Chapter 16
16
M ason spent his day organizing the storeroom and unloading the truck of supplies that had come in. After moving to his condo yesterday, this seemed like more of the same.
One thing his Army and medical careers taught him, is there's a place for everything, and everything should be in its place. He was a firm believer in that.
He stood back after the last box was unpacked and felt proud. He'd done a damned nice job, and the storeroom had never been more organized than it was right this minute. Jace stepped into the storeroom and whistled.
"Wow, would you look at this?"
Mason grinned from ear to ear. "Right?"
"It looks fantastic. I don't recall it ever looking this organized. Thank you."
Mason nodded and soaked up the praise. "Thank you and you're welcome. I'm rather proud of this."
Jace patted him on the back. "You should be. I'm taking a picture. You want in?"
Mason chuckled. "Naw. Go ahead."
Jace snapped some pictures then Mason turned to leave. "I'll go get the bar situated for lunch."
"Thanks, Mason."
"Do you mind me asking what happened at the police station today with the medallion and note?"
Jace turned and stared at him. His face grew warm under his scrutiny. Jace grinned. "Are you two an item?"
Now his ears burned too. "I don't know."
Jace nodded. "Okay."
"It's complicated."
Jace chuckled. "Yeah." He swiped his hands through his hair and huffed out a breath. "It doesn't have to be though."
Mason swallowed. "Right."
Jace nodded. "So, they are looking into it. They didn't know the man in the video, but they'll be watching. I also told them where Carley works and lives. They'll be driving by her place of business and her house regularly to make sure everything looks okay. I've texted her and told her that."
Mason felt a bit of relief, but that might not be enough if the man got inside somehow. He'd felt a bit unsettled today about all of this. What if that man got to her before he or the police could?
Mason closed the storeroom door and headed out to the bar. He still had friends he'd served with in the Army. A couple of them were training soldiers now. They'd still have contacts with security professionals. Maybe he should consider that.
What he knew was he liked being around Carley. She was amazing. And just seeing her this morning and texting with her, made him happy. When was the last time he'd felt happy?
It had been a long damn time, just to be happy over nothing.
Was Jace right? Was he making it too complicated?
The bar was busy during lunch, and he found himself watching the door in case Carley came in. He wanted to see her right away if she did. But, as the time rolled on, she didn't, and a weird sadness filled his gut.
He finished up the lunch shift, restocked the bar, and managed the few customers sitting in the bar day drinking. Jace stepped behind the bar and nodded.
"If you want to knock off early today, go ahead. I can handle the bar and Margo said she could help if we got busy. Since you came in and worked your ass off in the storeroom, go home and relax, or get ready for your date."
Mason's cheeks heated. "How did you..."
Jace laughed. "My wife and your girlfriend are sisters. There are few secrets between them."
He glanced at his watch. Two-thirty. That was about the time Carley had the showing at the condo. Maybe he could be there with her.
He hustled out to his truck and drove out to the barracks. As he pulled into the lot, he saw Carley's SUV in the last spot in the parking lot. He saw there were landscaping trucks in the back lots when he first pulled into the main driveway. There were landscapers milling all around and four of them worked on the front building, which was his building. It was looking wonderful. He was happy once again he'd purchased this place. It seemed that all the good things revolved around his buying this condo. He'd finally met Carley face to face and look how good that turned out so far. Plus, he'd slept last night. Likely, not having to worry about the other tenants propping open a security door and the lack of noise suited him better. It would be better suited to anyone, actually.
He entered the building and could hear Carley's voice. They were at the condo across from his. He quietly walked down the corridor as he listened to her explain the features of the condo. He was proud of her.
The male voice, though, seemed a bit edgy.
"So when they started building these condos, did they have to dig up the ground underneath?"
"No. The barracks were in place. They just gutted the inside then restructured and built the walls as you see them now."
"So, there was no digging involved?"
"No, there was no digging involved."
"All right. And what about for telephone lines and cable lines and whatnot?"
Mason's brows furrowed. What weird questions.
"Well, there aren't telephone lines anymore. Everything is basically wireless. You'll have your phone service provider, and they either have towers or fiber optics in place. I do believe they laid the fiber optics in the beginning here, and the only digging that was done was with a trencher. The ground was overturned, the fiber laid in, and it was covered up in one pass. So, I guess some digging was done, but not in the sense that they brought in heavy equipment."
