“What do you mean gone? When? Where?” Alec demanded.

The private detective at the other end of the phone didn’t seem riled by Alec’s temper at all, and that only pissed Alec off more. “He’s gone on leave. Apparently, it’s something he does every summer and it’s not unusual for it to be for long stretches at a time. The hospital said Dr. Samuels is semi-retired and only practices part-time now. That’s all I could get out of them. I think it’s worth trying to track him down, though. The police have decided there’s nothing to Laura’s disappearance. They won’t share the CCTV tapes from the hospital or the airport, but they said they have her on tape looking safe, not coerced, and quite well. They’re saying she left of her own volition and there’s nothing more they can do.”

“That’s crazy. She stands to inherit her husband’s substantial estate and she’s nowhere to be found? How could that possibly be of her own volition? I don’t buy it. Find that doctor and see what he has to do with this. I’ve always thought it was a little odd for him to want to check a woman who was only a few months pregnant into the hospital just because her husband died. Why wouldn’t he just send her home and have her family doctor check on her? Find out what the hell he had to do with Laura’s disappearance and where that man went,” Alec said and disconnected the call.

Dammit. What was Laura Kensington up to?

Alec hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep since she’d gone missing. He stared out the window at the front lawn of Patrick and Laura’s home. He’d kept the staff on so far, but he’d need to close up the home and send them packing soon. So far no one had questioned his presence there as he’d quietly searched through Patrick’s things, but a cursory search wasn’t cutting it. He needed to tear this place apart and no one could see him do that.

“Sir?”

“What!” Alec snapped at the gardener who stood just outside Patrick’s home office door. The man blanched, but held his ground.

“I thought you should see this, sir. I didn’t know who else to show. Mrs. Kensington has not been here at all since Miss Laura has gone missing, so I don’t know if I should call her or…” the gardener said, letting the thought trail off.

“No, it’s fine. What is it?” Alec put a calm mask on his face and waited with all the appearance of a patient man.

The squat tanned man in front of him produced a bag from behind his back. It was smeared with dirt, but he could see the contents plainly through the clear plastic. Cash. A lot of it.

Alec took the bag and dumped the contents on the desk, ignoring the dirt that marred the once-clean surface. A quick scan told Alec there was likely at least twenty thousand dollars in cash and what looked like a driver’s license. Alec picked up the rectangle of plastic and flipped it over. The picture was of Laura Kensington, but the name said Laura Keller, and the license was from the State of Rhode Island instead of Connecticut.

Alec stared at the license for a few seconds trying to figure out what the hell Laura Kensington—or whoever she was—was up to.

“Where did you find it?” he asked the man.

“Buried in one of the planters in the greenhouse. Miss Laura had always tended to the plants in the greenhouse herself, but since she’s gone, I do it to make sure her beautiful plants don’t die. I saw the bag sticking out from the dirt,” the gardener mumbled, as if caught doing something he shouldn’t have done.

“Have you told anyone else?” Alec asked.

“No. No, sir.” He shook his head.

Alec opened his wallet and slipped the license into it, then grabbed a handful of the cash from the desk and tossed it to the gardener.

“This is yours. You never found the cash or the license. You’ve been saving money for a new car, a bit at a time if anyone asks where you got that amount of cash. Just make damn sure no one hears about this, you got it?”

The man nodded vigorously, holding the money as if he were afraid it might bite him. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Oh, and one more thing. Stay out of the greenhouse from now on. I’ll take care of searching the rest of the plants, but I don’t want anyone else in there from now on.”

Alec watched the man leave the room before lifting his phone. He’d have his lawyer take care of letting the staff go and closing up the house until Laura Kensington was found. They’d hire a caretaker to come once a week and check on things and a lawn service to keep up the property from time to time rather than the full staff that existed now. The lawyer could easily be fooled into thinking Alec was simply trying to help his partner’s widow out by maintaining the home without keeping up the expense of a full staff. Alec sneered as he waited for his lawyer’s secretary to answer the phone. Manipulating people had gotten all too easy to do. It almost took the fun out of things.

