sauce with a bit of dill?”
Her face lit up. “Yes,” she said. “Fettuccine with a salmon dill sauce. Yum.” She rubbed her hands together.
He chuckled. “We’ll see. Listen. I’ll take this out front and dump it. Then I’ll leave you for a couple hours. I’ll come back at five o’clock this afternoon.”
Doreen checked her watch and said, “It’s three already.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’ve got to go. Oh, somebody could be coming along with more materials for the deck.”
She beamed. “Now that would be huge.”
“It could be huge,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s very much though. We’ll have to see.”
“Good enough,” she said. She watched as he disappeared with the wheelbarrow, hoping he would bring it back, knowing she had to get the bulk of this done before he got home.
She worked away for the next hour until her growling stomach couldn’t be ignored anymore. With the wheelbarrow full yet again, she took it out front to the compost bin, which was pretty darn full now. It would sink a little bit over time, but it was heaped. She would have to make a pile somewhere, then load it in the bin after it was emptied on Monday.
With that in mind, she headed back inside. The animals followed, going into the cooler house, where she scrubbed her hands and face free of dirt, and then sat down to make a sandwich. Being so hungry, she made two big ones and then cut them in half and sat outside on the small deck. Thaddeus sat beside her, munching away on little bits of greens she had put out for him. She had brought treats for Mugs and Goliath, not wanting to give them parts of her sandwich, which just went to show how hungry she was.
As she sat here, her phone rang. She looked down and didn’t recognize the number. She answered, “Hello.”
“Doreen,” a man said with a far too cheerful outlook.
“Yes, who is this?”
“I understand you have some jewels you want appraised,” the man said.
Her back stiffened. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who you are. You must be mistaken. I don’t know anything about any jewels.”
“Did you find jewels in a little jewelry bag from Johnson and Abelman?” the man asked, his tone turning harsh.
Doreen tried to listen intently, wondering who it was and whether it was the same man she’d met at the jewelry store. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Do you always phone strangers and talk about things like that?”
“I heard you have some jewels to be appraised.”
“You don’t know anything about it,” she said calmly, then looked down at the number and knew she needed to write it down for Mack. She got up from her table and walked inside. “And please don’t bother me again.”
“I’m not trying to bother you,” he said, “but those jewels are worth a lot of money. I’m quite prepared to pay handsomely for them.”
“You haven’t even seen them,” she said. “So you have no idea of their value or just what sort of handsome price I might ask.” She could feel her temper stirring, but she wrote down the number so she could trace it later. Or rather so Mack could.
“Well, keep my number handy,” he said. “I have money, and I’m happy to pay for them. Quality is hard to find.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’ve already admitted you do,” he said, laughing. “Like I said, give me a call. They are worth a lot of money. You can feed yourself for a good long time on it.”
“I don’t have your name,” she said, “and I don’t deal with people who can’t give me a name.”
“Zachary,” he said. “Zachary Winters.” And, with that, he hung up.
She wrote down the name, along with the number, all thoughts of her sandwich having fled her mind.
“Now, who was he, and what relationship does he have to that jewelry store?” she asked, addressing no one in particular. Her mind was on her failed attempt to get an appraisal. Nobody else would know the quality of these jewels. Unless of course—she stopped in her tracks and looked down at the name. “Unless of course you had something to do with them going missing in the first place.”
Chapter 13
Sunday Late Afternoon …
Hours later, Doreen stopped digging when she heard a vehicle drive up her driveway. She looked at Mugs. “Sure hope that’s Mack,” she said. Mugs started barking and racing around to the side of the house.