Chapter 33
The mid-morning sun filtered through the pines outside the shack, but Mitch felt no warmth from it.
He sat hunched over his laptop, a notepad open beside him, the security footage from last night frozen on one frame: Noah, standing in the alley, staring at the back door like he was waiting for an invitation inside.
Izzy was in the shower to clear her head, but Mitch couldn’t sit still.
He’d already checked the perimeter twice.
Reset the motion alerts. Made another pot of coffee he hadn’t touched and rewatched the videos from the Petal Pusher's cameras several times.
Something was nagging at the back of his brain, but he couldn't quite bring it to the forefront. Yet.
His phone buzzed beside the keyboard.
Jayson.
He snatched it up. “Go.”
Jayson didn’t waste time. “I dug into Noah’s background like you asked. You’re not going to believe this.”
“Try me.”
“Noah Grady is the grandson of Clarence Grady. Ring a bell?”
Mitch frowned. “Should it?”
“Clarence owned Petal Pushers back in the seventies and eighties. Before Izzy’s dad bought it.
The Gradys were kind of a fixture in town back then, but Clarence fell on hard times, lost the shop, lost the house, whole mess of debt.
There was a lot of bitterness when Gerald Payton bought the building outright.
Rumor was Clarence believed he’d been swindled, but nothing stuck legally.
In reality, he had to take less than he wanted for the building because he had to get the bank off his back. And Gerald made the place thrive.”
Mitch’s stomach tightened. “So Noah grew up hearing how his grandfather felt like he got screwed over?”
“Exactly. Then the kid disappears for years, military stint that didn’t last, and bounces around jobs. Records are thin after that. But here’s the kicker, when he moved back to Summerville, guess where his first job application was?”
Mitch already knew. “Petal Pushers.”
“Bingo. Gerald Payton turned him down. There isn't a ton of information about why, but some notes from some gossip columnist, remember those were all the rage back in the day?
Anyway, in the local paper from about ten years ago, the columnist said Payton turned Noah down because he didn't know a thing about flowers or plants, and he gave off a weird vibe. But get this, he still hung around for a while. Offered to help with deliveries, kept showing up at community events where Petal Pushers was listed as a sponsor.”
“Son of a bitch,” Mitch muttered. “He’s been fixated for a while.”
“Yeah. This wasn’t some recent obsession. It’s been brewing for years. Maybe it started with the shop, but it twisted into something else. Something personal.”
Mitch’s jaw clenched. “My guess is it grew when Gerald Payton passed and Izzy came back to run the shop. Noah may have thought at that time he'd be able to step in and recoup money he believes his family is owed.”
"I wondered that as well. How long has Izzy had the shop?"
Mitch took a deep breath. "About two years, I think she said."
Jayson whistled. "So Noah's been stalking her for two years? Hoping to get his hands on the shop? That doesn't seem likely."
Mitch nodded. "Maybe he saw Izzy and began to fixate on her instead of the shop. His focus changed. After all, he didn't have the money to buy the shop. So, what did he think he'd do?"
Jayson added, "And then Delilah entered the picture."
"Right. Maybe he became friendly with Delilah to help her get the shop from Izzy, thinking that would be just desserts. But instead, he ended up helping Delilah deliver drugs. Likely for payment."
Mitch nodded. The heaviness lifted from his shoulders, and things were beginning to clear up as to the whys. He always wanted to know the motive behind bad behavior so he could gauge just how determined a criminal was. “Good call. Anything else?”
“One thing. I pulled Noah's driver’s license info. The address listed? It’s fake. Doesn’t exist.”
“So he’s flying under the radar.”
“Yep. But unofficially? He’s got a storage unit under an alias in Oak Hollow. I’ve already alerted Fielding. We’re getting a warrant.”
Mitch ran a hand down his face. “Nice work. Let me know as soon as you get inside that unit.”
“You got it. Oh, and Mitch?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful. Guys like Noah don’t just snap. They spiral. Fast.”
"Roger that."
Mitch ended the call and stared blankly at the laptop screen for a few seconds.
The obsession wasn’t new. It was inherited. Twisted. And it had been building for years.
Izzy padded into the room moments later, hair still damp from the shower, wrapped in a loose hoodie and leggings. She looked stronger than she had the night before, still tired, but steady.
“Everything okay?” she asked, crossing to him.
He stood, meeting her eyes. “I just talked to Jayson. He found something about Noah.”
Her brows drew together. “What?”
Mitch explained, step by step. Clarence Grady. The old shop’s ownership. The bitterness. The job application. The fake address.
Izzy didn’t interrupt. But when he reached the end, her hands slowly pressed to the table behind her.
“He thought the shop should be his?” she asked, voice hollow. “He thought I took something from him?”
Mitch stepped closer. “Maybe at first. But it’s more than that now. He sees you as the prize. Not the building.”
Izzy didn’t respond right away. Then her gaze met his, clear and hard. “Then let’s make sure he understands just how wrong he is.”
Mitch nodded. “We will. Jayson’s working with Fielding on the storage unit now. If Noah’s been operating out of there, we’ll find something useful. And once we do…”
“We stop him,” Izzy finished.
Mitch slid a hand over her back, grounding them both. “Exactly.”
Outside, birds chirped again. Normalcy returned to the woods. But inside the Shack, the hunt was on, and this time, they weren’t just on defense.
They were ready to end this.