“And now I need to see if I can find out if the thief really did go through the glass door and then into the woods.” Rad looked at her. “Was this glass door open?”
“No.” Sienna shook her head again. “But it was unlocked, and I keep it locked unless I’m using it.”
“So then it’s feasible they used it,” Rad stated and glanced at the forest. “Well, it looks like I’m off to the woods today to find a thief.”
“I’ll come with you,” Sienna offered. “I know the forest very well, and you don’t, so please don’t argue.”
Rad looked at her for a long second, then gave a reluctant nod.
“Fine. But you stay behind me if we find anything.” It was better than getting lost in the woods.
Sienna quickly slipped off her sandals and stepped into a pair of sneakers by the door. Rad waited while she changed out of the sandals she had been wearing, his gaze drifting toward the back garden.
From inside, the route looked deceptively simple. A stretch of trimmed lawn. A line of shrubs. Then the darker edge of the woods beyond.
Outside, the heat pressed down harder, thick with Florida damp and the faint green smell of growing things. Rad stepped onto the stone patio first and paused while Sienna locked the pool house behind them.
“Show me exactly where you think someone would’ve gone,” he said.
She moved past him and pointed toward a narrow break between two hedges. “There. It’s the quickest way out if you don’t want to be seen from the main house.”
Rad crouched near the patio's edge and studied the ground. There were scuffs in the mulch and flattening in the grass, but nothing clean enough to tell him much. Too much foot traffic, too much gardening, too much time. He rose and followed her.
The back garden gave way quickly to rougher ground. The grass thinned into sandy soil and exposed roots, and within a few yards the shade deepened under a thick cover of pine and scrub oak. Birdsong skipped somewhere overhead, and dry needles crackled faintly underfoot.
Rad stopped just inside the tree line and looked back once.
From here, the pool house was mostly hidden.
“Convenient,” he muttered.
“That’s one word for it.” Sienna glanced over her shoulder. “I think of it as my escape route.”
He took out the camera and snapped a few shots of the entry point, the direction of travel, and the worn opening in the brush. Then he crouched again, checking the ground.
Nothing.
Or rather, too much of everything. Old prints. New prints. Bike treads. Dog tracks. Flattened patches that could have belonged to joggers, teenagers, maintenance workers, or half the town.
“This path gets used a lot,” he said.
“Yes.” Sienna folded her arms lightly. “People cut through here all the time.”
“People?” Rad looked up at her.
“Not from the house. Just... locals. Kids sometimes. Hikers. People who know the trails.” She glanced back toward her house. “They also come here to get a glimpse of our house.”
That tracked with what he was seeing. This was not some secret, untouched route through the woods. It was lived in, walked through, and disturbed a hundred times over.
Rad straightened and started forward again, following the clearest line through the trees while Sienna kept pace beside him.
He checked broken twigs, brushed bark, and the occasional deeper impression in the softer patches of earth, but nothing stood out as belonging to a safe theft rather than ordinary traffic. No drag marks. No obvious gouges. No discarded wrapping or tool marks. If someone had taken a heavy safe this way, they had either been careful, lucky, or had enough help to keep the movement controlled.
“How often do you come out here?” Rad asked without looking at her.
“Once, twice a day.” Sienna shrugged.
Rad turned his head.
