Page 56 of Condemned By Secrets

Giving in to Sandy’s exuberance, Anna reached for the sharpest thing she had close by—an antique letter opener. It had a lacquered wood handle with a brass blade, but it was strong enough to slice through packing tape.

Sandy's excitement spewed over as Anna cut her way into the box. “I can’t wait for you to see it! We ordered it months ago, but it took such a long time to get here.”

Anna pulled the last of the tape off and opened the box. “Oh, wow.”

“I think it’ll be a useful tool.” Sandy clapped her hands. “We bought it with the last of our grant funds. What do you think?”

Sandy had succeeded in surprising her. Anna stared down at the fancy camera drone. She’d seen them used in the city before but hadn’t dreamed of purchasing one for the society. The drone could be useful for conducting assessments of properties. They’d be able to get a bird’s eye view for surveying and mapping, plus drones could go places people necessarily couldn’t. Anna had even seen an interactive three-dimensional display of a building created using drone imagery when she was in school.

She lifted her head to meet Sandy’s eyes. “This is great, Sandy. We’ll have to figure out how to use it, but you’re right, it’ll be an excellent tool.”

Sandy smiled, and her blue eyes lit up. “Why don’t we go out to the Cooper property tomorrow and take it for a test drive?”

Anna returned the smile, but it was half-hearted. Almost a week had passed, and she hadn’t gotten any closer to saving the farmhouse. “Sounds like a plan.”

???

When Anna’s eyes were ready to cross from staring at image after image of scanned microfiche, she decided to call it a day. She’d found a few articles with mentions of prohibition in Rolling Brook but nothing that tied it to the Cooper Farm.

On a sigh, Anna closed her computer. She needed to find something concrete if she was going to use it for a national register nomination. Listing the property on the National Register of Historic Places wasn’t a guarantee she’d be able to stop the demolition, but it couldn’t hurt. In any case, it would give her a foundation to stand on when she argued against destroying it to the town.

Anna’s eyes landed on the box with the drone in it. She’d set it on the floor next to her desk after Sandy had left. Maybe she should get familiar with it before she and Sandy tried to use it tomorrow. Thinking it would at least be a win if she made the thing fly, Anna started to unbox it.

It was a rotary-wing craft which meant it’d be able to hover. Anna was glad of that. She was sure she’d have crashed a fixed-wing one. Digging in the box, she pulled out the manual and located the controller.

Yikes. That’s complex.

She’d never been one to play video games, and this quad-copter remote looked like a gaming device. It made Anna frown, but she set it down to start reading the instructions.

A half-hour later, she was feeling confident enough to test it out. Knowing better than to try it inside her office, Anna stood and gathered her things. It was still early enough she’d have time to practice with it before dark, and the best place she could think of to do that was at the Cooper Farm.

???

When Anna cleared the trees, she slowed her car as she crawled past the crumbling farmhouse at the Cooper property. Her heart ached for it. Admittedly, it was in rough shape, but she’d seen buildings brought back from worse conditions. It was possible . . . she just needed a chance to prove it.

Sighing, she parked on the gravel in front of the big red barn. At least this structure was safe from the mayor’s clutches. Anna frowned and shook her head at herself. When had she become such a drama queen? She’d villainized the mayor in her thoughts, but the woman was just a politician with her own agenda.Isn’t she?

Anna thought back to what Lutherhadn’tmentioned when he’d told her to keep her distance from the mayor. It had to do with a case he was working on, that much Anna knew, but his caginess bugged her.

On a groan of frustration at being left in the dark, Anna climbed out of her Camry. As soon as her heels hit the gravel, she realized she should’ve thought this through more. She should’ve waited for tomorrow with Sandy when she’d have been dressed appropriately. Shrugging—shewasalready here—Anna opened her trunk. She was about to reach for the drone when she heard voices.

Her head popped up, and she turned around, searching in the direction she thought they were coming from. Who else would be on this property, and were they—Anna tilted her head as she listened—arguing? Her eyebrows furrowed with curiosity, and she made her way toward the sound.

As she got closer, she recognized the mayor’s voice. That piqued Anna’s interest. She picked up her pace, dying to know what the mayor would be doing here. The area she was heading into was a part of the property she hadn’t explored yet. She was on a path beyond the barn that led through the woods. If she hadn’t been overtaken by curiosity, she would’ve worried about things like snakes in the dense brush on either side of the dirt path.

Because she was looking ahead and not down, Anna didn’t see the rock that nearly sent her tumbling. Her foot twisted as she stepped on it, sending a sharp stab of pain to her ankle, and she winced.

Fudge!

Stopping, she massaged the spot for a moment but didn’t hesitate to put her weight back on it as she continued looking for the mayor and whoever the woman was arguing with.

Anna saw a clearing up ahead and hurried toward it—while watching where she stepped. She didn’t want to end up with a sprain. When she reached the edge of the tree line, the voices rose again. Anna peeked her head out to see what was going on before she confronted anyone.

Less than twenty feet away, the mayor was standing with a man Anna didn’t recognize. They were next to a small pond, and their voices had carried over the water. But she was close enough now to hear them clearly.

“One of your dogs is sniffing where it shouldn’t be.” The unfamiliar man growled. Anna couldn’t make out his expression from where she stood—she’d left her glasses in the car—but the tone of his voice and the rigidity of his stance told her how angry he was.

“Thanks for informing me,” the mayor bit out, “but that sounds like an issue you’re better equipped to deal with.”

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