going to cause, he may escalate. Hiring me may inspire him to escalate more quickly.”
A flood of scenarios that she’d never considered washed through her mind. Locked up in her home with the sexiest man she’d seen in forever or alone with a potential madman or mythical creature on the loose.
She wasn’t sure which was more frightening.
TANNER ROSE FROM THE small desk that held a stack of personnel files and peered out the bedroom window into the dimly lit courtyard behind the sprawling mansion. On the surface, everything appeared so peaceful, so normal, but he knew something was off balance. He’d felt it in the swamp. Something malevolent was at work below the surface at the plantation.
The personnel files had given him no indication of the problem. The men in the crew were from the area, and Tanner hadn’t found anything suspect on them or Emmett Vernon. Tanner had heard Josie talking to someone out front, but he hadn’t gone to investigate until he’d heard her voice rise and could make out her accusation that Vernon was slacking. Josie had looked startled when he spoke, and now he wondered what had been said that he missed.
Whatever it was, she wasn’t repeating it. Sure, she’d given him some information, but he hadn’t mistaken that flash of fear when she’d realized he was behind her. Whatever had transpired between her and the surly foreman, she didn’t want Tanner to know it all.
He sighed. This was so much more complicated than Holt and Max had made it look. In only two months, they’d already solved several cases the police had deemed not viable. At the rate his level of confusion was rising, Tanner seriously doubted he could contribute even a quarter of the success to the agency that his brothers did.
His cell phone rang and he wondered who in the world was calling him this late. Then he saw the number for Wildlife and Fisheries and knew it was his buddy Tommy. Tanner was convinced the man never slept and lived at the office.
“Tommy,” he answered. “What do you have for me?”
“Not much, I’m afraid,” Tommy replied. “The blood belonged to a rabbit common to the swamp. Without the carcass, there’s no way to determine cause of death.”
“I understand. I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to check into the records on that footprint cast Ms. Bettencourt sent in before?”
“Are you kidding me? You call and tell me you were hired to track the Honey Island Swamp Monster and we might have a print cast here—heck, I ran straight to storage and pulled it before I did that test on the blood.”
“I was hired to track a vandal,” Tanner corrected. “I’m not making any other assumptions.”
“Yeah, well, that print was creepy.”
“Is that your official opinion?”
“As a zoologist and amateur cryptozoologist, yes, that’s my professional opinion.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why was it creepy?”
“Well, everything indicates it’s a bipedal creature, but given the soil conditions and depth of the imprint, we’re talking something between six and seven feet tall and two hundred fifty pounds or more.”
“Bear?”
“With four toes? Dude, don’t even go there. Even with a foot caught in a trap, there’s no way a bear made this track. Besides, it says in the notes that the next partial imprint was over five feet away. What bear has a stride five feet long?”
Tanner frowned, not wanting to admit outright that his buddy’s assessment was correct.
