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CHAPTER TWENTY

March didn’t come in like a lion but more as a bear that lumbered its snowy way over the mountains. It took its time, blew its winds.

The swans returned to thrash their way through the thinning ice and signaled the slow approach of spring.

Sloan took an hour’s personal time at the end of her week to make the drive to Cumberland.

She found the Rigsby house with the last snowfall cleared off the drive, the walkway, shaken from the azaleas that would put on a show once spring took over.

The Cooper in her noted the house had been well built, well maintained with a welcoming, covered front porch and double entrance doors. The LEO hoped for some new detail or angle from Karen Rigsby.

She rang the bell.

She recognized the woman who answered from photos. Karen Rigsby, tall, stately, and square-jawed, had a short, stylish swing of chestnut-brown hair. The color set off the ice-blue of her eyes, as did the long-sleeved, cowl-necked dress of nearly the same blue.

“Ms. Rigsby, I’m Sergeant Cooper with the Natural Resources Police. We spoke on the phone.”

“Yes, I expected you. You’re prompt.”

“I don’t want to take up any more of your time than necessary. I appreciate you taking that time to speak with me today.”

“Come in. I have coffee if you’d like.”

“I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“I’d like some myself. How do you take it?”

“Just a little milk, thanks. Your home’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

Karen stood in the foyer a moment, looking around as if judging it herself.

“I thought, and seriously, about putting it on the market, then I thought, the hell with that. I love this place. I helped make this house.

“Sorry. Let me take your coat.”

“Thanks.”

When Karen took it and Sloan’s hat to a closet, Sloan noted no men’s outerwear inside.

“Please, sit. I’ll only be a minute.”

Cleared out his coats, Sloan thought as she scanned the living area. But still had photos of them together, of the family together, a kind of journey through the years in a well-arranged gallery wall.

“You own an art gallery in town,” Sloan said.

“Yes. Those who can’t, sell. Or try to. On the phone you said you’re looking into Art’s disappearance, as it may connect with another missing person.”

“We want to explore every angle, Ms. Rigsby.”

“I spoke with Detective Trent, and with a Detective O’Hara. Detective Trent agreed it might help. To my ear, Detective O’Hara respects your input.”

She brought the coffee in on a tray, with a pitcher of cream.

“They believe Art’s dead,” she said flatly. “You do, too.”

“I can’t determine—”

“You don’t have to spare my feelings.” She set the tray down, added cream to both cups. “I know he’s dead.”

She sat, crossed her legs, sipped her coffee.

“At first I…” She paused, pressed her lips together as if blocking the words. “That hardly matters at this point. I understand now Art may have left me, but I can promise you, he’d never have left the children, the grandchildren, without a word. He wouldn’t have left his practice, our portfolio, and he’d have fought me for this house in the divorce.”

“You were divorcing?”

“No, but if he wasn’t dead, with my knowledge of his infidelity and deceit, we would be. And I’d take everything I could get.”

Ice-blue was her eye color, Sloan thought, but the hard frost in them was fury.

“Imagine being clueless, simply living your life, believing you had a solid marriage, a husband who loved and respected you. Then imagine the fear, the panic when he doesn’t come home, when you call the police. And the shock, the humiliation, the open wound when you learn he’d been with a woman half his age in a motel room. Cheating every week for months.”

Fury, yes, Sloan thought, and the grief that shadowed it.

“Lying to you, living with you, sleeping with you, and all the time…”

Once again, she pressed her lips together.

“We were married for thirty-four years, together for thirty-six. I helped him through dental school, helped him start his practice. In turn, he helped me when I wanted to open the gallery. Art supported me in that dream. We raised children together, welcomed grandchildren into our lives. And we loved them.”

She sipped her coffee, sighed once.

“We loved them,” she repeated. “We fought and laughed and worried and celebrated together, all that time.”

She took a long breath. “And in the end, he made a fool of me. He made a mockery of me and my life, and made himself into a pitiful cliché.”

Karen paused, leveled her gaze at Sloan.

“I don’t wish him dead. I want him, I desperately want him to walk through that door. So I can kick him out again.”