* * *

Mark entered the hospital cafeteria and approached the table where he’d left his partner to call Alec. Paul handed him a cup of coffee. It wasn’t half bad—which was good, considering they’d spent a lot of time here in the past few weeks.

“What’d he have to say?” Paul asked.

“Wants us to track down the doctor, make sure he doesn’t have anything to do with this. I got a feeling the doctor’s involved somehow, though,” Mark said.

“Yeah, what makes you think that?” asked Paul, eyeing Mark over the rim of his cup.

Mark shrugged. “Just a gut feeling. You know what else I have a gut feeling about?”

Paul didn’t answer but looked up, expectant.

“I have a feeling Alec wants more from Laura Kensington than just to find her and make sure she’s okay, or to bring her back for Mrs. Kensington,” Mark said. “I get the feeling Alec has something else riding on finding this lady.”

“You think he’ll hurt her when he finds her?” Paul asked.

“You and I both know Alec isn’t the upstanding businessman everyone thinks he is. He’s had his hands in some nasty dealings in his time. And, somehow, he always manages to come out smelling like daisies at the end of the day. He makes damn sure of it. I don’t know why he wants her, but I don’t think he has anything good planned for Laura Kensington.”

Paul put his coffee cup down and looked Mark square in the eye. “Is that going to be a problem?”

Mark shrugged again, face bland—impassive. “Not for me. You?”

Paul shook his head. “Nope. Not for me. I just figure we need to be ready to cover our asses when things go pear-shaped on us. If we don’t watch him, we’re liable to get caught up in whatever Alec Hall has going on.”

Mark nodded, then gestured across the room with his chin. “There’s our favorite talkative nurse’s aide.”

Pollyanna—as the men called her—was making a beeline for them, a broad smile on her face. She was the type of woman who always seemed to be trolling for a man. The type of nurse’s aide who gave those who worked hard a bad name. It appeared she usually went after doctors, trying to nail down one to keep for her very own, but lately the private detectives had monopolized a great deal of her attention. It seemed that PIs were exciting enough to draw her interest away from the docs—temporarily, at least. The men had been exploiting her as much as possible and planned to continue doing so now.

“Hello, boys.” She sidled up to the table and gave them both a cheeky smile. “What brings my two favorite hunks here again?”

Without missing a beat, Paul launched into a lie. “We were supposed to be meeting Dr. Samuels to do some follow-up on the Laura Kensington case, but he must have forgotten our appointment. We were told he’s gone on indefinite leave.”

Mark affected a nonchalant look. “No biggie, really. It was just routine follow-up to close our files and now, instead of working the case, we can spend your coffee break with you.” He graced her with his panty-melting smile, and she actually sighed and leaned in closer to him.

Good grief.

“He goes away all the time,” she said conspiratorially. “Although, never without telling us when he’ll be back. Some people are saying he’s not coming back. That he’s just using up his leave time and then he’ll retire when it’s over. He doesn’t have any of his own patients anymore—he just covers for the other doctors and rotates around.”

Paul grinned and glanced over at Mark. “Must be a nice life. We should take some time off, Mark. We ought to learn from our elders instead of working so danged much.”

Mark grunted. “You might be right.” He turned to face Pollyanna and tossed an arm around the back of her chair. “What does Doc Samuels do when he goes away? He have a fishing place or something like that?”

She took the bait easily, a sloppy smile on her face as she practically snuggled into his arm and purred like a damn cat.

Fish. Barrel. Bang.

“No, he goes to some ranch his friends own. Spends a few weeks there every summer. I bet that’s where he is now,” she said.

Paul guffawed. “Ranch! There aren’t any ranches around here.”

Pollyanna just smiled and shook her head at him, a small pout pushing out her polished lower lip. “Not here, silly. In Texas. Ever-something. Ever… Ever… Everwood, Evermont. I don’t know. Ever-somewhere or other,” she said with a flip of her hair.

“Well, we don’t have any friends with a ranch so we’ll need to find another way to spend our time off, won’t we Mark?” Paul asked, a grin splitting his face as he eyed his partner. He knew if Laura Kensington was with the doctor, they’d find her soon.