His Brother's Bride

“Did you say Carl Nevil?”

Laurel glanced sharply at Scott. He’d sounded odd. Like he was trying not to choke.

“Yeah, you know of him?”

“Maybe.” Scott’s answer was vague, but there was nothing vague about his response to this interview. He was really bothered.

And that bothered Laurel most of all.

* * *

THERE WAS NO JOKE-TELLING that afternoon. And no more leads, either. Officer Murphy had given them the address of Dennis’s apartment—an old house he was renting, or half a house, to be precise. Dennis’s apartment had been renovated, while the other side of the house stood in vacant disrepair, waiting its turn.

No one answered Arnett’s door when they knocked, so they made a quick tour of the yard.

“At least Leslie’s car isn’t in the garage,” Laurel said as they stood on the front lawn, which needed a good mowing, and looked up at the vacant house. There was no sign of life anywhere. No junk mail. No newspapers.

They went to the car dealership next. Laurel wasn’t really surprised to hear that Dennis Arnett wasn’t there. The people she and Scott looked for were never where they were supposed to be.

“He worked on Saturday morning,” the sales manager told them. “We traditionally run a big sale this time of year and the entire front end of the dealership is required to work. He’s been off the last few days but he’s scheduled for the three to nine o’clock shift today. You folks friends of his?”

“Friends of the family,” Scott said, his jaw tense. “We’ll stop in later.”

“Can I give him a message?” The manager followed them out to the parking lot.

Thanking him for his offer, Scott explained that they were from out of town and it would be easier if they ch

ecked back in themselves. When they did, they found that Dennis hadn’t shown up for work that day.

Scott called Murphy to report the news. While Arnett was not required to let his parole officer know if he was going to miss a day’s work, he was required to stay in town. And to let Murphy know where he was staying.

“It looks like Arnett might be violating his parole,” he told Laurel as he dropped the cell phone into the console between them. He sat in the parking lot at the dealership, staring straight ahead. “Why does this not surprise me?”

Laurel wished there was something she could do to make things better for him. They paid another visit to Leslie’s after they left the dealership, but it proved to be equally futile.

They’d reached a standstill. If Arnett didn’t return, they were going to have to wait for his next meeting with Murphy two days later to question him.

If he showed up.

All in all, it had been a tough day.

* * *

AS SHE AND SCOTT finished dinner in a diner close to the motel, Laurel really started to lose hope. She just couldn’t come up with a good reason for William Byrd not to have at least called Twin Oaks to say he’d been delayed somewhere.

Or to explain why his car was at Cecilia’s, but he wasn’t; and Cecilia’s car was at Leslie’s, but she wasn’t.

“There was a park just a couple blocks from the motel,” she said as they exited the restaurant. “Would you mind taking a walk with me?”

As tired as she was, she knew the fatigue was more mental than physical. The thought of sitting alone in the motel room with nothing to do was not the least bit appealing.

And inviting Scott in was out of the question.

“Lead the way,” he said. “I’d be glad for the exercise.”

Moonlight lit the park better than streetlights could have, but it wasn’t a place Laurel would have wanted to be alone that late at night. Yet with Scott she felt perfectly safe. Energized, even.

“You have days like today fairly regularly, don’t you?” she asked him.