Sloan felt the cold fury, the drag of grief. And with it, heard the last notes of dying love.

“I know you’ve been asked before, but it’s possible when some time has passed to remember something that didn’t seem important or relevant. Did he ever make a comment, however offhand, that he felt someone followed him?”

“No, not to me. Maybe to the blonde, but not to me. He was happy, looking forward to Christmas, having the family all here, seeing the grandchildren open presents. We’d had our holiday party here the week before, and he still talked about what a good time it was.”

“You stated you’d never met the woman he was seeing.”

Sloan could all but see Karen Rigsby wrap dignity around her like a cloak.

“No, and I never intend to. She chose to have an affair with a married man, but Art made the choice to be that man.

“I’ve tried to pinpoint Wednesdays. He liked to cook on Wednesdays. I’d come home from work, and he’d have made dinner. We’d have a drink, talk about the day. We’d discuss what was going on in the world, what was going on in the family, and so on.”

She looked down into her coffee. “We’d have dinner, and we’d chat the way friends do. Because we were. I thought we were very good friends. But.” She sipped more coffee. “I was clueless.”

Nothing, Sloan thought when she left. Just nothing fresh from that source. Except, she admitted, her own sympathy and respect for the widow.

For she was surely a widow.

If he hadn’t been taken, would Rigsby have come to his senses, cut off the affair, kept his marriage intact?

No way to know, but maybe she’d get something from the blonde.

Maci Lovette lived in a downtown apartment. By day she worked as a hostess for an upscale restaurant. Five nights a week she served cocktails in the lobby bar of a local hotel.

Where Karen Rigsby was tall and stately, Maci ran petite and curvy. Blond hair tumbled past her shoulders in careless waves.

She wore a short, snug red dress with stilettos to match.

If Sloan had cast the other woman, the much younger trophy wife, Maci Lovette would nail the part.

“I expected someone a lot older.” Her voice bubbled a bit as if a laugh waited to happen. “Come on in. You said you’d make it quick. Have to. I’ve got a date.”

Obviously neither grieving, angry, nor humiliated, Sloan thought as she entered the colorful chaos of the apartment.

“’Scuse the mess. Who has time to clean?” She dumped what looked like a pile of laundry out of a chair onto the floor. “So have a seat. I never heard of the National Resources Police.”

“Natural Resources.”

“Oh.” Her lips, red like the dress and heels, curved. “Like oil or something?”

“Public lands, waterways, wildlife. I appreciate you making time to speak with me, Ms. Lovette.”

“Oh, no problem. As long as it’s quick. Jerry’s picking me up in about a half hour. I talked to the regular cops a bunch of times about Artie. Do you really think he got snatched up? Like kidnapped?”

“We have reason to believe that, yes.”

“Well, I guess maybe. He’s pretty loaded. Everybody’s got teeth, right?”

“He’d often come into the restaurant where you work for lunch. That’s how you met?”

“Sure. He’s a real sweetie. Always remembered names, had something nice to say. I just couldn’t help but flirt with him. First he got kind of blushy, and some nervous. So cute! After a while he started flirting back some, so I slipped him my number. Took his time calling, but he finally did, and we flirted on the phone. Then we met for drinks, not around here because, well, you know.”

“He’s married.”

“Correct,” Maci said with a smile. “He just wanted to have a little flirt, a little fun. Cut loose a little. I mean, God, he’s been married longer than I’ve been alive. Can you imagine only being with one person for decades?”

“Actually, yes, I can.”

“Yeah?” Maci seemed surprised, then shrugged it away. “Not me. You got one life, right? So live it. Anyway, we had drinks, got snuggly in his car after. Then Wednesdays. We had fun. Different motel, like intrigue, and that was fun. He’s good in bed, too. Really considerate. Generous, too. He liked buying me things.”

She tapped her sparkling earrings. “He gave me these for Christmas. Men like buying me things.”

I bet , Sloan thought.

“He gave you those the last time you saw him?”

“Now that you mention it, that’s right. And we talked about our getaway.”

