about the telephone call and her fruitless search for the airman’s wife, hoping they’d realize she’d been set up. They’d asked a few questions and talked to the couple, who denied making the call. Afterward, the police had acted even more suspicious.
Sighing, Susan put on her uniform overcoat. The phone rang as she started out the door. Returning to the kitchen, she picked up the receiver.
“Good morning,” she said, hoping it was somebody from the squadron with an urgent assignment for her, something important that would occupy her thoughts.
“Is Captain Wade there?” a man’s voice asked.
Susan’s heart sank at the friendly tone in his voice. He sounded vaguely familiar. Probably one of Brian’s friends, who didn’t know about the murder. She dreaded telling him. “No. Are you a friend of his?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “I’m an agent with Industrial Indemnity Insurance Company. Is this Mrs. Wade?”
“Yes.” Suddenly warm, she shrugged off her overcoat and laid it over the back of a chair.
“This is Derek Archer,” he said. “I’m sorry to call you so early, Mrs. Wade, but I’d hoped to catch your husband before he left for work. Could you give me his number at the office?”
“No,” she said abruptly. “He doesn’t need any more insurance.”
“I’m not trying to sell him a policy, Mrs. Wade. I’m trying to service the one he’s got.” He sounded tired, like a middle-aged man who was fed up with talking to difficult clients. Susan had a good ear for voices. Where had she heard his before?
Trying to be patient, she took a deep breath. “I didn’t know we had a policy with your company.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, you won’t have it long if you don’t get caught up on your premiums. Your husband’s missed the last two.”
Susan’s throat tightened. The last thing she wanted right now was more talk about insurance.
“Mrs. Wade?”
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“I’ll be in Spokane for the next few days at the Riverfront Hotel. That’s where I’m calling from. Tell your husband to call me so we can get this settled—Derek Archer from Industrial Indemnity.” He repeated his name and then gave her the hotel’s telephone number.
Susan didn’t bother to write it down. “My husband’s been dead two months, Mr. Archer. That’s why your premiums weren’t paid.”
There was a long pause. When he spoke, his tone was grave. “My condolences, Mrs. Wade. That puts a different light on things. Maybe we should get together to discuss your husband’s policy while I’m in town. How about lunch in the hotel dining room at noon today?”
Hesitating, she nearly said no. She was trained to be suspicious, and something didn’t seem quite right about this agent with a policy she had no record of. Why was he servicing the policy personally? Didn’t the company notify tardy payers by mail?
Then her natural curiosity took over. What was this man up to? Besides, if an insurance company owed her money, she’d be a fool not to collect it. “Fine,” she told him.
She started to hang up when he spoke again. “How will I recognize you?”
“I’m blond and I’ll be wearing an air force lieutenant’s uniform. How about you?”
“I’ll have a red handkerchief in my coat pocket.”
After she’d hung up, Susan kicked herself for saying yes. After the funeral, she’d examined every document in Brian’s file cabinet and safe-deposit box and had contacted the two insurance companies that carried his policies. Industrial Indemnity wasn’t one of them.
Better not go, she warned herself.
Quickly she dialed the number of the Riverfront Hotel and asked for Derek Archer.
Nobody with that name was registered.
For an instant she stood there motionless, the receiver clutched in her hand.
What kind of game was Derek Archer—if that was his real name—trying to play? Whatever it was, Susan wanted no part of it. She replaced the receiver on its cradle, even more certain he was up to something—maybe a con game to swindle her out of her inheritance. Still, the agent might be for real. If Brian wanted her to have this policy, she felt obligated to check into it.
By ten o’clock, after she’d finished her third cup of coffee, her curiosity had gotten the best of her. Perhaps the young man she’d talked to at the hotel had made a mistake when he examined the register early this morning. Sighing, Susan dialed the hotel again and asked for Mr. Archer.
“I’ll have the operator connect you,” said the clerk. His voice sounded like that of the young man she’d talked to earlier.
“Just a minute,” Susan said. “When I tried to reach Mr. Archer at seven o’clock this morning, you told me he hadn’t checked in. Did you make a mistake?”
There was a short pause. Then a congenial chuckle. “I make a mistake now and then, but this wasn’t one of those times.”
“Can you tell me when he signed in?”
The clerk hesitated. “I can’t say exactly, but I think it was sometime around eight-thirty,” he replied finally. “I’ll ring his room.”
Susan hung up before Derek Archer answered. She spent the time until lunch wondering why he’d tried to give her the impression, early this morning, that he was calling from the hotel when he obviously wasn’t.
She’d test him, she decided. If he lied again, she’d know he was up to something.
Chapter Two
Hesitating, Susan glanced around the hotel lobby, searching for a middle-aged man with a red handkerchief in his pocket. The faint smell of woodsmoke from the stone fireplace, along with the subtle fragrance of fresh flowers, enveloped her. A vaseful of yellow roses stood on a rough-hewn table near the door, another sat on the registration counter.
She couldn’t help staring when she spotted the red handkerchief. The man wearing it looked years younger than she’d expected after talking to Archer on the phone. Though deep frown lines between his dark brows gave him the disturbing, faintly ominous air of someone on a life-or-death mission, he couldn’t be much older than Brian. But in spite of her odd first impression, Susan had to admit he was attractive, in a rugged sort of way.
For an instant she felt an unwelcome tug of interest. He’s been an officer in the service, she thought, eyeing the sharp creases in his pants, the shine on his black loafers. In his gray business suit, he carried himself with the self-confidence that came with military command.
Though he looked tough and lean, she could see his shoulders straining against the confining fabric of his suit, as if he’d gained muscle recently. A couple of unruly strands of curly black hair drooped over his forehead. His eyes, such a dark blue they were almost indigo, clung
