Page 8 of Lost and Found

Bailey plowed on. “That was as much fun as you can imagine. We talked ad nauseam about the recent threats the podcast had received, then we had dinner. Think: linen napkins and foie gras.”

“Sounds like a blast.”

“Exactly. I hit McDonald’s soon as I left.”

“Someone followed you from McDonald’s or the Cosgroves’?”

“I’m not sure when it started, but I noticed after I pulled out of the drive-thru. I thought it was strange to see the same car behind me. I made a couple of oddball turns. It dropped back but didn’t leave until I turned left from the center lane on a red light. The jig was up. They didn’t follow me anymore.”

“What kind of car?”

“A truck.”

“A truck? Big, small? Paint color?”

“I don’t know. It was getting dark. I didn’t notice anything distinctive. No plate. They were never close enough. It was mostly just a gut feeling that I didn’t trust until I got home. If it weren’t for the break-in, I probably would have written it off as an overactive imagination.”

“Fair.”

She twisted her fingers into the skirt. “Someone went through my trash and left it in the driveway.”

“And you still went inside?”

“It could’ve been a raccoon,” she said defensively, “and my security system was still engaged.”

“You’re telling me the intruder bypassed your security system?”

She nodded. “They went through the back door to avoid my doorbell camera.”

“You’ve changed the codes, correct?”

“Of course I did, and I installed a security camera near my back door.”

“That’s not—”

“Not enough,” she agreed. “Vivian told me as much and that Titan could put in a much better system. But it’s a rental, and I don’t know how long I plan to stay there.” Bailey had to decide soon. Matt began kindergarten in the fall, and she didn’t want to change schools once he started. “I’ll figure that out this summer, and wherever I end up, Titan can lock it down with as much security as you deem fit.”

His lips pinched at the security delay. “Someone broke in and reset your alarm system. How did you know they’d been inside?”

“The red lipstick across my bathroom mirror that told me to stop asking questions.”

He scowled. “That would do it.”

It wasn’t funny, but the corners of her lips quirked. “It did.”

“That’s when you filed a police report?”

“The next morning, for all the good that came of it.” A cop lectured her on personal safety, and he didn’t like that she was, as he called her, “a vigilante true crime instigator.”

“Why not the night before?”

Wes Wilder never missed any details. She should have told him about Matt, but somehow introducing her son when they were discussing murders and break-ins felt wrong. “I went back to the Cosgroves and fell asleep.”

He stroked his chin. “All right. Someone went through your trash and wrote you a note. When did you see it?”

“When I was undressing.” Her cheeks flushed, unsure why she’d included that little bit, then her mind flashed to him undressing, glorious broad chest, strong arms, the sinewy column of his neck, and her embarrassment catapulted to a level of what-the-hell that she didn’t know how to explain. “Er, um, almost immediately when I got home.”

“You returned to the Cosgroves’ and spent the night?”