“Your getaway?”

“Artie always goes to this dentist convention the first week of February. But this year instead, he was taking me to the Caymans. See, he got another credit card, and he set up a new account for the bills and all that so they’d come to his office, not to his house. And with the earrings, he gave me a couple thousand for clothes. For the tropics.”

Her lips moved into a pout. “I was really looking forward to that.”

“I imagine so,” Sloan murmured. “You met him at different motels.”

“Yeah. Like I told the regular cops, we’d pick the motel for the next Wednesday, then Artie would get there and check in. He’d text me when he had it all set, with the room number. I’d already be on the way because he never wanted anyplace too close to home. I’d go to the room, we’d have some fun.”

“You’d always leave first?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you notice a white van in the parking lot on any of the Wednesdays?”

“Sure didn’t.”

“Did Dr. Rigsby ever mention seeing one, or tell you he thought he was being followed or watched?”

“Well, he worried about the wife sometimes. Not that she’d follow him or anything, but that she’d just sense something. Whenever he worried about it, I’d just distract him. It’s not hard.”

She shook back her hair, laughed. “Men are easy to distract.”

“Did any of your other dates know about him?”

She pursed her lips, tilted her head.

“No. I don’t see how. When you date solidly married men like Artie, they can’t worry too much about what you’re doing with someone else, can they? And when it’s done, it’s done. I usually let them call it off because it’s easier. Then, no harm, no foul, and move on to the next.

“I mean a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta.”

After the interview, Sloan had to sit in the truck for a few minutes to level off.

But whatever she thought of Maci Lovette—and the woman was cannier than she let on—she couldn’t see any duplicity. She doubted if the woman would have seen a white van if one had pulled up in front of her.

Too self-absorbed.

So she’d go home with nothing. But nothing was something. She agreed fully with the lead investigators. Neither woman had any part in the abduction.

She’d write it out, mull it over. Maybe pick up her crocheting, turn something on TV she didn’t have to pay attention to, and give it more thought.

Then in between, she’d put something together for dinner.

A hell of a way to spend Friday night, she supposed, but it suited her.

As she approached Heron’s Rest, she decided to grab some takeout and save herself the chore of making something herself.

Pleased with the idea, she detoured and pulled into the small lot behind Ricardo’s. Then, amused, parked beside Nash’s truck just as he got out of it.

Inside, Tic jumped from back to front and back again.

“Take-out or dine-in?” she asked.

“I’m on dog duty. Take-out. You?”

“The same. Want to join forces?”

“Maybe. What do you want?”

“I was thinking about the chicken parm, then I’d have leftovers for tomorrow. But I’m flexible.”

“I’ve noticed,” he said, and made her laugh. “You take the dog, I’ll get the food. I just need to stop at home on the way and get some dog food.”

“I restocked the last time I went to the grocery.”

He gave her a long look. “Did you?”

“And look how smart that turned out. I’ll take the dog.”

The minute Nash opened the truck door, Tic leaped out, then sat at Sloan’s feet, thumping his tail.

“He doesn’t jump on you.”

She bent down to give him a scrub. “He knows better.”

“Tell that to everybody else.” He slammed the truck door; she opened hers.

“In, Tic. Let’s go for a ride.”

Nice, she thought, to have a dog around on a Friday night. Nice, too, to have his human. Better yet, she could replay the interviews to someone who listened, had thoughts and opinions.

And though she didn’t mind socking in alone for the weekend—excepting the Sunday dinner her parents had already claimed—she’d enjoy the company.

“I can tell you,” she said to Tic, who sat staring at her with adoring eyes. “You’re no blabbermouth. I like spending time with him. Even if you remove the sex factor, which let’s not, I like spending time with him. And you, too.”

She’d get herself a dog just like him, but she couldn’t take a dog to work the way the Littlefields did.

When she got home, she let Tic out, let him roam and sniff, mark some territory.

Winter hadn’t finished yet, but she could feel spring creeping up behind it.

“And I’m ready for it.” She looked at her house. “I’m ready for new windows, a new front door, nice new siding. I’m leaning toward horizontal lap either a cream—not white—or a nice blue. Have to decide. And a porch the full width of the house, center the steps.”

