He’d miscalculated by a mile because he’d never expected that reaction from her.
He considered tracking her down, but decided against it. It was obvious she wanted some time to herself at the moment. She knew her land far better than he did and she wouldn’t have any trouble evading him.
But if she wasn’t back soon, he’d head out to her fort. He’d even give her a couple of hours.
That was reasonable. Then they’d figure this out and he could make it up to her in a creative way. Or two.
Satisfied with his plan, Sam shoved his phone into his pocket. He needed to be calmer before talking to Joe. He turned his attention back to the lodge. What was he going to do for the next couple of hours?
He wandered the main floor looking for the room Tansy had decided on for the workout space. When he spotted the yoga mat in the corner, he figured he’d found it.
The large room was at the far end of the lodge from the kitchen. Windows looked out to the lake, and the ceilings were high enough to accommodate some weight machines.
Marking the location in his head, he wound his way back to the basement stairs and wandered through the space to find the beams beneath the room.
No wonder Tansy was fascinated by the basement. It was full of boxes and barrels and bins holding endless amounts of leftovers from over a century of life just beyond the edge of civilization.
There’d never been a need to make a road from the sawmill to the lodge, even though the same family owned both.
The structure of the lodge appeared sturdy enough for him, but he wasn’t an expert. There was nothing obvious he could do here to help out, so he headed back to the stairs, pausing at the aisle that held the camouflage vests that had triggered Tansy enough to drop her phone.
He knew enough now to realize the camo had caused her to think of James the Asshole who was trying to claim credit for her solar panel hologram device.
And that gave Sam a focus while he let Tansy cool off.
He headed back upstairs and sat on one of the chairs beside the pellet stove, then started a search on Tansy’s lab back in California.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t easy to find information. Tansy wasn’t interested in notoriety and she didn’t have a single social media profile. But Sam hadn’t worked at the FBI for nothing. Even without the specialized programs he had access to at the office, he had some serious research skills.
It took another twenty minutes, but in the end, he had a name and a picture.
James Stephens.
Dweeb.
Sam studied the picture. The man looked normal enough. Nothing about him screamed thief or user. He supposed women would think he was good-looking.
Obviously Tansy had.
Which pissed him off.
Sam doubled down on his search and came up with a lot fairly quickly. Stephens was on multiple social media sites. The man took a lot of selfies. Obviously, notoriety was important to him.
Never much information about his personal life, but always with captions aimed to make him look impressive.
#scientistatwork
#physicistinaction
#anotherexcitingdiscovery
#investigationinprogress
Asshole.
Stephens didn’t list his relationship status or mention Tansy in any of the posts.
There were no obvious ties to organized crime or terrorist groups, but no one advertised that.