Most Eligible Spy Read Online Free PDF Page A

ground, filled with spiderwebs, then packed dirt. She set the boards back into place and looked around, trying to see the place through fresh eyes.
    “Why would anyone break into the shed? Nothing’s missing.” She definitely didn’t keep anything valuable here.
    Had a drifter come by looking for food? Someone who’d come over the border in the night, stopping here for shelter? Maybe they’d tried to hide under the floor, then thought better of it on account of the rattlers that loved places like that. There was nobody down there now. She didn’t stick her head all the way down to look, but the dogs would have let her know.
    She mulled over the odd business while filling two dozen boxes from her garden, then she drove into town for groceries and to drop off her freshly picked vegetables at the Italian restaurant, and the milk at the cheese shop.
    Running a fully working ranch of this size was too big of a task for her alone, so she made money any way she could, with her cows and her organic garden, with boarding horses or whatever opportunities came her way.
    “Thanks,” Ellie, the cheese maker, said. “I made this just for you.” She handed over an herbed roll of soft cheese, Logan’s favorite. “A gift. How are things at the ranch?”
    What was she going to say? I’m a person of interest in smuggling? She forced a smile. “Everything is great.” Then she hurried out before Ellie could think of any more questions.
    The new, shiny black tires on her pickup—courtesy of her credit card—drew her eye. She hated the thought of how long it was going to take to pay them off. Great, now she was adding credit-card debt to the bills, on top of the mortgage.
    Then an uncomfortable thought struck her and she stopped midstride. Were her slashed tires and last night’s intruder connected? Could Moses Mann be right and some idiot was trying to send her a message?
    On an impulse, she swung by the sheriff’s office to ask him about the weird shed business.
    “I normally wouldn’t think anything of it, but someone slashed my tires in the driveway a couple of days ago,” she told Shane as they stood by the reception desk, the small office buzzing with activity around them. They’d had layoffs recently, so everybody who remained had to double up on work.
    He looked more annoyed than interested, probably figured he had bigger problems. “Maybe them tires just deflated.”
    “They had holes.”
    The sheriff shrugged. “Could have run over some nails in the road without noticing.” He shuffled through a handful of pink phone-message slips.
    “Will you come out to check the shed?”
    He glanced up. The all-business look on his face was normally reserved for strangers. They’d known each other all their lives, but his features didn’t soften any as he asked, “Anything missing?”
    “No.”
    “You see anyone hanging around your place?”
    “No.”
    “I have two dozen cases that take priority.” He turned his back on her and walked away, toward his office.
    “I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Margie May, the receptionist, said, the only person at the station to show Molly any sympathy. “Probably some illegals passing through in the night.”
    She nodded. That happened on occasion. She wasn’t scared of them. They never went up to the houses. They didn’t want trouble. All they wanted was to get up north unseen. One might have gone into the shed looking for food or water. But why would any of those people slash her tires? That didn’t make any sense.
    Margie May looked after the sheriff. “He’ll come around. He’s embarrassed over your brother. They hung out at the bar on game nights. He’s gotten some flak for not realizing that one of his buddies was a criminal.”
    Molly stiffened as cold disappointment spread through her. “Dylan was not a criminal. He was framed.” His exoneration could not come fast enough.
    Margie May didn’t comment, just went back to her typing.
    Molly strode out and