Chapter 11 Rad #2
She moved past him and pointed toward a narrow break between two hedges. “There. It’s the quickest way out if you don’t want to be seen from the main house.”
Rad crouched near the patio's edge and studied the ground. There were scuffs in the mulch and flattening in the grass, but nothing clean enough to tell him much. Too much foot traffic, too much gardening, too much time. He rose and followed her.
The back garden gave way quickly to rougher ground. The grass thinned into sandy soil and exposed roots, and within a few yards the shade deepened under a thick cover of pine and scrub oak. Birdsong skipped somewhere overhead, and dry needles crackled faintly underfoot.
Rad stopped just inside the tree line and looked back once.
From here, the pool house was mostly hidden.
“Convenient,” he muttered.
“That’s one word for it.” Sienna glanced over her shoulder. “I think of it as my escape route.”
He took out the camera and snapped a few shots of the entry point, the direction of travel, and the worn opening in the brush. Then he crouched again, checking the ground.
Nothing.
Or rather, too much of everything. Old prints. New prints. Bike treads. Dog tracks. Flattened patches that could have belonged to joggers, teenagers, maintenance workers, or half the town.
“This path gets used a lot,” he said.
“Yes.” Sienna folded her arms lightly. “People cut through here all the time.”
“People?” Rad looked up at her.
“Not from the house. Just... locals. Kids sometimes. Hikers. People who know the trails.” She glanced back toward her house. “They also come here to get a glimpse of our house.”
That tracked with what he was seeing. This was not some secret, untouched route through the woods. It was lived in, walked through, and disturbed a hundred times over.
Rad straightened and started forward again, following the clearest line through the trees while Sienna kept pace beside him.
He checked broken twigs, brushed bark, and the occasional deeper impression in the softer patches of earth, but nothing stood out as belonging to a safe theft rather than ordinary traffic.
No drag marks. No obvious gouges. No discarded wrapping or tool marks.
If someone had taken a heavy safe this way, they had either been careful, lucky, or had enough help to keep the movement controlled.
“How often do you come out here?” Rad asked without looking at her.
“Once, twice a day.” Sienna shrugged.
Rad turned his head.
“I run here. Sometimes walk. Sometimes just... come out to be alone and enjoy the quiet.” Sienna closed her eyes for a moment.
“This morning too?” Rad frowned.
“Yes, I came for a run.” Sienna’s eyes found his.
He absorbed that without changing expression.
That explained some of the freshest disturbances near the garden edge. If she had been out here this morning before calling him, whatever trace he might have found had probably been trampled, blurred, or mixed in with her own.
He didn’t say it aloud.
There was no point. She already looked tightly wound enough to snap, and telling her she might have disturbed evidence would help neither of them.
So he only nodded once and kept moving.
The trail bent gradually left, dipping through a patch of palmetto before opening slightly. Rad lifted a branch out of his way and stepped into a narrower corridor between the trees.
They had been walking for about fifteen minutes when he stopped dead.
Ahead of them, half-swallowed by weeds and shadow, stood the blackened shell of a cabin.
Even ruined, it was unmistakable.
The roof had long since collapsed inward. The remaining walls were scarred dark with old fire damage, their frames warped and skeletal against the greenery trying to reclaim them. Sunlight speared through the broken structure in sharp golden bars, making the ruin look even more ghostly.
“That’s the tragedy cabin,” Sienna said quietly.
It was the cabin that had burned ten years ago. The place that still lived in town memory like an old wound no one could quite stop touching. Rad stepped closer, scanning automatically.
No drag marks led to it. No recent disturbance stood out around the burned shell.
The ground here was uneven but heavily trodden in the same vague way as the rest of the path.
Whoever had taken the safe had not obviously brought it here, and nothing about the ruin suggested it had been used recently for concealment.
Still, the sight of it unsettled him.
“It feels wrong out here, doesn’t it?” Her gaze stayed on the cabin. “Like the ghosts still have something to tell us.”
He could not argue with that and suppressed a shudder at how accurate her words might just be.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The woods seemed quieter around the ruin, as if even the birds had chosen to hold back.
Then Rad forced himself to focus.
He photographed the path junction, the cabin exterior, the surrounding ground, and the direction the trail continued beyond it. He took his time, checking the area in widening circles, but the result stayed the same.
Nothing useful.
At last he lowered the camera.
“No sign they brought the safe this way,” Rad said. “But I’ll see if I can find out, on the quiet, who checked in or left the camp and cabin grounds within the last couple of days.”
“Do you want to go back?” Sienna asked.
Rad nodded, and they walked back in silence. He let Sienna lead the last part toward the garden opening, and when the pool house came back into view through the trees, he felt some of the strange pressure lift from his chest. Not much. Just enough.
At the edge of the lawn, he paused and looked back once more at the path vanishing into the woods.
A clear path, yes.
Just not a clean one.
Then he followed Sienna back toward the pool house.
“What now?” Sienna asked when they stepped back inside the pool house.
“I’m going to have to send what I found off for analysis.” Rad held up a hand when panic flashed across her face. “Don’t worry. I’ll send it to someone I trust outside the precinct.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” Sienna’s shoulders eased slightly.
“I’ll let you know when I have something.” Rad packed the kit. “But if you remember anything else, even if it seems small, call me.”
“I will,” Sienna nodded.
He headed out, and she followed him to the door.
For a second, as he stepped outside, he got the odd sense she almost said something else. Then whatever it was vanished behind the old guarded look.
So he left.
A few hours later, the alarm on his phone sounded, reminding him of the meeting at the Sandpiper Inn.
Rad looked up from the report he had been trying and failing to focus on, saved it, and shut down his computer. He locked his office, headed out, and crossed the lot toward his car.
