She nodded as tears blurred her vision.
“Chelsea, what’s wrong?”The gentle, but slightly panicked tone to his voice made her swallow hard.
She waved her hand at the computer and exhaled.“A folder.Me.”
Connor’s face showed his understanding, and he squeezed her hand.“I’m sorry.”
She smiled drawing comfort from his touch.She exhaled again, dabbed at her eyes, and cleared her throat.“Aunt Maggie kept copies of all my work.I didn’t know she followed what I’d been doing.”
“It sounds like she was an incredible woman.”
“She was.”Chelsea drew back her hand so he could concentrate on his surveillance.She closed the folder and clicked through the rest of the folders, one by one.There were a few things which might be useful; invoices of where she got supplies, a list of people who had stayed in the cottages and some photos of the garden Chelsea could use in her promotion.
Finally she opened Aunt Maggie’s email account.As far as Chelsea knew, Aunt Maggie had used it for logging into websites when she shopped online and little else.They’d set up an auto-responder after the funeral to tell senders Aunt Maggie had died and to contact Sabine for anything.
The inbox was full of spam and junk mail, which Chelsea reviewed before unsubscribing from newsletters or deleting.There were a few enquiries about accommodation which Chelsea kept.She could contact them later and tell them Lilydale Cottage had reopened.
Finally when she was done, she went to click on the Trash folder to empty it, but she clicked the Sent folder instead.With a sigh, she was about to click the correct folder when a name jumped out at her.
Johann Mueller.
Chelsea’s heart raced as she clicked on the email.Aunt Maggie was refusing to sell Lilydale Cottage to him and, from the tone, she was annoyed.
Aunt Maggie was always polite.
Chelsea read the email from Johann, which was below it.He outlined all the positives and offered Aunt Maggie a unit of her own in the complex.
That wouldn’t have gone down well.Aunt Maggie was fiercely independent and liked her space.Living so close to someone in a unit would have driven her mad.
Chelsea kept scrolling through a long email trail which had started a couple of months before Aunt Maggie had died.Around the time Johann’s firm was working on the sports complex.
Give Johann his due.He was persistent.
But one thing bothered Chelsea.She glanced at Connor.“If you wanted to buy Lilydale, why would you wait for a year before approaching the new owners, particularly if you’d been in discussions with the previous owner?”
Connor didn’t look up from the screen.“Maybe circumstances changed, and you were focusing on a different project,” he suggested.“Or because you wanted to distance yourself from the negotiation.”
“There was no need to distance himself from the negotiation if he had done nothing wrong.”
Connor’s gaze flashed to hers.“How did Aunt Maggie die?”
“She fell off a ladder.”Horror filled Chelsea.She shook away the thought it might not have been an accident, unable to contemplate someone going to such desperate lengths to obtain a property.
But the vandalism and fire suggested perhaps Johann was.
Before she could suggest it, Connor straightened, his gaze sharp on the screen in front of him.
“Target at section two carrying a jerry can.”
Chelsea’s heart pounded as she pushed back her chair and raced around the table to watch his screen, her horror replaced by fear for Ethan.Connor pointed to one frame and a moment later a male figure wearing a dark hoodie passed by carrying a jerry can.
“Target at section three.”
The man was the same size and frame as Darren, but Chelsea couldn’t see his face.“Should I call the police?”
Connor shook his head.“We don’t want to scare him away.He has to do something more than trespass.”
“So we have to wait.”
