“Presence,” I repeated. “That’s specific.”
“Well, you know how some people just look like trouble?” she said, eyes still fixed on him. “He’s got that look. The ‘I don’t belong here but I’m pretending I do’ look.”
I studied the man discreetly. Ball cap. Dark tee. Relaxed gait. Not exactly broadcasting criminal intent. But something about the way he paused at the corner, not to cross, not to turn, but to study the street, caught my attention.
He wasn’t sightseeing. He was watching. And not in a tourist way.
I was left with no choice. “All right. I’ll see where he goes.”
Madge clutched my arm. “Pepper. You shouldn’t follow him alone. You’ll get yourself kidnapped and I’ll have to explain to Ian that I let you walk right into danger, and he’ll never forgive me.” She gasped. “And your dad will lock me up and throw away the key.”
She was definitely watching too many old movies.
“Madge,” I said gently, “I’ll be fine. I’m not confronting him. I’m just… observing.”
She eyed me skeptically. “Don’t do anything reckless?”
I started walking backward toward the man’s direction. “You have my solemn vow.”
She frowned. “That’s not comforting. Everyone knows you can’t resist solving a mystery.”
I turned and headed down the street, keeping my pace even and my eyes casually forward. The man didn’t look back, didn’t hurry, didn’t do anything overtly suspicious.
But he did reach the edge of Main Street and pause again, as if deciding whether to leave town or double back.
Madge was right about one thing.
He wasn’t strolling.
He was searching.
And whatever he was looking for… I intended to find out where it led him.
CHAPTER 7
Following someone on foot without being obvious sounded easier than it was.
I kept my pace steady, neither rushing nor lagging, my attention split between the man ahead of me and the storefront reflections that let me track his movements without staring. He walked with purpose but not urgency, which told me two things: he knew where he was going, and he didn’t think anyone was watching him.
That made one of us.
At the end of Main Street, he slowed, glanced left, then right. Not the casual look of someone deciding between coffee or ice cream, but the calculating scan of someone weighing options. If he turned left, he’d head toward the residential streets. Right would take him closer to the road leading out of town. Straight ahead led to more left and right decisions.
I drifted to a window display and pretended to admire something I had no intention of buying while I watched his reflection. He stopped. Just long enough to check his phone.
Don’t turn around,I silently warned him.
He didn’t.
I exhaled and took another few steps?—
“Pepper.”
I closed my eyes.
Burke Strathmore fell into step beside me like we were two people out for a friendly Sunday stroll. He looked effortlesslypolished, as always, a man who’d never met a mirror he didn’t approve of.
“I heard a rumor,” he said casually. “Is it true your brother Josh and Kate have called it quits?”
