Dylan turned onto a tidy street a block off Main and parked in a space in front of David’s office. Behind a sliding window in the empty waiting room, a no-nonsense female in stiff white cotton took Dylan’s measure.

“I’d like to see Dr. Collier.” He flashed the disarming grin that usually worked to his advantage.

“He isn’t in yet, and he isn’t taking new patients.” Attila the Nurse appeared unphased by the show-stopping grin. “Would you like to make an appointment to see Dr. Harris?”

The thought of allowing Clayton near him with pointed or sharp instruments was enough to give him a case of hives. “It’s personal. Would you ask Dr. Collier to call me?”

Dylan was determined not to retreat, and the nurse seemed just as reluctant to relent. Before a victor in the mental power struggle emerged, the older doctor strolled in from the back of the building. Dylan detected a flicker of resignation cross his normally expressionless face. Attila stood in the old man’s presence.

Dylan cleared his throat. “Good morning, Doctor. Could you spare me a few minutes?”

The doctor looked at his watch, and then at his sentry.

“You’re to meet with the mayor in fifteen minutes,” she warned, taking a seat behind the desk.

“This won’t take long, Ethel. Let me know when he arrives.”

Chapter Nine

David turned and exited. The nurse grudgingly gave Dylan permission to follow.

The doctor had settled into a leather chair in his office before Dylan entered. Chock-full of books, files, plants, charts, and even a skeleton hanging in one corner, the room also contained a massive oak desk and a couple of well-worn chairs. An ancient yellow cat with a bandaged paw lay curled up in one of them. He could picture Gracie here. Her big heart and hometown charm would fit right in with the cranky doctor and wounded cat.

Dylan took the vacant seat. Doubting David had much patience for small talk, Dylan hesitated over a starting point for their conversation. “How long have you been practicing in East Langden?”

“Long time,” the doctor said, as chatty as ever.

“Did you know my father and uncle?”

He shrugged. “Some.”

“And you were Lana Harris’s cousin?”

“Right.” The old man clasped his hands on the desktop.

“Before her disappearance, did she confide in you about her personal life?”

“No.”

Dylan again cursed his under-developed interrogation skills but pressed onward. “Do you know the names of any men she used to go out with?”

The doctor raised and lowered his scraggly eyebrows, the facial equivalent of a shrug. At last! A reaction.

“Where do you think she went when she disappeared?”

His expression went from poker-faced to frozen. “I don’t think she went anywhere.”

Wow, a complete sentence. They were on a roll. “Then where is she?”

He paused before answering. “I think she’s dead.”

“Why do you think so?”

Another pause. “She never came back.”

Shifting in his seat, Dylan thumped his foot against the adjacent chair leg, disturbing the marmalade cat. Green eyes blinked open and stared up at him. He reached out to pet it, but the cat preferred otherwise. It gingerly got to its feet then stepped stiffly onto the desk and parked its rump beside David’s clasped hands. The doctor’s absent stroking between the cat’s ears transformed the animal into a purring machine.

Watching the doctor with this ancient feline, Dylan noticed the gentleness in the old man’s touch. His patients probably found his calm manner just as soothing and relaxing as the cat. Dylan wondered if anyone else found his brevity as annoying as he did.

“Do you know who Clayton’s father is?” he asked, weary of the game.

David’s hand smoothed rhythmically along the cat’s spine. “No.”

Dylan ground his teeth in frustration. “Would you tell me if you did?”

The doctor gave Dylan a long, undecipherable look. “If it would help Clay.”

Tired of bashing his head against this brick wall, Dylan decided to take one more shot before leaving. “Do you know anything that would help?”

David closed his eyes and nodded. “I know that Lana’s house was paid for.”

Dylan’s eyebrows shot upward. “What?”

“After she disappeared, I found the deed in her name, along with a letter from a Connecticut law firm. She didn’t make enough at the beauty shop to pay off a house.”

“Do you remember the name of the firm?” Dylan prodded.

“Latham, Benning, and Brown.”

Bile rose up from Dylan’s stomach, but he squelched it. Dwight Latham had been his father’s personal lawyer. Not that that fact alone meant anything. He’d probably had thousands of clients. Still, Dylan couldn’t deny the connection.

“I’ll look into it,” he said, standing. “Thank you for seeing me.”

Dismissing him without a glance, David scooped up the cat and placed it in his lap. He lifted the animal’s injured paw and began unwrapping the gauze.

Before stepping out the door, Dylan turned back in a move that was probably more like Inspector Clouseau than Poirot, but still. “One more question. I understand you were the one to find my father’s body after his death. What can you tell me about that?”

The cat yelped suddenly and dove to the floor. David’s jaw clenched. “Nothing that wasn’t in the report I gave to the police.”

“I’d like to hear the details from you.”

“I doubt I remember anything new after all this time.”

Dylan persisted. “Is it true that you and my father were friends?”

“Acquaintances.”

“You were the company doctor for Old Maine Furniture.”

David pursed his lips. “Yes.”

“What were you doing—”

“Excuse me, Doctor,” said a voice from behind Dylan. “The mayor’s here.”

Daring Dylan  _2.jpg

A trip to the county court-house fifty miles away revealed that Lana Harris’s Cordial Street property was paid for the year Clayton was born.

Dylan pondered the significance of that fact while tracing the whereabouts of Horace Whitherspoon, the previous owner of the house. Unfortunately, Horace had died ten years after the sale.

A call to Latham, Benning, and Brown revealed Dwight Latham had passed away over a year ago. Latham’s son assured him the firm would cooperate as much as they could within the confines of attorney-client privilege. Meaning they wouldn’t cooperate at all. He called Uncle Arthur to see if he could smooth the way, but the senator was in a meeting.

Dylan’s next hope hinged on the realtor having some recollection of the transaction, but he struck out there, too. The realtor had retired to Phoenix three summers ago.

Even though Dylan had expected discrediting Clayton to be a no-brainer, the idea of sending for the detective his mother had hired was starting to take on new appeal.

On a separate and more aggravating issue, no one in East Langden was available to help Dylan with the renovation of his cabin. They all claimed to be booked up with the Spring Blossom Festival, an event that obviously required extensive carpentry and full-scale participation of the local citizenry.

Dylan reconsidered Uncle Arthur’s offer to send laborers up from Connecticut immediately, but rejected it. If the locals decided to cooperate, they’d be an invaluable source of information. He didn’t want to risk pissing them off by hiring outsiders.

For the second day in a row, Dylan drove back to Liberty House in defeat. After parking his rental car beside the garage, he went around back to see if Gracie was still washing windows. All of the panes of glass sparkled in the sunlight, and the ladder was gone. To locate her, Dylan followed the sound of MacDuff’s bark.

He discovered her planting a border of flowers along the garden path. The Scottie bounded about, the end of his leash looped around a bench leg. A wheelbarrow containing a flat of plants and a bag of potting soil sat nearby. A garden hose curled beside Gracie’s knee and emitted a thin stream of water.


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