Olivia backed aside from the swinging door while she flipped open her cell phone. She had the police department on speed dial, so she didn’t bother with 911. When the kitchen door didn’t move, she assumed the intruder had escaped out the back. By the first ring, Olivia had crossed the empty kitchen, glass crunching beneath her feet. She ran out the open door in time to see a man’s back disappear into a line of arborvitae.

“Chatterley Heights Police Department. Sheriff Jenkins speaking.”

It was the voice Olivia had hoped to hear. “Del, it’s me. There’s been a break-in at The Vegetable Plate. I just saw a man run through the back yard, heading north.”

“On my way,” Del said. “Can you describe the guy?”

“I only saw his back from a distance, but he looked and moved like a fairly young man. He was tall, I’d say, and slender, athletic. Dark hair. Jeans and a blue T-shirt.”

“How dark was his hair? How long was it? Was it shaggy? Neatly cut?”

Olivia closed her eyes and remembered the man’s hair lifting as he ran. “Dark brown, I’d say, not black. Professionally trimmed. It wasn’t really short, but not long and shaggy, either.”

“Nothing else?”

“Sorry.”

“Okay, I’ll send out an APB and be there as soon as possible. You stay in The Gingerbread House and I’ll come talk to you later.”

“Del, I’m—”

“I mean it, Livie. Sit this one out, okay?” The sheriff’s cell phone clicked off.

Too late for that. Olivia figured it would take Del no more than a few minutes to realize she couldn’t have seen the intruder run off if she’d been in The Gingerbread House—she didn’t have a view of Charlene’s back yard. Del would be irritated, but so be it. The two of them had been tiptoeing around each other in an almost-relationship since the previous spring, when Olivia had become embroiled in the investigation of her dear friend Clarisse’s death. She knew his concern for her was real, but could she help it if crime popped up right next door?