Page 26 of The Harborer
“I thought you said he doesn’t have a key.”
“He doesn’t, but it could have happened while I was here with him, and I just didn’t notice.” The creases deepened, and thoughts seemed to cloud her eyes, as if she were trying to solve a riddle.
“Do you want me to take a look?”
“No, it’s all good.” In the next breath, her expression transformed to her usual cheerful one. “Let’s see about those pastries.”
She opened a cabinet door and pulled out several plastic containers. “In exchange, you’re going to have to tell me your secret because I don’t understand how you can eat as much as you do without ever gaining weight.”
He leaned against the counter and folded his arms. “I don’t know. Maybe because I train for SAR? Why?”
“Because every time Ilookat food, I gain ten pounds. Makes it hard when you have a sweet tooth like mine.”
“You don’t need to lose weight.”
She gaped at him. “Oh, puh-leeze.” With her hands, she gestured along both sides of her body. “These bones donotneed any more meat.”
He clamped down on the urge to let his gaze follow her movements and wander up down her form. Amy was on the curvy side, but helikedher curves. A lot. He liked how they filled her jeans in the back and her T-shirts in front. Gave a man’s hands something to—
Stop it right fucking now.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “You look fine to me,” he muttered. He was about to add that Micky surely appreciated her figure, but then he remembered overhearing the dude complain once about Amy being fat. Besides being an idiot, Micky was apparently blind because Amy wasnotfat. She was … all the things that set women apart from men. All the things he appreciated. Pure femininity.
She flapped a dismissive hand at him before turning to lift a few pastries into a white bag. “I appreciate you trying to spare my feelings, Shane, but you really don’t have to. I see my own reflection in the mirror every day, and it doesn’t lie.”
An image of Amy standing stark naked in front of a full-length mirror, her lush curves on full display, popped into his pervy brain, and he smacked it the hell down just as she turned toward him and held out the bag with a brilliant smile. “There you are, Deputy. Just for you.”
Swallowing hard, he accepted the bag and tried not to think ofherin nothing but a white wrapper and those words on her tongue. “Uh, thanks. I’d like to look around and get an idea where the cameras will go.”
“Inside too?”
“Mostly outside, but maybe one in your office and one in your kitchen.”
She gestured toward the door that led to her office. “Have at it. Light switch is on the right. I have a few things to take care of inside the café.”
“Have you got a spare piece of paper I can use?”
“Should be some copy paper on one of the shelves. Help yourself.” She withdrew into the shadowed interior of her store.
Shane had never been inside her inner sanctum, and once light flooded the space, he let his eyes drift. A utilitarian desk, file cabinet, chairs, some shelves. Standard stuff, neat and organized. He zeroed in on a few reams of paper stacked on one side of a shelf. The wrapper on one ream was open, and he tugged on a piece of blank paper, jostling the shelf. Something behind the shelf shifted, as if it had been pinned there and themovement had loosened it. He bent and plucked it out, realizing he held a folded topo map. Markings in different colors of Sharpie piqued his curiosity, and he unfolded the map for a better look.
Several red triangles were among numbered black dots with circles drawn around them. In the middle was a blue square withStinside its perimeter. Another blue square, smaller and off by itself, was marked with aC. He stared at it, trying to make sense of the markings. Something familiar niggled at the back of his brain but zeroing in on it was like trying to capture mist.
What did it mean, and what was it doing tucked away behind a shelf in Amy’s office?
“Almost done,” Amy sing-songed from somewhere in the store.
“Yeah, me too.” He quickly folded the map along its creases and slid it back into its hiding place.
Hiding place. The odd way it was stowed struck him as exactly that, like it was placed there so anyone looking around with a casual eye wouldn’t spot it.
By the time Amy appeared in her office doorway, he was making a crude sketch hehopedresembled the actual space. He wasn’t sure it did because he wasn’t paying close attention. Rather, he was going for the illusion that he was doing what he’d set out to do, instead of what he had actually wound up doing—snooping through her stuff.
She didn’t seem to notice his drawing as she leaned against the frame and crossed her arms, her body language conveying relaxed ease. “Truly, I can walk home from here.”
Pulling in a steadying breath, he folded his fake diagram and held up the bag of goodies she’d given him. “Nope. You just paid my fare, so I’m sticking around and earning it. I’ll deliver you to your door.”
While he was at it, he’d satisfy himself that no one was messing with stuff in her house. The map was none of his business and could have been a mystery even Amy knew nothingabout, so he deposited it inside his brain’s vault with other debris that didn’t matter.