When the dog came to lean against her, she rubbed his head. “Yeah, that’s what we’ll do. Next month. Let’s go inside.”

She gave Tic the chew toy she’d picked up with the dog food, then lit a fire. With the dog occupied, she stowed her weapon and changed into warm leggings and a sweater.

She freshened her makeup because, well, it needed it.

And was just pouring wine when the dog raced to the door yipping.

“I left it unlocked,” she called out as Nash knocked.

When he came in, he lifted the take-out bags high as Tic jumped up, planted his paws.

“Knock it off!”

Shaking her head, Sloan walked over. “Down,” she ordered, and pointed. Tic got down, sat down, and got another rub.

“Good dog. One direct word’s better than three when training a young dog.”

“I often use the single word fuck , but he still doesn’t listen.”

“One consistent word. If fuck ’s your code for down , use it consistently. There’s a bowl in the kitchen. You can feed him, and I’ll deal with the human food.”

He passed her the takeout, noted with some annoyance Tic didn’t jump up to try to steal it. Then saw the two stainless steel bowls. “You got him a bowl?”

“Mop visits, too, so yeah, I got a bowl. Two actually. Food. Water.”

Following house rules, he hung up his coat before he crossed over.

“After you’ve filled his bowl, I’m keeping the bag in the broom closet. You got jalapeno poppers!”

“And now I suppose you expect me to share.”

“I do. You also got a meatball sub. You can’t eat all the poppers and this sub.”

“I beg to differ. But I’ll trade three of them for sex.”

“Done. I’m having wine, but I stocked some beer.”

He straightened from the dog bowl. “You bought beer.”

“I’m a thoughtful host. And my father drinks it, too.”

“I’ll take the beer.” He opened her fridge, pulled one out while she set down the food. “Let me ask this straight. Are you looking for something here?”

“I’m looking for my share of these poppers,” she began, then it hit her. Insult slapped temper into high gear.

“Because I bought beer? Jesus, you think I’m trying to, what, ensnare you with beer and dog food?”

“‘Ensnare’? There’s a word.” His cool tone hit the polar opposite of hers. “I didn’t say or mean you were trying anything. I asked if you’re looking for something.”

Her spine snapped straight; her shoulders tensed to rocks. “Why is it men think women are always trying to trap them into something? I met one today who’s really good at that. It’s not my style.”

“Again, I didn’t say or mean that, so ease back some.”

“Oh, really?”

Maybe he realized his mistake, maybe not, but he held up a hand.

“Let’s try this instead before I get a knee in the balls or a fist in the face, because you look like you could do both. I’m not seeing anyone else, you’re not seeing anyone else. I’m good with that.”

“That doesn’t mean I—”

“Down,” he said, and pointed. Her mouth fell open.

“I don’t take commands from you. I’m not a dog.”

“No. But you’ve got a temper like most every other human, and in this current situation, it’s misplaced. Let me flip this around and say I’m not interested in anyone else. Not for sharing takeout, not for sharing a bed. That doesn’t mean I’m trying to—what was the word again?—ensnare you.”

“If you decide someone else interests you, you just have to let me know.”

“That works both ways.”

“Great. We understand each other.”

“But I wouldn’t like it.” He set the beer down, then took her by her tensed shoulders. “I’d back off from someone who didn’t want me, but I wouldn’t like it if that was you. I’m trying to get a read, that’s all.”

He felt her shoulders relax—just a little, but enough.

“I wouldn’t like it if I had to back off.”

“Okay.” He kissed her forehead where the scar rode under her bangs.

“You phrased the initial question in a stupid, insulting, male way.”

He kept his eyes on hers a moment, then nodded. “It stings some, but I’m going to have to give you that one.”

Damn it, she liked he could admit a mistake, without laying on qualifications. So she did the same with acceptance.

“All right then.”

“Since we’ve cleared that up, how about we eat and you tell me about this woman who’s good at trapping men?”

