“We received a call about a possible intruder. Someone in dark clothing was seen around your property.”
“I have security cameras and haven’t seen anyone.”
“Are you sure, because I just walked the property and if you didn’t see me then maybe your cameras—"
“I saw you.” She blushed and her gaze dropped down to his chest.
She’d just admitted to Grady that she’d seen him walking her property, and had obviously seen him through the Ring doorbell and she answered the door in a tiny piece of cloth that barely covered her. “Miss Lopez, did you call in the report?”
“No.” She shook her head and lifted one hand as if she was on the stand taking an oath. “I swear I had nothing to do with it.”
But he saw in her large brown eyes that she knew exactly who had. This was the sixth bogus call he’d been sent out on since he started four weeks ago. All half dozen of them had involved an attractive single damsel not in distress. According to urban legend, there was a trio of elderly matchmakers behind each and every one.
“I’ll take one more look around, to be safe. Call if you see or hear anything.”
She opened the door wider.“Since you’re here, did you want to come in? I just made—"
“I’m on duty.”
“Well, if you have a night off and are hungry, I’d love to feed you as a welcome to Whisper Lake.”
“Thanks.” Grady nodded as he backed off the porch. “Make sure to lock your doors.”
He felt the need to remind residents in this community about that safety measure. It seemed that most of them were stuck in the Leave it to Beaver era where neighbors stopped by to borrow a cup of sugar and everyone left their doors unlocked.
Sometimes the distance between Los Angeles and Whisper Lake felt like a lot more than a few thousand miles. It felt like he’d moved to another planet.
After doing one more lap of 674 Riding Hood Road, he hopped back into the SUV and headed back to the station. His shift was ending soon and now, thanks to the fake intruder call, he had a report to write.
He was pulling into the parking lot of Whisper Lake PD less than five minutes later. That is one thing the small town had going for it; you could get anywhere in less than ten minutes. In L.A. sometimes it took you that long to make it down three blocks.
As he walked up to the entrance his eyes automatically lifted to the blanket of stars dotting the inky night sky. That was another check in the pro category of Whisper Lake, the starry night views were impressive. Poetic even. Every time he saw the expansive majesty of the night sky it humbled him.
He took a moment to appreciate it before heading inside the station.
“False alarm?” Roberta Mitchell’s penciled-in brows lifted above her purple-rimmed glasses as she peered over the reception desk.
He nodded and she grinned and looked back at her screen. It boggled his mind that everyone in town knew that this was happening and no one did anything about it.
At his initial interview, the chief warned him that being new to town, in his thirties, and single he would be a target for a group of matchmaking senior citizens.
Over the years, Grady had heard his sister-in-law, or he guessed now ex-sister-in-law talk about the Needlepoint Mafia, a knitting club run by three women in their eighties. The geriatric cupids would go to great lengths to set up fake “meet-cutes” for their “marks.” Apparently, they were relentless and had a one hundred percent success rate.
He’d never lived in a small town before and was still coming to terms with the women getting away with wasting police time. That was a crime. But from what he’d observed, Mrs. Chen, Mrs. Dobrinski, and Mrs. Weathersby were above the law. They were matchmaking dons and everyone kissed their rings and no one dared to cross them.
He couldn’t make this shit up if he tried.
His long legs ate up the room as he stalked to his desk to fill out a report for the bogus call he’d just been on. There was no evidence of a prowler around Laura Lopez’s home and he was going to have to waste another half hour explaining that in a report.
He couldn’t reconcile how he was the only person that seemed upset at these, for lack of a better word, shenanigans. Miss Lopez appeared flattered when it became clear what the call was. Hell, she’d tried to take advantage of it.
The open invite to dinner should have excited him, what else did he have to do in a town that closed down by eight at night?
On the attractive scale Laura wasn’t just pretty, she was hot. She had a pinup worthy body, long light brown hair, huge brown eyes, and full lips. Not only that, she was a business owner and a successful one at that. She was clearly interested in at least one date, and Grady could not be less enthused. He had enough going on in his life, adding the complication of a relationship was not on his list of priorities.
His older brother Jim had all but abandoned his wife, four kids, and their mother who suffered from Lupus and lived in an assisted care facility. In an attempt to hide income during the divorce, he’d stopped paying the bills for their mom’s care.
Grady had thought about moving his mom out to California and finding a care facility there, but there was no way that he could cover that and the cost living in Los Angeles on a detective’s salary. Not to mention, his mom loved where she was at, Well Brook Assisted Living. His sister-in-law had initially found it and Jim had paid for it up until a few months ago when he blew up his life by serving his wife divorce papers and moving out of the country.