The man wasn't finished asking questions. "So who did all the building of these barracks?"
"Quinn Kurtz Construction is the builder. Is there something in particular I can help you with? You seem to be searching for some particular information, and I'm happy to help you find that out."
"No, I don't think so. I just wondered."
"Okay. Should we have a look at the common area? I can explain to you a little bit about what is going to happen out there."
"Sure."
Mason stopped at his door and unlocked it. The man walked out first, and then Carley exited. She had the door propped open. He was proud of her for that. She unpropped it, put the stopper in her purse, and grinned when she saw him. They stared at each other for a long time. He wanted to kiss her. Hold her close.
Instead, he smiled at her and said, "Nice job."
She smiled and whispered, "Thank you." She followed her customer down the hallway. The man turned and stared down the hallway, and Mason's stomach twisted.
He looked familiar, and he didn't look friendly. Mason relocked his door and followed Carley down the hall.
She explained about the common area, what they were going to be doing with the glass walls, and how it would be private and available to rent for special occasions. She asked him if he had questions.
"No."
"No questions?"
"I want to think on it, okay? I also want to see what the landscapers are doing outside."
"Okay. I can go out with you. You have my information and can get in touch with me anytime."
"All right, yeah."
He turned and walked out the main door, and Carley followed him out, but not without a glance Mason’s way.
Mason followed behind Carley. He hung back, but he wanted to be close. Where did he know this guy from?
The man stopped and watched the landscapers in front drop a couple of plants into holes they'd dug. "Well, what are they doing?"
She cocked her head to the side and responded to the ridiculous question. It was clear to see what they were doing.
But, ever the professional, Carley smiled. "They are putting in the landscaping. Not all these condos are finished yet, but because we have residents living here now, Quinn wanted it to look nice for our current residents. So, we're working on the landscaping. The security system is partially installed and will be completed tomorrow. The upstairs condos will be finished within the next three or four weeks."
"Alright."
He slowly walked around the edge of the newly planted landscaping, and Carley followed him. Mason followed her. He had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach about this guy. And that nagging feeling he'd seen him somewhere before.
One of the landscapers stopped digging. He knelt down, holding the base of the plant in place, as his hands swiped dirt into the hole. A shiny object glistened in the dirt and Carley bent down and picked it up. She looked at it, turning it over in her hand. Her brows furrowed.
Her customer said, "What's that?"
She responded, "I don't know. Looks like a thumb drive or something. I'll give it to Quinn."
"Well, I'd like to see it."
"Um, it's just a thumb drive. And it belongs to the owner of the condos, and that's Quinn Kurtz, so I'll give it to him."
Not to be dismissed, the man asked again, "I'd like to see it, please."
Mason stepped forward and placed himself between Carley and this man. He looked at him, noting his military haircut and straight posture. His blue eyes were unfriendly and they were cold.
He said, "She'll give it to Quinn. I don't know why that bothers you."
"It doesn't bother me. I just wanted to see it."
Mason decided this conversation was finished. "And she showed it to you, and that's all there is to it."
"Right. Well, I'll be in touch, Ms. Page."
"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 him this 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."
"Thanks."
Mason swallowed the lump in his throat as he walked back down the hallway to where Carley was. She stood in the kitchen watching the door, and when he walked in, her eyebrows rose into her bangs.
"Was there something else?"
"Yeah, this box." He held up the small, ripped box. "The landscaper says his shovel hit it and cut through it. This thumb drive was probably inside, and it fell out when they were shifting the dirt back and forth."
"Well, who do you think it belongs to?" Her eyes were seriously distracting.
"Well, I'm not real sure why it would be here, Anyone who would have stayed in these barracks back in the day would not have had the type of security clearance that would have allowed them access to something like this. In my gut, something tells me “There's something rotten in Denmark.” I'm going to take it to Jace and Quinn. If they don't have the correct contacts, I still have some security clearances and friends inside I can get this to. They might be able to tell me where it came from or where it belongs."
"Okay."
He looked at Carley and grinned. "You seem to have a penchant for finding things that don't belong to you."
She grinned. "Well, it seems so. It's never been my forte before, but then again, I found you. Do you belong to someone else?"
They looked into each other's eyes for a long time. He liked looking into her eyes. Maybe it was his new favorite thing to do.
He didn't respond though. All he did was shake his head.