He had brought the main case folder for the meeting, and he put it on the passenger seat along with a smaller file from Sienna’s pool house.
Rad debated whether to bring the smaller file to the meeting.
His promise to Sienna pressed against his conscience.
So did the photograph of the bracelet and the matching set.
What he knew could matter. It probably did matter.
But Rad had given his word, and barging into a room full of family, law enforcement, and half the town with a private, unreported theft from the Morrison property was one fast way to make sure Sienna never trusted him again.
When he got to Sandpiper Inn, Rad had made up his mind to leave the smaller file in the car and speak to his father about it in private.
As he climbed out at the inn, another car pulled in beside him.
It was Carmen’s car, the one June had been using. Rad was surprised to see his father get out of the driver's seat and shut the door.
“Hey, son.” Holt smiled when he saw Rad.
“Hi, Dad.” Rad glanced past him. “Where’s June?”
“She arrived with Willa.” Holt pocketed the keys. “I borrowed the car to go see your grandmother.”
“How’s her migraine?” Rad watched his father as he walked closer to him.
“Better.” Holt studied him for half a second too long. “Why do I get the feeling you need to tell me something?”
“Probably because you always knew when I had something on my mind.” Rad gave him a lopsided knowing grin.
“So spill…” Holt waited.
Rad glanced toward the inn, then back at him.
“I wanted to ask you about the jewelry set stolen from Aunt Carly. The one that goes with the bracelet we found at Teacups.” He stepped a little closer and kept his voice down.
“Yeah. We need to discuss that.” His father’s expression changed at once.
“Oh. You have new information?” Rad blinked.
“Yes.” Holt glanced toward the inn and then back at Rad.
“Can you tell me before we go inside?” Rad asked his father.
“What’s going on?” Holt’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you so fixated on the jewelry?”
Rad looked back at the inn again, then lowered his voice a little more.
“I found out something more about the bracelet, but I can’t really talk about it in there.” Rad motioned toward the inn with his head.
“Okay,” Holt said slowly. “What developments?”
“This stays strictly between you and me?” Rad’s eyes searched his for assurance.
“Of course.” Holt’s brows knitted together worriedly. “Why all the secrecy?”
“Sienna put a call in to me the night I was in the hospital after the Teacups fire. There was a break-in at the pool house she stays in at her father’s house,” Rad told his father.
“Let me guess.” Holt’s brows rose. “She reported her bracelet stolen. How convenient.”
“Nope. Not just her bracelet.” Rad held his father’s gaze. “Whoever took it took an entire safe. The bracelet was in it, along with a lot of family heirlooms she’d been given to safe-keep.”
“Did you say someone took an entire safe?” Holt stared at Rad in astonishment. “What was in the safe?”
“I have a list of items,” Rad told him. “Including the bracelet.”
“Did she mention the rest of the set that went with the bracelet?” Holt asked him.
Something in his father’s voice sent off warning bells in his head.
“Yes. There are matching earrings, a necklace, and a ring.” Rad kept his focus on his father.
His father’s jaw tightened.
“What do you mean, Sienna was safekeeping the heirlooms?” Holt asked, picking up on his son’s choice of words.
“Sienna was asked to keep the items safe,” Rad told him. “She was to stop them from being discovered so they wouldn't be included in the estates in her parents’ divorce.”
Holt stared at him.
“So either Victoria or Tom doesn’t know about the existence of what’s in that safe?” Holt asked, and Rad saw his father’s mind ticking over as he put the pieces together. “Who else knows about the break-in?”
“Just me,” Rad assured his father. “Sienna was adamant that I keep it that way until we find out who did it. I think she’s terrified of her mother finding out.”
“From what I’ve heard of what Victoria is like as a mother, I can’t blame Sienna for that.” Holt looked past Rad for a second, thinking hard. “So the entire set stolen from my sister was also in that safe.”
“Yes.” Rad nodded.
“When was it taken?” Holt rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“The same day as the fire at Teacups,” Rad answered. “The same day that Dr. Vernon went missing.”
Holt nodded once, grimly.
“Then whoever took it either planted or dropped the bracelet at Teacups. I’m leaning toward planted.” Holt looked back at the inn. “We need to keep this to ourselves for now.”
“Is that wise?” Rad didn’t like keeping vital information like this from the team; they were supposed to be open about the case. “I thought there was supposed to be no more secrets?”
“That was until I realized that a burglary case that is well over forty years old still hasn’t been solved,” Holt told Rad. “And according to your grandmother, the cat burglar was never caught and could very well be anyone around my age or hers still living right here in Sandpiper Shores.”
“What?” Rad spluttered. “A cat burglar? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m afraid not,” Holt told him. “I went to ask your grandmother why she or my uncle never filed a police report for the jewels. They did, but it was all done by an FBI plant at the local police station.”
“Why?” Rad asked.
“Because the FBI got word that the main target for the thief was the Strand set,” Holt informed him.
“So they let the thief steal the jewels?” Rad looked incredulously at his father.
“They let the thief steal a very expensive knock-off of the set,” Holt told him. “But after it was stolen, it disappeared and never emerged again.”
“Because it was still right here in Sandpiper Shores,” Rad guessed, and his father nodded. “Along with the cat burglar.”
“I’m guessing so,” Holt told him. “So my question to you is, did Sienna tell you which side of the family the heirlooms were on? Or who she was hiding them for? Because they may very well be the very thief.”
“Yes.” Rad nodded. “But you’re not going to like the answer.”
“Right now, son,” Holt said. “I’m not liking anything about this investigation. So hit me with it.”
“Sienna is keeping the items in the safe hidden for her father, Chief Tom Morrison,” Rad told him.