“Thanks,” Jack said, holding Midas at a safe distance as he leaned down and their lips met. And clung. The kiss deepened. The melting started again.
“Do you mind if I spend the night?” he murmured, trailing his kisses down her throat.
“I’d love it,” she said, and was overtaken by a huge, jaw-breaking yawn.
Jack gave a crack of laughter. “Liar. You’re dead on your feet.”
Daisy blushed. “I had a very active day yesterday. And last night.” She glanced at Midas. “And tonight. I can’t turn my back on him for a minute.”
“How about if I stay and we do nothing but sleep?”
Blinking in astonishment, she said, “Why would you want to do that?”
“Just to make sure you’re all right.”
“I think you’re going overboard with this protection business.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Today the mayor got me to run a tag number; he said he’d seen the car parked in the fire lane at Dr. Bennett’s office. Guess whose tag it was?”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
“Mine!” she said indignantly. “I’ve never parked in a fire lane in my life!”
He hid a grin as he set Midas down. “I didn’t think so. Do you have any idea why the mayor would want me to run your tag number?”
Slowly she shook her head.
“If he had seen your car, he’d have known it was you, so obviously someone else got him to do it. That has me a little worried. The good thing is, you’ve moved, so your address isn’t the same as what’s on your registration.”
She gasped. “My goodness, I totally forgot about that! I’ll go to the courthouse and change—”
“No, you will not,” he said sternly. “Not until I find out what’s going on.”
“Why don’t you just ask Temple?”
“Because I feel uneasy about the whole thing. Until I’m satisfied nothing suspicious is going on, I don’t want you to give out your new address to anyone. Tell your family to keep it quiet, too.”
“But if anyone wants to know where I live, all he has to do is follow me home from work—”
“After today, I’ll handle that. I’ll drive you home, and I guarantee no one will be able to tail us.”
She stared up at him, at the hard cast of his expression, and realized he was deadly serious. For the first time, a frisson of alarm skittered up her spine. Jack was worried, and that worried her.
Midas scampered into the kitchen, and she heard the splat as he landed in his water bowl. “Get the puppy and take him out in the backyard while I mop up the water,” she said, sighing. “Then we’ll go to bed.”
“With him?”
“He’s a baby. You don’t want him to cry all night, do you?”
“Better him than me,” Jack muttered, but he obediently took Midas outside and was back in five minutes with a sleepy puppy in his arms.
“I suppose he sleeps in the middle,” he said, grumbling.
Daisy sighed. “At this point, I’ll let him sleep wherever he wants. And we have to take him out every two hours.”
“Do what?” he said in disbelief.
“I told you, he’s a baby. Babies can’t hold it.”
“I can tell this is going to be a great night.”
NINETEEN
If the blonde lived at the address Nolan had given him, Glenn Sykes had yet to see her today. Two older women had come and gone, but not the blonde. In that kind of residential neighborhood, it was difficult to keep watch without being spotted himself, because old folks sat out on their porches and watched everyone who went by.
He got a phone book and looked up Minor. There was only one listing, and that gave the same address the mayor had given him, so the blonde had to live there. Maybe she was off on a business trip or something. He was both worried and relieved: relieved because the woman evidently hadn’t been paying much attention to them, and worried because it was on the news that a man’s body had been found in the woods by a hunter—it was always those damned hunters—and if the news-paper ran a picture of Mitchell, the lady just might remember that she’d seen him Saturday night.
The mayor seemed unusually shaken by the whole situation, which also worried Sykes. He thought everything could be managed if no one lost his cool, but the mayor’s hold seemed to be slipping a little. Because of that, he was reluctant to call Nolan and tell him the Minor woman hadn’t shown up. He didn’t want to send the mayor off the deep end, but neither did he want to just let the situation languish. He needed to find her and get things taken care of so that that loose end was tied off and the mayor would settle down. They had another shipment of girls coming in, Russians, and Sykes wanted everything handled before they arrived. They stood to make some big money off this batch; one was supposed to be only thirteen, and as pretty as a doll.
He drove by the Minor house several times after dark that night, when he wasn’t as likely to be noticed, but the beige Ford still hadn’t showed up. Finally it occurred to him to go to the Buffalo Club. Duh! He felt like smacking himself in the head. This Minor babe was into partying, not sitting at home nights with two old women. Feeling certain he’d find her there, Sykes made the drive to Madison County.
But when he scouted out the parking lot, the beige Ford wasn’t there. The traffic was lighter on Mondays than it was on the weekend, so he was certain he hadn’t missed it. Either she had already hooked up with some guy and gone home with him, or she had gone to some other club.