Page 29 of Sensual Nights

"Okay. Sounds good. Thank you for coming this afternoon. And certainly, if you have any questions, let me know."

"Yes, I said I'll be in touch."

He stalked off to his car, and Mason watched him the entire way. Tightness in his chest and a pit in his stomach told himthis man was not friendly. As he pulled away, Mason quickly memorized his license plate number, then glanced down at Carley.

He asked softly, "Should we go inside?"

"Sure."

He placed his hand at the small of her back, and they strode inside together. He unlocked his door, and they stepped into his condo.

Mason locked the door again, then looked out the living room window to see if the man had come back.

Glancing around the parking area that he could see from his window, he was satisfied the man wasn’t lurking out there. He walked over to the counter, pulled a sheet of paper and pen from the top drawer and scribbled the license plate number as well as the make and model of the vehicle.

Carley walked over. "What are you doing?"

"I wrote down his license plate number and the make and model of the vehicle."

"Why?"

"Something's not right with him. Do you mind if I take a look at the thumb drive you found?"

"Oh, no."

She held her hand out. It was a little dirty. She strolled over to the sink to wash her hands, and he took a napkin and brushed off the thumb drive.

It was heavy-duty, scratched up, and had a bit of weight to it.

"Carley, this is a military thumb drive."

"Military? How do you know?"

"Well, I have some security clearances, and they use this type of thumb drive. They're specially encrypted. You'd have to know the protocols and the software to be able to get into it. It shouldn't have been laying in the ground."

"Right. Was there anything else there?"

"No, I didn't see anything else. I just saw this glint when the landscaper was brushing the dirt away into the hole."

"Hang tight. I'm going to go ask the landscaper."

Mason strode out of his condo and the building. The same landscaper was still there. He stopped near the younger man. "Did you find anything else near this building or around this hole that would have been lying near where this thumb drive was found?"

The landscaper was maybe in his very early twenties. He nodded his head. "Yeah, we found this old box here, too."

He bent over to a pile of brush and roots they'd been pulling up and pulled a dirty green cardboard box from the top of the pile, not much bigger than the thumb drive. It was broken and slashed.

"I'm sorry,” the young man said. “I think my shovel damaged it a little bit. That's probably how the thumb drive fell out of it. Is it yours?"

"Not mine, but I know who it might belong to, and I'll give him the box, too. Thanks."

"Sure."

"And there wasn't anything else found in or around here?"

"No, no, there was nothing else."

"Okay, thank you. I appreciate it. Everything is looking good."

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