Surrender A Section 8 Novel - By Stephanie Tyler Page 0,51

and she had no doubt a suspicious neighbor might stop by before she was through searching.

She used the key and closed the door behind her. Gun drawn, she went through every room quickly and then gave Gunner the everything’s okay wave out one of the back windows.

Then she went on to searching more carefully.

It wasn’t large—a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living room—but it was fastidiously maintained.

By the bed, there were two large suitcases that were open—and full. There was a small bag on the bed that was also packed, with toiletries and airline tickets under the name Adele Manners.

But the odd thing was, the tickets were for three weeks earlier. Avery put the tickets in her pocket and wondered why Grace had missed her trip. Three weeks ago didn’t correspond to anything for Avery or Dare, but she’d bring them to him anyway.

Beyond that, there was nothing—no photo albums or journals—but the house still felt like a home, thanks to the glassware and plants and quilts. There was a small TV in the living room—lots of books, a mix of classics and popular fiction.

This was a woman who still lived like she’d have to pick up and leave at any time. There was not even a scrap of paper, beyond the tickets, that could incriminate her. Not even a shopping list.

She heard a car pull up out front and glanced through the window while ducking. The man who got out didn’t look like a neighbor. He was dressed down, in jeans and a T-shirt, and carried a piece of pipe along his thigh that would’ve blended in if Avery hadn’t been looking for weapons.

The car was an old one that looked like it belonged in the bayou.

She backed away carefully, got herself out the back door and hid in the mass of trees to the right of the house. Gunner must’ve heard the guy too, because he’d rolled the truck out of sight. She saw him standing in the trees, camouflaged until he gave her a short wave.

She remained as still as possible and realized she still had a good view into the house through a back window.

The man either picked the lock or used a skeleton key, because the door wasn’t kicked in. He closed it behind him and walked around. When he didn’t find anyone, he made a phone call, and then he began to smash everything he could.

She stopped watching, put her forehead against the cypress bark and tried not to wince as the woman’s only possessions were ransacked and her house destroyed.

Grace had put a lot of care into that house.

The destruction seemed to last forever. Real time, maybe five minutes. When she heard the slam of the front door, she moved carefully and watched the man get back into his car and leave. She committed the plate to memory—it wasn’t a rental—and then she turned to check on Gunner.

But he was no longer there. She shifted to look toward the house and saw him coming around the side from the front. She hadn’t seen him move from the trees and made a mental note to ask him to teach her that trick. If she was going to be skulking in the bushes, she might as well make it fun.

“Were you trying to catch him?” she asked.

“I would’ve caught him if I’d been trying,” he said, and she rolled her eyes.

“Okay, Cajun Superman, so what did you do?”

“I’m not Cajun, and I put a tracker on the car,” he explained patiently, holding up his cell phone to show her the moving dot. “If he doesn’t find it, we can see where he’s staying.”

She noted that he didn’t say anything about the Superman part. “Think it’s around here?”

“Pretty impossible. It’s a tight-knit community, even after Katrina. If someone like him set up shop in an abandoned house, we’d hear about it. I’m going to grab some security buttons from the truck. I’ll plant them in the house and then dust for prints—keep an eye out for me. And text Dare—tell him to be on the lookout in case that guy has his address.”

She did both, half melting from the sun and the stress, but her adrenaline surge more than made up for it. Nothing came or went, including a breeze, as Gunner did his work inside Grace’s ruined house, and when he came out they moved quietly into the truck.

When they got back to the house, Dare was waiting on the porch, shotgun by his side. “No