She rolled the rest of the stiffness out of her shoulders and sat. “I should start with the wife.”

He listened as they ate, as the dog went back to his chew toy. When she’d finished telling him about Karen Rigsby, he said something that hit home.

“She still loves him. He broke her heart, and if he were alive, she’d divorce him—and make sure it hurt. But she still loves him.”

“Yes, she does. Part of her is a widow, grieving for the man she loved more than half her life, and the other is a woman angry and humiliated by her husband’s betrayal.”

“It must be hell to have that fighting it out inside you.”

“I thought the same. When I talked to her, I thought exactly that. She’s in hell, and will be for a long time. Even after we find the answers, she’ll be in hell.”

“You’re sure she didn’t have any part of it. I don’t have to ask if, because I can hear it.”

“If I wasn’t before, I am after talking to her. And the leads have cleared her. They looked hard because she’ll end up with everything—which is a lot of everything. But she’d end up with it faster with a body.”

“So if she’d known, wanted to get rid of him, how would she have done it?”

“The smart way, kill him in the motel room right after the blonde leaves, plant evidence that implicates her. Not that she’d get away with it, but she’d try to punish them both.”

“Why didn’t the blonde do it?” He took a swig of his beer. “It’s a classic, right? He decides to end things, and she doesn’t want things to end.”

“She didn’t care enough. Let me tell you about Maci Lovette.”

When she’d finished, Nash ate a fry, washed it down with another swig of beer. “That’s the blonde on the wall of your office. She’s got the sexy going, sure, but she doesn’t look like a player.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s only one picture, but yeah, that’s so. And that’s part of how she gets away using middle-aged men stupid enough to think she wants them for anything but what they can and do buy her.”

What did it mean, she wondered, that his thoughts ran right along the same line as hers on the subject?

“She can play guileless, and she’s not.”

“That works for her, too. Can’t call it extortion or even sex for pay. I imagine she didn’t have to wheedle much for the gifts. And I’m betting she rarely pays her own rent.”

Impressed, Sloan sat back.

“You’d win the bet. She has a system. She works one sucker at a time, but starts the flirt, as she calls it, with the next either when the first guy starts talking about leaving his wife or breaking things off. She prefers the latter as that usually involves a nice parting gift.

“She’s got a very nice nest egg.” Sloan lifted her wineglass toward Nash. “She could probably use your financial management skills there.”

“No, thanks. She’s scary. But not scary enough, I take it, to have made the dentist disappear.”

“No. She’s cunning, calculating, but that doesn’t make her bright. Nice apartment, good location, but it’s chaos. She’s disorganized and careless as well as dishonest. Sex work’s honest, a business transaction.”

His eyebrows lifted. “That’s one way to look at it.”

“You want a blow job, here’s my rate. You want the full round, this is what it costs. Want me to dress up like a high school cheerleader, that’s extra. Business.”

He considered her for one long moment. “You don’t happen to have one of those uniforms? The little skirt and sweater? Maybe just the pom-poms?”

“Sorry. I ran track and cross-country. The thing is, it doesn’t bother her a bit to damage a marriage—and she doesn’t take full blame there because she’s not forcing anyone. But she’s good at spotting a man who’s vulnerable to the flirtation, to the Ooh, Daddy, I’m so attracted to you .”

She batted her lashes and made him laugh.

“Then she exploits that for whatever she can get out of him. And she wants them older and married because she isn’t interested in the long term.”

“You didn’t like her.”

“Not even a little. Not because she had an affair with a married man. That happens, people get caught up. But she had no feelings for him. He’s missing, likely dead, and she’s pouting because she’s not going to the Caymans.

“He was a means to an end,” Sloan sat flatly. “Expensive jewelry and a trip to the Caymans, and now she can get all that from some schmuck named Jerry.”

Blowing out a breath, she rose to wrap the rest of her chicken parm.

“And all that’s irrelevant. None of that helps find Rigsby or what’s left of him.”

“You’re taking this hard.”

