Vanished (Private Justice Book #1): A Novel by Irene Hannon Page B

of her mouth. “I do walk with a friend two or three times a week, though. So do you have one of those century houses that are all over this area?”
    His cone cracked as he involuntarily tightened his grip. He grabbed for the top with his free hand, supporting it as it collapsed.
    “Whoops! Let me get you a paper cup. Hang on.”
    Before he could respond, Moira jumped to her feet and took off for the stand with her long-legged stride, smiling and offering some comment he couldn’t hear as she bypassed the line that had formed. She was back in less than a minute, brandishing the cup.
    He dumped his ice cream into it. She stuck a spoon in the top, then handed him some napkins she’d tucked into her pocket.
    “Close call.” She retook her seat and examined her own waffle cone as he wiped the sticky residue from the melting ice cream off his fingers. “They must not be making these as sturdy as they used to. Okay, where were we? Oh . . . I’d asked about your house.”
    So much for any hope that the ice-cream incident might have distracted her.
    He finished cleaning off his fingers, wadded up the napkins, and picked up his spoon. “It’s a small older home, but not in the century category. Most of those are in Webster and Kirkwood.”
    “Have you lived there long?”
    His throat constricted, and he swallowed. “Seven years. My wife and I bought it when we got married.”
    “Oh.”
    Her sudden lapse into silence told him his attempt at a conversational tone had failed. As he was fast learning, Moira had a keen aptitude for picking up nuances.
    “You know, there’s one thing I forgot to mention in this whole weird story about vanishing people.”
    Her change of subject was telling as well. The lady also had a well-developed sense of empathy—and consideration.
    “What’s that?” He took a bite of his salvaged ice cream cone.
    “The Good Samaritan guy said there was broken glass on my seat. And I felt it digging into my thigh. Now here’s the weird part. Other than the taillight, the repair shop didn’t find any broken glass. But I had a bruise in the exact spot where I felt something sharp.”
    If she was trying to take his mind off their previous topic, she’d succeeded.
    “Any other bruises?”
    “No. Except for my forehead. Mainly I had sore muscles. And the bruise wasn’t big. Quarter size, at most.”
    He took another spoon of ice cream as he mulled that over. “How much glass was there?”
    “I don’t know. The man who stopped thought he saw blood on the passenger seat, and I twisted sideways to check it out. That’s when I felt the glass. I think I said ow, and he had me hold still while he brushed it off the seat. Except . . . there wasn’t any glass.”
    “And not long after that you lost consciousness. For an hour. From a mild concussion.”
    She let a beat of silence pass. “What are you suggesting?”
    “Maybe he injected you with some kind of knockout drug.”
    Her eyes widened. “And I thought the ring connection was a stretch.”
    He leaned forward, the explanation feeling more credible by the second. “It never did make sense to me that you’d beunconscious for so long. But if you were drugged? Absolutely. And getting you out of the picture could let him finish whatever you stumbled across.”
    Her fingers clenched around her napkin. “You’re thinking he wasn’t a passing motorist at all. That he was with the woman I saw.”
    “Were there many other cars on that road?”
    “I only saw one. It wasn’t the kind of night people would be out driving unless they had no choice.” A glob of melted ice cream snaked down her cone, onto her hand. She didn’t seem to notice.
    He reached over and wiped it away.
    She didn’t seem to notice that, either.
    “And who better to have access to a powerful knockout drug than a medical professional—like a doctor. But why would he have had such a thing with him?” She blinked and blew out a breath. “Are we grabbing at straws