It was probably as much to do with running into the wild dogs as anything.

  After he left, she got up and walked to the front door. Deciding not to hide inside, she walked outside and sat down at one of the big old rockers that she had on the front veranda.

  As a fairly remote bed-and-breakfast, she didn’t get a ton of visitors, so it was nice to have those who came by. She was a social person in some ways, although she had that somewhat blunted over the years.

  She did enjoy having guests. Sometimes just people getting away from the big city or those who came out here to fish. She’d advertised at one of the local fishing clubs and had immediately gotten a couple people interested, and they came once a year.

  After her recent gold-digger insights into Laura, Kellie hated to say it, but this was good money, and she appreciated their support. As she sat here, rocking in the growing darkness, she stared down the road, looking for any sign of Jenner. When she heard a vehicle brake, she jolted, but she saw no sign of a vehicle anywhere.

  Frowning at that, she got up and peered into the distance, but again nothing stood out to her. Uneasy and yet not really having any reason why, she stayed quiet and then heard footsteps. Yet the footsteps were coming from the opposite direction.

  She peered through the darkness at who was coming. And when she heard no welcoming greeting, she crept deeper into her veranda, where she could just watch. Whoever it was, he stood at the edge of her property, staring down the road for a long moment. He didn’t say anything; he just stayed and stayed. … That was creepy.

  Kellie turned to look in the direction where Jenner had disappeared, wondering how long it would take him. When she glanced back, the man who’d been standing there, studying the road, had disappeared.

  Immediately prickles of unease went up and down her spine. “What the hell is going on here?” she whispered, trying to take comfort in the sound of her own voice.

  From her perspective, nothing ever happened in this town, and all of a sudden something rotten had surfaced. She just didn’t know what or why—or who.

  She even found herself doubting that Silas would want anything to do with Jim’s property. That made no sense to her. Sure, Silas had a bunch of rentals in town, and maybe he was now focused on buying more properties outside town, but usually people bought with an idea of some return in mind. It’s not like these homes were on a main road which would pull in customers for a new supermarket or even a strip mall. And, the way things were in town, those shops wouldn’t want any competition, even if out here away from town.

  Frowning and not liking anything about this skulking stranger, and now worried about where he’d disappeared to, she stepped back inside and closed and locked the front door. She didn’t know who the hell that man had been or why he was here, but that he’d arrived and disappeared just as suddenly putting her on edge—an edge that she couldn’t in any way shake off.

  When Jenner didn’t come back soon afterward, she sent him a text. Is everything okay?

  He sent her a smiley face and then almost immediately sent a text and asked, Are you okay?

  She came back with Not sure.

  Instead of texting her, he called. “What do you mean, you’re not sure?” She hesitated and then told him about the man he saw down the road. “I’m heading that way. Sit tight, stay inside, and keep the doors locked.” And, with that, he hung up.

  As warnings went, it was definitely not geared to keep her calm, but she sat here and waited anxiously for Jenner to show up. Then she heard a sound on her back porch. She immediately bolted to the kitchen, saw a shadow in a window, and raced to the front of the house. She picked up her phone and called Jenner, as she hid behind the front door. “Somebody’s on the back porch,” she whispered.

  “I’m coming up the front right now. Don’t do anything. Don’t let him know you’re there.” He added, “I’ll head around to the back.”

  She saw his shadow ever-so-slightly and watched from the living room, as he came closer. However, instead of coming to the front door, he scooted around to the back. She waited for sounds of a confrontation, but there was nothing. When a knock came at her kitchen door, she quietly came to the back of her house and peered through the kitchen window and saw Jenner. Letting him in, he looked at her and shook his head. “Nobody’s here.”

  “Jesus, then where did he go?” she cried out, as she raced onto the back porch, looking into the darkness.

  “Do you have any idea who it was?” he asked, as he put his arm around her shoulders and guided her back inside.

  “No, I really don’t, but I tell you that he was here. I watched him standing at the property line for a long moment or two, then lost track of him, and shortly thereafter heard him on the back porch. Then I saw the shadow in the kitchen window.” Now inside the kitchen, she pointed, and he checked the window.

  “And yet he didn’t come in?”

  “No, thank God.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked urgently.

  She blinked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I want to be absolutely sure that he didn’t come into the house.”

  “No, I can’t be sure,” she said, staring at him in shock and turned to look at the staircase.

  He nodded. “I want you to stay here. I’ll go up and check.” And he quietly made his way up the stairs.

  She really didn’t want to think that anybody could have made it into the house, but it made a weird kind of sense that maybe he did. But it was also a sick kind of sense because her B&B was not the type of place where unexpected people happened to just walk inside, especially after dark.

  She didn’t know what was going on, but something was wrong all of a sudden.

  When Jenner came down, he shook his head. “Okay, no sign of anyone.”

  She closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “I need to check out the road, so again I want you to stay here, while I check.”

  “No.” She reached out and grabbed him. “Please don’t.” He stopped and stared. “I don’t … I really don’t want to be left alone.”

