We’d left trivia around seven thirty and stopped by the store to pick up supplies. Then I’d made us a quick dinner of baked lemon dill salmon with rice and a Brussels sprout salad. Unlike earlier in the day, we’d made it to the bedroom before we got each other’s clothes off and had fallen asleep not long ago.
I knew Mac had an alarm set to get herself back home around four. But she’d slipped me a key when we’d arrived tonight and told me to stay as long as I wanted.
I looked down at her, breathing deep and even. Her long, dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and the red lipstick she favored had faded from her mouth with every brush of my lips. I knew beneath those covers she wore only underwear and an oversized tee shirt because her bare legs had been tangled with mine.
Mac had this tiny little vee between her eyebrows. I grinned to myself as the last of the panic abandoned my system. It was fitting that if I smiled in my sleep, she would frown in hers.
My phone was still in my hand, so I brought up my camera app. The room was dark, but moonlight streamed in from the window that faced the field behind the tiny house. She had a picture of me. It only seemed fair that I take one in return.
I stared at the image of Mac on my screen. The difference was, she’d use my photo to tease me, whereas I’d probably pull up this picture of her and look at it every night before I went to sleep. A portrait in an invisible locket, the weight of it pressing warm and solid against my chest.
I was just about to put my phone back on the bedside table when an alert came through. I straightened as the notification indicated there was motion on the farm that had triggered the floodlights to turn on and the camera to start recording. The settings weren’t so sensitive that a bug or even a small animal could cause an alert like that to go out.
Swiping over to the app, I pulled up the live feed. Damn. Right there in the top corner of the video was the blur of a foot in motion. A black-and-red sneaker hustled across the grass on the edge of my screen.
“What is it?”
My eyes found a sleepy Mac rising onto her elbows.
“Someone is at the orchard. The motion sensors were triggered, and the app notified me.”
She sat bolt upright. “Well, let’s go get them.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me off. “And if you say something stupid about me staying here where I’ll be safe, I will one hundred percent punch you in the junk.”
I thought about arguing, but we were low on time. It was maybe a two-minutedrive across the road to my family’s property, but the intruder could leave any moment.
We could approach cautiously and call the sheriff’s office for backup. I wouldn’t let anything happen to Mac.
So I grinned and stood, pulling her to her feet. “Well, we wouldn’t want that. You need my junk for stuff.”
She gave me a quick smile, but then we were a flurry of motion, pulling on clothes and shoes and scrambling out the door.
Mac hustled to the driver’s side of her Jeep.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“Driving,” she whisper-shouted back.
“Your bright yellow vehicle is pretty conspicuous. Let’s take mine.”
She thought about it for two seconds before grumbling under her breath and hopping into the passenger side of my truck instead. I tossed her my phone and shifted into gear.
“Can you keep an eye on the live feed and see if you notice anything?”
“Yep,” she replied, eyes glued to the screen.
I maneuvered us along the gravel drive back toward the highway. Then, I cut the lights and headed down the private road toward my parents’ house. This way, we wouldn’t have to get out to unlock the gate at the highway and could approach stealthily from the direction of the main house.
“The chain’s still on, and I don’t see any getaway cars,” Mac observed.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You think they parked down the highway and walked onto the property?”
“That would make the most sense. Want me to call the sheriff yet?”
I hesitated. It would be the smart thing to do, but if the intruder was already gone, it would be one more incident with zero evidence or outcome. The deputy assigned to the case already thought I was an idiot.
“Let’s hold off. See what we see.”
The truck bumped along the unpaved trail between the house and the orchard. Rows of dormant apple trees lined the right side of the road, which was no more than a worn truck path with two ruts in the grass. The moon was bright enough that I could see where I was going, but I’d been traveling this path for as long as I could remember. I could probably manage it with my eyes closed.
