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“All right, yes!” Drex fired back, in an angry hiss. “I want it to be him.”
Staring at the Fords’ house was only making him crazy. He went to the fridge, got a bottle of water, and returned with it to the chair. Neither of the other two spoke.
After taking a long drink and calming down a degree or two, he said, “Find out everything you can about Elaine Conner.”
He told them what he had learned about her through conversation. “The yacht is named Laney Belle, her husband’s pet name for her. It’s registered in Dover, Delaware, where he hailed from. I get a sense that he was older and had old money, but I’m guessing. She’s an attractive, rich widow.”
“Our guy’s type.”
“That occurred to me,” Drex said. “Although Elaine is more bubbly than the others. More self-assured and less needy. Gregarious. Life of the party. But he’s very courtly toward her, and she eats it up.”
“His wife isn’t jealous?” Gif asked.
“If she is, I didn’t pick up on it. She and Elaine come across as good friends.”
“What’s she like?”
“I just told you, Mike. Bubbly.”
“Not her. Talia Ford.”
“Shafer. I learned today that she goes by
her professional name.”
Mike, who had no regard for political correctness, huffed, “Women these days.”
Gif repeated Mike’s question. “What’s she like?”
I took her tray, she took my breath. Her eyes are the color of wood smoke and just as hypnotic. A smile I wanted to eat.
He cleared his throat. “She’s damn smart, I’ll say that. Told me the history of her company. Inherited, but she expanded it, sold it, and then trumped the buyer. I was intimidated.”
“A ball-breaker doesn’t sound like our man’s type.”
“She’s not a ball-breaker.”
“Huh. By the way she was flaunting her success—”
“She wasn’t flaunting,” Drex said, making his irritation plain. “Why don’t you get a clue, Mike?”
“About what?”
“Societal shifts.”
“What?”
“Never mind. You’re hopeless.”
Gif interceded. “Drex, I think what Mike is clumsily and stupidly—”
“Hey!”
“—trying to get out of you is your sense of Jasper Ford’s wife.”
“I just told you,” Drex said. “For a woman her age—”
“She’s thirty-four.”
