But she pulled away from him. She had no doubt in the world that at least one and maybe two FBI binoculars were on them now. She didn’t relish having photos of her and Brad shown to McBride—or to anyone else, for that matter. “I…” she began. She couldn’t think of a reason for not letting him kiss her.
“Right,” he said, smiling. “Too public.” He let go of her hand and gestured to the huge expanse of grass. “Think you can do something with this?”
That he was so understanding made her like him more. “Oh, yes. By the way, I wanted to ask you if there was a good nursery near here. I’m going to need a lot of plants.”
“Raleigh. We have trucks you can use.”
For a moment she looked about her and tried to think how to bring up the subject of the house.
“Is your daughter really thinking of moving to Arundel?”
“It’s more that I’m wanting her to move here. You and I have something in common in that we bear little love for our sons-in-law.”
“Don’t get me started. Did Minnie tell you—”
She didn’t want him to go in that direction. “You don’t have a renter for the overseer’s house? Or are you going to let Minnie or Drake have it?”
He looked at her for a moment. “No, I don’t have a renter, and I own three other houses, any of which Minnie would like.” He started walking toward the back fence, Eden beside him. “Did Minnie tell you what happened to the last tenant?”
“No, she didn’t mention it.”
“I can’t believe she left out any gossip,” he said as he opened the gate for her and they stepped out onto a service road. Right away, Eden liked the layout of the place. Instead of having the garages opening at the front of the house—and let’s face it, a huge, blank garage door was ugly—the garages faced the back, and residents entered through small service roads that ran behind the houses. “I like this,” she said, waving her hand. “So what gossip did Minnie leave out?”
“I rented the house to a woman who was a retired schoolteacher. She showed me some watercolors that I think she painted, but she was too shy to say so. They were nice but not great. She said she was interested in the old houses in this area. She was especially interested in Farrington Manor.”
“You sound sad. What happened?”
“She was killed in a hit-and-run. It was a shock to the whole town. Her relatives came to claim the body, and…” He shrugged, not knowing what else to say.
“What happened to the woman’s effects?”
Brad looked at
her sharply.
Eden had to think fast. “Okay, so you caught me. I love watercolors and I thought that maybe she’d done a portrait of my house.”
“Tyrrell Farrington’s portraits aren’t enough for you?”
“Puh-lease.”
Brad smiled. “I could call and ask her family. I have the address and phone number her uncle gave me somewhere. When he came to get her body, he told me that if I heard anything about what happened to her, he’d like to know about it.”
“A hit-and-run. That’s so…cowardly. No one saw anything?”
“Nothing. The police think she was hit at about two in the morning. I can’t imagine what she was doing walking on the roads at that time of night. Didn’t she read the papers? Watch the news?”
“Where did it happen?”
Brad sighed, and she could tell that he was reluctant to answer her. “In front of your house. The police figured that someone was coming over the bridge, turned the curve too sharply, probably on the wrong side of the road, and there she was. You don’t expect someone to be walking along the side of the road at two o’clock in the morning, so you get a bit lax.”
“Not to mention drunk.”
“Probably,” Brad said. “It was all such a waste. Her uncle was pretty upset about her death. He looked like he wanted to hurt someone.”
Eden wanted to stop asking questions, but she thought of what was becoming her secret life with the FBI and she continued. “Would you mind giving me the name and number that man gave you? I think I’ll call him and see if she did a watercolor of my house.”
For a moment, Brad just blinked at her.