But he didn’t really hold out much hope. Cooper’s Corner seemed to breed lifelong love, unrequited or not.
Look at him, still loving Laurel, and Laurel so much in love with Paul.
Hell yeah, of course Castleman still loved Wendy Monroe. Poor fool.
* * *
“YEAH, I SAW HIM,” Castleman said when Scott showed him Byrd’s photo.
With an urgency he’d been itching to feel all day, Scott handed the photo to Laurel and reached for his notebook.
“When? Where?” Laurel asked.
Scott didn’t have time to bother with the appreciation he recognized in the younger man’s eyes as Seth looked at Laurel. He didn’t have time. But he was bothered.
“In here. Saturday afternoon.”
Scott and Laurel exchanged glances.
“He was with some woman,” Seth continued, taking a bite of his home-style meat loaf.
“Can you describe her?” Scott asked.
“Slender, nicely dressed, average height. Mid to late fifties.”
Scott looked up from his notebook. “Gray hair?”
Nodding, Seth said, “Silver. I didn’t see her up close so guess I can’t say for the record who she was,” he admitted, “but at the time I was certain she was the widow who bought the Wallace place outside of New Ashford. She’s using it for a summer home. I did some work out there shortly after she bought the place, but I only met her once. Most of my dealings were with the Realtor.”
New Ashford was Cooper’s Corner’s neighboring village, and the Wallace place, while beautiful, was well-known only in that it had once been owned by a famous ballet dancer, and then later, an eccentric artist, neither of whom visited often. Mostly the property stood vacant.
“You’re pretty sure it was her, though?” Scott asked.
“Unofficially?”
Scott nodded.
“I’m certain it was. I don’t remember her name, though. The realty company paid my bill.”
Taking a seat in a vacant booth, Scott pulled out his cell phone and made some calls to find out the name of the woman who’d recently purchased the Wallace place, while Laurel ordered cranberry cobbler and sodas for both of them.
“Any luck?” she asked as he switched off his phone.
“None. Everyone’s gone home. We’ll have to wait till morning.”
“Should we drive out there? Take a look around?”
Scott shook his head. “It’s not like we’d be able to see anything in the dark, and until we have an ID on the woman, I’d rather not knock on any doors. Not yet, anyway.”
Laurel gave him an encouraging smile. “It’s less than twelve hours until morning....”
She was right, of course. Still, it was another day further away from Byrd’s safe return. Crime statistics showed pretty conclusively that the longer the man was missing, the less his chances of being found unharmed.
* * *
SCOTT WAS FROWNING. Laurel had to stop herself from reaching over and smoothing her finger along that furrowed brow—an action she’d done to Paul hundreds of times as he’d studied or concentrated on a law brief.
So many times in the past three and a half years she’d regretted letting Paul, her dear, conservative, conscientious lover, talk her into waiting until he passed the bar exam and become established in a firm before they got married. Having to support himself, he’d taken longer than most to get through school, and hadn’t been satisfied with just a junior position in a law firm. It wouldn’t have paid enough to support her and pay off his school loans. He’d had some sweet notion about not having her support him through school, though she’d have been very happy to do so.