“No. Maybe.” On a sigh, she looked back at him. “Yeah, maybe. You deal with hard things. A search and rescue where the rescue’s too late. Hunting accidents, drownings, or assholes like the ones we took down right before I went on medical leave. But this? Someone’s stolen three lives—that we know of—upended the world of three families. And not for gain.”

Since he’d nudged his plate away, Sloan wrapped the portion of the sub he hadn’t finished.

“Not for gain,” she repeated. “But because—and I know it—because those three people were given another chance to live.”

“Like you.”

“I hate you’re not wrong. The Janet Anderson case pulled at me before I knew about that, but at this point? It’s part of it for me, it resonates for me.”

“It has to. Sit down a minute.”

When she turned, he grabbed her hand, pulled her onto his lap.

“Here. Theo almost drowned when he was seven.”

“How?”

“Backyard pool. He liked to pretend he was Aquaman, and he went under. My job was to count off how long he stayed under. Like, one Mississippi, two Mississippi. I can’t remember what I’d gotten to—that’s gone blank—when I realized he was in trouble. I pulled him up. He was just limp, I remember that. I remember he wasn’t moving. Sophia—our nanny—had jumped in. I don’t know if I could’ve gotten him to the side and out if she wasn’t there.”

Saying nothing, nothing yet, she laid a hand on his cheek and just listened.

“For a minute that seemed like hours, I thought he was dead. I thought I’d just floated and splashed around while my brother died. Then he was coughing up water, and he was fine.

“Nothing before, nothing after has ever scared me like that.”

“You saved him.”

“Actually, it’s more Sophia saved us both. We still send her flowers every Mother’s Day. Anyway, the point. Nobody has the right to decide someone else doesn’t have the right to live. And you’re entitled to take it hard.”

Touched, she brushed his hair back. “You gave me the other side of the coin. Thanks to you and Sophia, my sister’s going to marry the man she loves, start a life with him. And between them, they’ll make new lives. A happy ending, and I needed one today. Thanks.”

Angling her head, she laid her lips on his.

When she started to ease back, he put his hand on the back of her head, took the kiss deeper, spun it out longer.

“It’s Friday night.” Now he ran that hand down her back. “Have another glass of wine.”

“I think I will. I suppose you want another beer.”

“It’s Friday night. We can take them in the bedroom so you can hold up your end of the deal on the jalapeno poppers.”

“I only ate two, but a deal’s a deal. We need to take Tic out first.”

“At home we can just open the door. He stays close, comes back.”

“So we’ll make sure he knows to do that here. Then he gets his after-dinner treat.”

“Fine, as long as I get mine.”

Laughing, she went to get their coats while he topped off her wine.

Tic, alerted by the coats, stirred from his snooze to race to Sloan, race back to Nash as he pulled out another beer, then back to Sloan. All the while yipping with joy. When Sloan opened the door, he flew out, a tail-wagging arrow from the bow.

Since they went out the back, Nash took stock.

“You could have a decent patio here.”

“Mudroom first.”

“Right, mudroom.”

While the dog ran off his after-snooze energy, Nash wandered around the side of the house with Sloan.

“I could do about sixty-four square feet if I go for stackables for the laundry. Just enough room for that, a small counter for folding, drying rod above, cabinet below for supplies. A bench on the other side, with boot/shoe storage under and coat hooks above.”

“It’s a good plan. Better one is to have a carport beside it. Door there.” He gestured. “You pull under out of the weather, go straight into your drop zone, and through there to the kitchen.”

“I thought of that, but it means curving the driveway around to it.”

“Better than tromping through the snow or the rain or whatever to get to the side door. And your driveway’s crap anyway.”

“It’s crap anyway.” She watched Tic roll around in the snow. “He gets that from Mop. He’s a good dog, Nash. A sweet-natured, playful people pleaser.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you reached for your ball-peen hammer and found him chewing on the handle.”

“Yes, I would.”

She took his hand as they circled her cottage on a cold, clear, star-strewn night where the three-quarter moon sailed as white as the snow under their feet.

When he turned her, kissed her under that moon, those stars, she admitted she hadn’t known how to answer his question. What was she looking for?

But in that moment, it seemed she’d found it.