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He let her hand go. “See you later.”
“Don’t speed, Chicago,” she teased. “The cops here are on the ball.”
“I did notice. And I never speed.”
“Ha!”
She went toward the back of the house. “Lock the door when you leave, please.”
“Will do.”
He watched her every step of the way until she was out of sight before he let himself out, locking the door as he went.
* * *
There was a lot more investigation that he had to do before he could home in on a suspect, even though he was fairly certain where the trail was going to lead. First thing, he went back to see Jeff Ralston.
“Of all the people we might expect to get kidnapped, she was the very last one,” Jeff told him. “Hell of a case. Very sad.”
“I went to see Mr. Downing last night with another agent,” Tom said.
“He’s not quite what he seems,” Jeff replied. “He took wonderful care of his late wife. He even tried to take care of Julie, despite her antagonism. His nurse May, however, would be number one on my list of suspects. Means, opportunity, and motive, all at once.”
“Exactly.” Tom sighed. “It’s going to be a tricky case. We need hard evidence. Last night when we paid a call on Downing, the nurse was with him. Our being there didn’t shake him, but the nurse looked as if she’d like to go out through a wall.”
“May? No doubt,” Jeff said. “She was supposedly working at a nursing home that nobody ever heard of. She stayed at the house while his wife was dying of lung cancer, playing up to him at every opportunity and mostly ignoring poor Mrs. Downing. Sweet woman,” Jeff added sarcastically.
“Life pays us out in our own coin, you know,” Tom replied. “What goes around, comes around.”
“You can say that again,” the sheriff agreed.
* * *
The news the next morning set a lot of people back on their heels. Granger Downing’s friend, the nurse May Strickland, had put around some gossip that Downing was going to marry her.
Annalisa told Tom about it when he came to get his laundry late that afternoon.
“Hey, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” he said gently, smiling at the neat piles of clothing and his slacks and button-up shirts on hangers.
“It was no trouble at all,” she replied with a smile.
“Do you know how long the Strickland woman’s been associated with Downing?” he asked.
“Months,” came the short reply. “She moved in when his wife was diagnosed with lung cancer, supposedly to nurse her. But Julie said all May did was try to seduce the boss. The nursing was done by Julie alone.”
“What a lovely woman,” he replied. “Does she by any chance keep poisonous spiders and vipers in her room?”
“No. Lucky them. If one ever bit her, it would die horribly.”
He chuckled. He cocked his head, noting that her long blond hair came almost to her waist in back. Her silver eyes were unusually soft. She was wearing jeans and a pink tee shirt, and she looked good enough to eat.
“Stop that,” she muttered. “You won’t let me ogle you, so the reverse is also true.”
“I’m not ogling,” he said defensively. He smiled very slowly. “I’m trying to decide between the sofa or the big cushy easy chair in front of the fireplace.”
She blinked and gave him a blank look. “You’re after my furniture?”
“No, tidbit. I’m after you.” He picked her up and carried her into the living room, where he dropped into the armchair.