  “I get that, but are you sure you don’t want me to go find out where this guy is or even who it is?”

  “Will that tell us anything?” she murmured. “This guy didn’t want to be seen. He probably saw you coming from the front of the house, as he sat in the shadows.”

  Jenner stopped, considered it, and nodded. “And that’s quite possible. I would like to ensure this guy doesn’t come back again.”

  “You and me both,” she replied shakily. “What I don’t know for sure is whether it’s the same guy I saw here before.”

  “The one impersonating Jim?”

  “I mean, honest to God, I thought it was Jim. I didn’t have any way to know for sure.”

  “And that’s what you hold on to,” he said, reaching out to stroke her arm. “You’re doing just fine. I get it. This guy terrified you.”

  “And it’s all wrapped up with those wild dogs of his.” She shook her head. “And that’s not helping. I hadn’t realized how freaked out I was until now.”

  “No, of course not, but we will get to the bottom of this, so don’t you worry.”

  She gave him a broken laugh. “Sure, I mean, somebody just started stalking my house, right? Although I don’t even know if I would have noticed it before, except those dogs have me so spooked now.”

  “You would have noticed,” he stated firmly. “You will sort this out. We will sort this out.”

  She smiled. “I’m really glad to hear you say that because I have no idea what the hell’s going on.”

  “That brings me back to another thing. I asked you before what this guy was like, how he approached you, and how he acted when his dogs scared you. Can you add anything?”

  She nodded. “Right, he didn’t seem to be anything other than normal, until he came back that night and was yelling and beating on my front door.”

  “And was he drunk?”

  She shook her head. “I won’t say drunk, but his eyes were kind of wild.”

  “So chances are good he was high on drugs,” Jenner muttered.

  “And I gather that’s bad.”

  “Yeah, always bad,” he confirmed, running a hand through his hair. “We’ve got several scenarios happening here, and they’re all a little bit on the odd side.”

  “You think?” she muttered. “I’m not sure anything about this scenario was normal.”

  “No, I’m not either,” he agreed, “but, whatever is happening, we must get to the bottom of it.”

  “Right, and that just sounds like a whole lot of Hey, don’t worry,” she muttered.

  He shrugged. “I do want you to be wary and alert. I want you to be thinking about who this guy could be and what he might be doing.”

  “But all of the options are not great.” She stared at him.

  He nodded. “I agree with you. Most of the options aren’t good at all, but the bottom line is, if he’s here because he’s after you, then it’s you who we need to protect. If he’s here to cause trouble, then I don’t know what he’s after or what kind of trouble he’s looking for. He could just be looking for a quick score. He already stole whatever was over at Jim’s place. Maybe he’s looking for something else to steal from here. After all, drug addicts are known to steal for their next hit of whatever.”

  He looked around, shook his head. “This is all so weird. … If our drug-addicted squatter is looking for residential furniture, that’s not normally what anybody would seek in cash-and-carry robberies. Those usually involve small electronics—laptops, phones.”

  She raised both hands in frustration. “It’s not like I have much.”

  “I know this is not a question that you’ll want to consider, but have you had any creeps online?”

  She stared at him and then shook her head rapidly. “I’ve always been very careful about keeping my identity and location private. I would never let anybody know where I live.”

  “Yeah, but, in this day and age, it’s not all that hard to find.”

  “Don’t say that,” she moaned, “because that would just ruin everything I want to do online.”

  “There are some ways to keep yourself safe,” he noted, “but it’s that much harder nowadays. Hackers are smart and getting smarter.”

  “Harder is one thing. Impossible I’m not interested in.”

  He chuckled. “Got it.” He looked around and suggested, “Let’s go sit outside, and that might help you to feel calm.”

  “If you say so,” she replied, with one eyebrow raised. “Honest to God, with that unknown guy just at the back door, I’m feeling mighty freaked out.”

  “Now that I realize he was here, I feel like I should go check out Jim’s place again.” She opened her mouth to immediately try to stop him and then closed it. He stared at her, asking, “What’s that look for?”

  “As much as I don’t want you to go, and with Jim’s place just a minute away, we do need to find out what’s going on,” she stated reluctantly.

  “We do, indeed, and you know what? Depending on what I find, it will also depend on what we end up having to do. And I suppose that you don’t want to call the sheriff about this, do you?”

  She immediately shook her head. “And tell him what?” she asked in disgust. “He won’t believe me, and he’ll probably tell me how there’s nothing he can do.”

  “Well, he probably can’t do anything, but he could certainly do a drive-by and pretend to care.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think him pretending to care will do anybody much good.”

  “What’s his relationship like with Silas?”

  “Fine”—she shrugged—“as far as I know. The sheriff likes to keep the people who vote for him happy. Silas has a lot of influence over all these lovely little townsfolk.”

  “You don’t like Silas much either, do you?”

  “I don’t like any of them,” she admitted bluntly, “but then my opinion could be colored from my own experiences.”

