Then one day, a UPS truck had pulled up and delivered an envelope to her. Inside there was an offer to purchase her home and the remaining land which included the Gold Hole. It came through an out of state law firm, no purchaser named. All clouded in secrecy. It wasn’t a great offer but it was probably a realistic one. Over the years they had been approached by a dozen realtors, all of whom wanted to list the property for considerably more money. But that was all before the recession. Regardless, Cynthia had not even considered selling and refused the offer without so much as countering it. Two weeks later there had been a massive explosion in the middle of the night. Cynthia felt the whole house shake and was sure it was going to collapse. Then she saw, out a window that had been broken by the blast, what was left of a construction shack out on the new subdivision. It was burning fiercely. A propane refrigerator had started a fire and the tank had exploded. That was what the firemen and police said. They all said she was lucky she was in bed and not in the living room where the window had shattered.
Truth be told, it was really her nerves that had been shattered by the blast. There was a propane furnace in her house and she had always been afraid of propane.
For the first time she considered selling the place and moving to a condo. Her husband would have rolled over in his grave if he was watching. Eventually she had spoken to her lawyer. He advised her that as part of the deal with the developer, Cynthia and her husband had also signed a “Right of First Refusal” on the house. After accepting the offer, if that was what she wished, she would have to notify the developer thereby giving him the right to purchase the house at the same price as the accepted offer. She thanked the lawyer and left his office, saying she was not prepared to sell. Not yet, anyway.
A few weeks passed. Then, again in the middle of the night, she heard a construction machine start up. It was a backhoe. She heard it rolling toward her house. It drove right by her newly repaired window, started up a sand dune, teetered for a moment and rolled over with a crash. She was certain that no one had been in the cab as it passed her window. This time the police and firemen blamed the episode on teenagers based only on footprints in the sand around where the machine had been parked.
Shaken by event, she visited her doctor who prescribed sleeping pills but she was afraid to take them because both incidents had occurred at night.
The third incident happened at eleven o’clock the previous morning. She answered the phone but there was no one on the line. She kept saying hello, three or four times, then there was a terrible bang. She was convinced it was a gunshot. When she saw the look in Langdon’s eyes she apologized for telling him yesterday that it was probably a truck tailgate.
That was the last straw. She ran from the house but stopped short of piling into the Buick. There weren’t many roads on Topsail Island and she could never drive fast enough to win in a car chase. Instead, she hopped into the golf cart, raced down to the dock and untied the boat even before she started the engines. It hadn’t run in three months but it fired up immediately and she had charged out the inlet, not thinking about tides or fuel or anything. When the fuel ran out, she tried again and again to start the engines until the batteries died. Then she just sat there for a while, far enough offshore that there was no danger in just drifting. Eventually she mixed a pitcher of Margaritas with no particular plan beyond having a drink. When she saw Langdon approaching she had topped up her drink and flagged him down as he got closer.
Now, in retrospect, that gunshot on the phone could have been anything. Perhaps the police were right. Her nerves were frayed and now she was creating explanations in her mind that were miles away from reality. As much as she hated to admit it, she was acting like a silly old woman.
“No. Those incidents really happened and they could rattle anyone,” said Langdon kindly. To himself, he was already questioning why the offer from out of state had been from an un-named party. The fact that it had coincided with two accidents and an apparent threat was disturbing. It was more than mere coincidence. He was fully aware that he was falling into a trap himself. It was his nature and there was no point denying it. At times he thought he was a magnet for other people in trouble. He had helped more than a few people caught up with a variety of problems and he was already considering investigating this situation further.
Chapter 5
Wendell Forbes
Three Years Earlier
Wendell Forbes had been scrolling through computerized lists of heavy equipment for his young but successful, Florida based construction company when a pop-up appeared on his screen. It said, “Fully describe your type of business and equipment needs. Note type of machine (bulldozer, pay loader, hi-hoe, backhoe etc.) type of work (commercial, residential, road work, farm, etc), load demand on machine (light, medium, heavy), usage (every day, twice a week, weekly, occasionally), average hours of daily usage. Instructions on the screen indicated that the reply had to be sent by email. Forbes hesitated for a second before muttering “What the hell,” and drafted a quick reply.
The next day he received an unusual response. It recapped his needs but asked for additional detail. Wendell had simply stated that he needed a backhoe but new questions were asked regarding boom length and bucket size. There was a short questionnaire about his business. Was the machine for use on commercial or residential sites? Would it be primarily used on a single site use or would it travel on roadways between jobs, under its own power? What were the company’s future aspirations and what additional demands might be put on the machine in the future? In fact, the email asked a dozen new questions. Part of Wendell’s psyche was annoyed by this intrusion but the other, less emotional part, appreciated the fact that whoever was asking for this information was at least attempting to match the machine to the buyer’s needs. He decided to answer the questions. When he got to the final question about future aspirations, he took a good deal of time thinking before typing his response.
“Possible road work and trenching for services in future land development project.”
That was the closest he had ever come to actually writing down his dream to take a piece of raw land and turn it into a small subdivision. He realized it had taken him over an hour of thinking and dreaming to write that simple response but the exercise had been uplifting and when he fell asleep that night he was still dreaming about his future plans for a subdivision.
The next morning a reply appeared in his email in-box. Wendell opened it expecting to find a list of used backhoes the equipment dealer with the pop-up add had in stock. Instead, he received an email stating that the search for the appropriate machine would require at least a week. It suggested the delay would be worth Wendell’s while.
The machine was not the highest priority on Wendell’s agenda and he erased the email and got onto other things. A week later, he opened up his email after supper and before prime time television, not even thinking about the previous correspondence or his heavy equipment needs. There was an email with the subject line reading ‘Backhoe.’ Once again he anticipated a list of backhoes at various prices and opened the reply. What he found was entirely different than expected. It was like a Christmas present! There, in front of him on the screen was a four year old machine that looked just like it was brand new. There were photos of every component, shots from every angle. Shots of the tires, the hydraulic hoses, the controls, the cab, the boom and the bucket. This machine had seen at best, very minimal usage and the price tag was equivalent to that of a worn out, ten year old piece of scrap metal.
“There’s got to be a catch,” thought Wendell.
At the end of the email was a note.
“If the information you sent is accurate, then I believe this machine will suit your purposes. The machine will be held for your personal inspection for seven days. You are under no obligation to purchase it. ……”
The email went on to describe the location and hours of operation to inspect the machine,