Not only that, she hadn’t been at Dr. Bennett’s office this morning. He knew because he’d ended up spending the night, and she’d been fine. Glowing. A big smile on her face. He’d had to swing by his house for a change of clothes, but her car had been in its usual parking slot behind the library when he got to the office.
So who was running Daisy’s tag, and why?
He thought fast. He could lie and say it was a stolen tag and did the mayor have a description of the car? Or he could tell the mayor it was Daisy’s car and try to find out what was going on.
First Todd Lawrence, and now Temple Nolan. Way too much attention was being paid to one little librarian, and too many details weren’t adding up. The niggling uneasiness had turned into a real itch between his shoulder blades.
What were the odds any of the town gossip about him and Daisy had reached the mayor’s ears? They didn’t move in the same circles. For all his comaraderie, the mayor didn’t socialize much with the townsfolk. He did the official stuff, but not much else. He was good enough at the common touch that most people didn’t notice, or they attributed the mayor’s absence from certain functions to his wife, Jennifer, who evidently spent most of her time sloshed. Jack had noticed that the mayor used his wife as a convenient excuse a lot of the time.
Jack picked up the phone and went with his instinct. “Sorry to take so long, but the computer is slow today.”
“That’s all right; I’m in no hurry,” the mayor said genially. “So who’s the culprit?”
“The name doesn’t strike a bell with me. Dacinda Ann Minor.”
“What?” the mayor said, clearly stunned.
“Dacinda Minor—hey, I’ll bet that’s the librarian. Her name is Minor. Her name isn’t Dacinda, though—”
“Daisy.” Temple sounded as if he were strangling. “Everyone calls her Daisy. My God! She—”
“I guess even librarians can illegally park, huh?”
“Uh—yeah.”
“Want me to call and give her hell? She’s a city employee; she should know better.”
“No, I’ll call,” the mayor quickly said.
“Okay,” said Jack, knowing no such call would be made. “Let me know if I can help you with anything again, Mayor.”
“Sure thing. Thanks.”
As soon as the mayor hung up, Jack ran his finger down the list of city departments and located the library’s number, then punched it in.
“Hillsboro Public Library,” said Daisy’s crisp voice.
“Hi, sweetheart, how are you feeling?”
“Just fine.” Her tone changed, became warmer, more intimate. “And you?”
“A little beat, but I think I can make it through the day. Listen, someone said they saw your car at Dr. Bennett’s office.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “That quack. He pushes diet pills.”
Jack scribbled Dr. Bennett’s name on a pad so he’d remember to do some checking into the good doctor’s prescription-writing habits.
“I also heard that your name is Dacinda. True or false?”
“You’re hearing a lot of things today. True, as you would know if you ever bothered to look over the list of city employees. I was named after Granny Minor.”
“You’ve never been called Dacinda?”
She gave a ladylike snort. “I should hope not. Mother said they called me Dacey when I was a baby, but within just a month or two they were slurring it into Daisy, so I’ve been Daisy as long as I can remember. Why are you so curious about my name?”
“Just making small talk. It’s been a while since I’ve heard your voice.”
“Oh, at least an hour and a half,” she said.
“Seems like longer. Are you going home for lunch?”
“No, I just talked to Aunt Jo, and she’s found a dog for me. I’m going to see the people at lunch; she already has it arranged.” Regret tinged her tone.
He wondered if she felt half as regretful as he did. But Daisy getting a dog was important, and he’d use the time nosing around, maybe shadowing the mayor for a while and seeing where he went.
“Listen, there are some things I have to check out tonight, but I’ll come by if I can. What time do you usually go to bed?”
“Ten. But you—”
“I’ll call if I can’t make it.”
“All right, but you don’t have to—”
“Yes,” he said, his tone more grim than he’d intended, “I do.”
He didn’t have to sound so glum about it, Daisy thought as she hung up. She wasn’t clinging to him, demanding his time. She’d been very careful not to ask when she would see him again, though she’d been certain she would. A man didn’t spend all afternoon and most of the night making love to a woman if he didn’t really like what they had together.
One good thing about living on Lassiter Avenue: no one was likely to care who spent the night with her. Since she had just moved in, no one knew her, or knew which cars were normally in the driveway. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel as if a hundred pairs of eyes were on her. She had felt free with Jack, free to be as uninhibited as she liked, to make noise when she climaxed, to stand naked in the kitchen eating peanut butter and crackers for quick energy. She could carry on her affair with him without the entire neighborhood watching to see what time he left her house, or clucking their tongues if his car remained in her driveway all night.