  “Probably,” he agreed, with a headshake, “but it makes sense to me.”

  “And I really don’t want to be the person who holds it against them,” she added.

  He smiled. “When you figure out how to not do that, maybe you should let me know.”

  She chuckled. “And we’re back to the fact that you’re one of the nice guys.”

  “Oh, no. That almost sounds like an insult again.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t intended to be.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Now sit right here, and I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Outside or inside?”

  He looked around, assessing. “Outside. If this guy comes back, you run toward me. And keep your phone on you,” he added. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She nodded, sat down at the far corner of the veranda, and waited.

  Jenner practically ran to Jim’s house. When he got there, the place was completely undisturbed. He was afraid of that. Chances were good that whoever had been here had taken off and even now was a long way away. Sometimes that’s just the way of it.

  And, of course, why would anybody stay if they didn’t need to? Attempted murder, stealing, squatting, his unruly dogs killing animals and scaring residents, all were things that you didn’t stick around for, in case you got caught and charged for those crimes. As Jenner headed back, he heard a soft growl in the bushes. He froze, then looked at the shadow and whispered, “Good evening, Sisco. How are you doing, boy?”

  He kept walking, his voice quiet. He didn’t get any phone call from Kellie, and that was good. By the time he made it to the B&B, he saw her still sitting off in the corner of the veranda. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m still glad to have you back though.”

  “Good. Nothing like a nice welcome.”

  “And I was supposed to make lemonade earlier. And I would suggest a nightcap now.”

  “You’re offering?” he asked, with interest.

  “Sure. Why not?” she asked. “I don’t keep a whole lot of booze, but I do keep a little bit for guests.”

  “Let’s go get that drink. I’m worried that you won’t sleep tonight otherwise.”

  “I am too,” she stated bluntly. “And I need sleep.”

  “Anything happening tomorrow?”

  “A court case.” And she went inside.

  He followed behind her, happy to have an end to the evening that was much calmer and more relaxed.

  Chapter 10

  When Kellie woke the next morning, she was surprised to feel rested and to find that she’d actually slept. She rolled over in bed, stared out at the early morning sun, and sighed. “Not quite what I expected for today, but, hey, I’ll take it.”

  Feeling a little bit better, she hopped up, dressed for court, and headed down to the kitchen to put on coffee. She found the dining room empty and quiet, hoping to find Jenner there. While the coffee dripped, she made herself a quick bite of breakfast, put out several buns, jam, and some milk and cheese, with a note on the dining table. And then added her phone to her purse. Today would be a pain in the ass, but, hey, she needed to go.

  As she was about to walk out the front door, Jenner came down the stairs and nodded. “Right, court.”

  She nodded too. “I hope to be back in an hour or so.”

  “You want to tell me what this court thing is all about?”

  “I was witness to an accident,” she noted, with a shrug, “I didn’t want to show up, and honestly it’s making me sick to my stomach that I even have to go, but I do, so I am.”

  And, with that, she raced out the door, leaving him staring after her. She probably should have explained more, but it was a bit of a sour spot that she even had to appear. She drove into town, made it in decent time. The process itself wasn’t bad; she gave her testimony and listened to part of it. When she was told that she was allowed to leave, she stood and left. Hopefully to never return. But the distress weighed away on her.

  By the time she walked back into her B&B, she sat down at the kitchen table with a heavy groan. “Thank God that’s over with.”

  “How was it?” Jenner asked, from the dining room behind her.

  She twisted. “I didn’t even see you there,” she exclaimed.

  “Well, I am here. How was your day?”

  “Fine. How was your morning?”

  “Good, just doing a bunch of research. I did take some dog food to the back hill for Sisco. I just can’t be sure that Sisco would get it versus the other ones.”

  “It’s probably better if we lure them all in anyway,” she admitted. “I really don’t want to end up in the same scenario I was in before.”

  “Got it,” Jenner noted. “So what was this accident you saw?”

  “It was a hit-and-run,” she replied. “I didn’t really see a whole lot, just the vehicle.”

  “What was it?”

  “A dark sedan. That’s about all I could tell them.”

  “So you don’t know who was driving it?”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t. And I told them that a long time ago, but they still decided to bring me in.”

  “Of course they did, which means they really don’t have much of a case. Do you know who the defendant was?”

  “Some kid who they think was out joyriding, and the vehicle probably was stolen, as far as I understand from the attorneys.”

  “It happens. So it’s not related to this Jim guy, whether the real one or the fake one?”

  She stared at him in shock. “No.” She frowned. “Why would it be?”

  “I don’t know if it is. However, I understood Jim’s parents died in a car crash, coming home from visiting him in the hospital, when he first lost his leg. Then our fake guy, the squatter, seems intent on a life a crime. So I just wanted to confirm that there’s no connection. And that you don’t have any problems with any of your online fans …”

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t have anything online that makes me wary. As far as I’m concerned, everything going wrong right now is because of this squatter, pretending to be Jim.”