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  Daisy didn’t care either, didn’t even look. She was shaken that they had almost made love without protection, that even those few thrusts carried a small amount of risk. Then he surged back into her, and she met his fierceness with her own, demanding everything he could give her.

  Afterward, exhausted, Daisy dozed cuddled against his side while Jack stared at the ceiling and wondered what in hell Todd Lawrence was up to. Something was going on that made him feel antsy and he didn’t like it worth a damn, especially when the uneasiness concerned Daisy. He had damn good ears, and Daisy had been lying under him at the time, the receiver only inches away, he’d heard every word of their telephone conversation. Maybe it was just the instincts of a cop prodding him, because there hadn’t been anything he’d heard that he could honestly say struck him as suspicious, but it seemed to him that Daisy was being guided to certain clubs. He didn’t like that scenario at all.

  He’d been in bars and nightclubs every night except for Sundays since talking to Petersen. He’d seen one episode of a possible date-rape drugging—and that had been at the Buffalo Club on Thursday night, so he’d gone back on both Friday and Saturday to see if he could spot something. As it was, the woman who had possibly been drugged had been with two female friends; Jack had discreetly questioned them, but they had not only allowed men to buy them drinks, they had also left the drinks unattended while they danced or went to the rest room, so there was no telling when or if the drinks had been drugged.

  Both of the other women were sober enough to drive, which made him suspect the third woman had definitely been drugged. He helped them get their friend out to the car, quietly told them to get her to a hospital in case someone had put something in her drink, and saw them on their way before going back inside. Everything had been kept very low key, he didn’t make a disturbance, didn’t identify himself as a cop, because if some bastard was there slipping GHB or whatever into women’s drinks, Jack didn’t want to scare him off. He simply watched, trying to spot something or at least step in if another woman looked to be in trouble, and the next morning he’d called Petersen to tell him they maybe had a starting place.

  Last night had been cut short by the fight, but his heart had almost stopped when he’d seen Daisy on the dance floor. She didn’t seem to realize how she drew the eye with the contrast between her classy clothes and the way all the other women dressed; men watched her, and not just because she was a good dancer. They watched those legs, and the sparkling eyes that said she was having a ball. They noticed her breasts, and the way that red dress had clung to their shape. Even now, with her naked in his arms, just thinking about those breasts made his mouth water. His Miss Daisy was stacked; not overblown, but definitely stacked just right.

  She wanted a husband and kids. He wasn’t in the market for a wife, let alone kids, but he got a burning knot of what he recognized as pure masculine possessiveness at the thought of her actually meeting someone she really liked at one of those clubs, going out with him, sleeping with him, maybe even eventually getting married. He didn’t like that scenario at all. And when he’d realized he had entered her without first putting on a condom, for an earth-tilting moment he had continued thrusting, tempted almost past control at the thought of coming inside her. If he got her pregnant—hey, he’d marry her. They’d made a deal. Being married to Miss Daisy would be a hell of a lot more fun than being married to Heather the Bitch, and look how long he’d stuck that out.

  He knew he was in deep trouble when the thought of getting married didn’t send him running. He glanced down at her sleeping face and gently stroked her bare back. So maybe he’d leave off a condom and see what happened. Naw, he couldn’t do that to her—unless she showed signs of getting serious about someone else, in which case he would fight as dirty as necessary to win.

  SIXTEEN

  The English setter bounded happily through the knee-high weeds, ignoring her owner’s shouted commands. She was a young dog, and this was only her second time in the field. He’d been training her in his yard to retrieve, using a variety of lures, and her hunting instincts usually held sway there. In the field, though, her youthful exuberance sometimes got the best of her. There were so many interesting smells to be investigated, the heady scents of birds, mice, insects, snakes, things she didn’t know and wanted to follow.

  A particularly intriguing odor lingered on the morning air, leading her out of the field and into the woods that lined the field. Behind her, her owner cursed. “Goddammit, Lulu, heel!”

  Lulu didn’t heel, merely wagged her tail and plunged into some underbrush where the scent was stronger. Her sensitive nose quivered as she nosed the earth. Her owner yelled, “Lulu! C’mere, girl! Where are you?” and she wagged her tail as she began digging.

  He saw the waving plume and fought his way through the tangle of vines, briars, and bushes that grew under the trees, cursing with every breath.

  Lulu grew more excited as the scent got stronger. She backed up and barked to signal her agitation, then plunged into the brush again. Her owner picked up his pace, suddenly alarmed, because she seldom barked. “What is it, girl? Is it a snake? Heel, Lulu, heel.”

  Lulu grabbed something with her teeth and began tugging. The thing was heavy and didn’t want to move. She dug some more, dirt flying behind her.

  “Lulu!” Her owner reached her and grabbed her collar, pulling her back, a broken limb in his hand in case he had to fend off a rattler. He stared down at what she had unearthed and staggered back a step, hauling her with him. “Jesus!”

  He looked wildly around, afraid whoever had done this had waited. But the woods were quiet except for the breeze rustling the leaves; he and Lulu had disturbed the birds, and they had either flown off or fallen silent, but he could hear calls and singing in the distance. No shots disturbed the quiet, and no maniac with a big knife plunged out of the trees at him.

  “Come on, girl. Come on,” he said, snapping a leash to the dog’s collar and patting her flank. “You did good. Let’s go find a telephone.”

  Temple Nolan stared down at the piece of paper in his hand, at the tag number written there. He could feel the icy finger of panic tracing down his spine. Someone, a woman, had witnessed Mitchell’s death, though Sykes seemed to think she had either not been paying attention at all or, in the dark, not understood what she was seeing, because she had continued calmly into the Buffalo Club.

  He tried to believe that Sykes was right, but his gut kept twisting. All it took was one loose thread and someone tugging on it to unravel the whole setup. Sykes should have handled Mitchell himself, instead of taking along those two yahoos for help. They should have waited until he wasn’t in a public place before grabbing him. They should have—fuck!—they should have done a lot of things, but now it was too late and all they could do was contain the damage and hope it stopped there.

  He picked up his office phone and dialed Chief Russo’s extension. Eva Fay answered on the first ring. “Eva Fay, this is Temple. Is the chief in?” He always used his first name; for one thing, it made people feel more cooperative. For another, this was a small town and word would get around that he thought he was better than everyone else if he insisted on using his title. He lived in a big house, belonged to the country club in Huntsville and to Hillsboro’s pitiful little excuse for one, he moved in a very exclusive circle, but as long as he still acted like a good old boy, they kept reelecting him.

  “Sure thing, Mayor,” said Eva Fay.

  The chief picked up the line, his deep voice almost like a bark. “Russo.”

  “Jack, this is Temple.” The first name business again. “Listen, on the way in this morning I spotted a car parked in the fire lane over at Dr. Bennett’s office. I wrote down the tag number, but I didn’t want to cause any trouble for any sick folks by calling a deputy to give them a ticket. If you’ll run the tag number for me and give me a name, I thought I’d just give them a call and ask them not to park there again.” No one could play the good old boy the way h