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“You’re trespassing on private property,” the folded-arms guy said. “It doesn’t matter what your intentions were.”
“Please,” Yasmine said. “This is all my fault. We came here because I’m trying to find Matt Gallagher. We don’t want anything to do with the duke and duchess. I just really wanted to give him a message. Is he here?”
The eyebrows of the guy with the walkie-talkie shot up when he heard Matt’s name.
“Enough talking,” the short guy said. “You need to come with us.”
“Isn’t there some sort of due process?” Annabel questioned. “We’re literally one foot over the property line, and we’re guests of the residents who live in that house.” She pointed behind us. “There is no need to take us to jail.”
The first guy squinted at us, dropping his arms. “You’re guests of the Crawfords?” There was an unmistakable challenge in his voice.
We all glanced at Yasmine, as we didn’t know Kelly’s last name.
“Yes,” Yasmine said. “Their daughter Kelly gave us permission to be here.”
The guy looked at the man with the walkie-talkie. “Do they have a daughter named Kelly?”
The guy shrugged. “I have no idea. But it doesn’t matter. We’re hired to do a job. They’re on our property, and they don’t have permission to be here.” He began to walk, gesturing. “Come with us quietly, and there won’t be any problems.”
We all looked at one another, but we had no choice but to follow. It’s not like we were going to somehow outrun these guys.
My phone had gone off a number of times as Marco tried to get a hold of me, including calling once. I was so distraught that I’d only scanned the messages, but didn’t reply. He was inquiring about our safety and wondering what was going on.
He’d be able to see my phone location as we moved farther onto the other property, and that made me feel better. He’d just have to wait until I had a moment to text him back.
It took us a while to get off the lawn, then we walked past a row of garages and into a small room. Two other security guards were inside.
“Tony, go down to the gate and escort the police up,” the lead guy with the flashlight told one of the men inside the room. Tony left immediately.
“Have a seat,” the shorter guy said, gesturing idly at a few folding chairs against one wall.
The room was no bigger than my bedroom at home, so it was quite cramped with all of us inside. One long desk ran under two small windows.
“Listen,” Poppy started as we sat, “we didn’t mean to trespass. Like my friend here told you, we’re just trying to get a note to Matt Gallagher. Can you tell us if he’s working tonight? That would help a lot.”
“How do you know Matt?” the guy with the walkie-talkie asked.
Hope welled in my chest that maybe we could wiggle out of this. I glanced at Yasmine. This was her story.
She cleared her throat. “Matt and I…used to be involved. I don’t have his contact information and just found out a week ago that he’s working for the duke and duchess. A friend of mine put me in touch with Kelly Crawford, and we decided to drive down this weekend.” She slid a folded envelope out of her back pocket. They hadn’t searched us, so I assumed they didn’t think we were an actual threat. “I was hoping to give him this. And that’s literally it.”
The guy was starting to look sympathetic, but not overly so. “This is not the way to go about getting someone a message.”
“Why not?” Annabel challenged. “Matt’s not on social media, and no one has his number. As invited guests of the people next door, it seemed like a good idea to us.”
“We’re not in the business of passing notes.” The shorter one scowled. He was extremely irritated that we’d ruined his night. That much was clear.
“The police have been summoned,” the guy with the walkie-talkie said. “Even if we had a change of heart, we can’t let you go. Once you crossed onto this property, you broke the law. It’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen. If we don’t follow through, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs.”
“But we didn’t mean to,” Poppy insisted. “That has to count for something. I’m the only one who was on the wrong side to begin with. And that was a mistake. I was crawling through the hedges, and a branch broke. It dumped me on this property. I was just trying to get back. My friends jumped over at the last minute so I wouldn’t have to go through this alone. We were over the line by, like, a foot.”
The lead guy’s eyebrows rose. “You were crawling through the hedges? That sounds like intent to trespass to me.”
“The only intent we had,” I countered, “was to get that note to Matt. I’m sure you get a lot of crazies around here trying to sneak in to get a glimpse of the duke and duchess, but that’s not us. We meant no harm to them. We were just trying to help out a friend.”
The walkie-talkie in his hand cracked, and a voice came out. “Cops are here. Bring them down.”
We all shuffled out, uncertain of what was to come.
