The last thing she wanted was for Rick Dornier to feel uncomfortable right now.
She picked up the plate with his sandwich. “I’m taking a break, Steve, okay?” she called to the young man who was expertly foaming milk for a cappuccino.
He nodded in acknowledgement but didn’t take his attention off his masterwork.
Maggie grinned. It hadn’t been that long ago she’d considered overbrewed sludge the standard for coffee and flavored artificial creamer the height of class. Her life was never going to be the same after Joe’s.
As she always did, she paused to greet the customers she knew personally. An important part of her job was getting to know them, remembering names and faces and facts. Fortunately, it was also one of her favorite parts of the job.
She’d long ago accepted that the moral ambiguities involved were also part of the job, no matter how uncomfortable they sometimes were.
When she got to Rick’s table, he surprised her by standing and pulling out a chair for her.
“Thanks.”
“No, thank you. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was ’til you brought up the subject.” He slid into his chair with a distracting, loose-limbed grace, then took the plate from her and popped an olive into his mouth. “Mmmm. Good. The sandwich looks even better.”
“It is.” She let him take a couple of bites before she broached the question that interested her almost as much as it interested him. “Do you have any idea where Tina might be?”
He paused with the sandwich halfway to his mouth, then grimaced and set it back down.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Her roommate, Grace, suggested I talk to you. She said that Tina had mentioned you, talked about you.”
“She did?” Maggie studied him warily. “Why would Tina talk about me?”
“I don’t know. I guess she considered you a friend.”
Maggie repressed a quick stab of guilt. She should be used to that by now, too. Guilt was another of those work-related ambiguities she had to live with.
“I liked Tina,” she said, keeping her tone light. “We talked sometimes when I wasn’t busy, or she wasn’t lost in her studies. She never mentioned anything that might have kept her away from class for two weeks.”
But was that because Tina had nothing to share, or because she didn’t dare risk sharing it?
“You say the police looked into it?” She said it casually, careful to keep just the right note of concerned interest in her voice without playing it up too much.
“Yeah.” He frowned at his scarcely eaten sandwich, then shoved the plate away. “They said there was nothing to indicate any problems, that a couple of people besides Grace mentioned a guy she was talking to at the Good Times bar. You know the place?”
Maggie nodded.
“Did Tina ever mention a man? A boyfriend? Somebody she might have gone away with for a couple of weeks?”
Maggie shook her head. “No. I got the impression she was more interested in her studies than in men.”
“That’s my impression, too. I know Mom nagged her about it.” He smiled a little wistfully. “She looks like this quiet little mouse, but from what I’ve seen, she’s got a mind of her own. Always thinking, though it isn’t always easy to tell exactly what she’s thinking.”
I noticed that, too. Maggie didn’t express the thought to Rick.
“Were the police able to identify this guy Tina was seen talking to?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Grace said he looked sort of like Tom Cruise. A young Tom Cruise. Have you seen anyone like that around here?”
Maggie had to smile. “This is a college town. It’s swarming with good-looking, young guys, and more than a couple of them could give Tom Cruise a run for his money in the looks department.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“The police evidently did. Who’d you talk to down at the station?” She made that question sound casual, too.
“An Officer Padilla. He wanted to be helpful, but…” Rick shrugged, clearly frustrated. “I talked to the chief of police, too.”
“You talked to David Bursey?” She jerked upright in her chair, surprised.
“That’s right.” Dornier studied her. “You know him?”
“A little,” she said cautiously.
Damn! She would have to be a hell of a lot more careful if Bursey was taking an interest in Tina’s disappearance.
“He comes in every now and then for coffee,” she said casually, as if it didn’t matter. At least the part about the coffee was one hundred percent truthful. “What’d he say?”
His eyes narrowed angrily. “He said there was nothing to indicate a problem. That Tina had been seen talking to a good-looking guy, then evidently had gone home and packed a small bag and left. He said a lot of college kids did that when the opposite sex was more appealing than their studies.”
“Not Tina.” Maggie knew it, and if Bursey had taken the time to spin that little yarn for Tina’s brother, then he knew it, too. The question was, how much else did the chief of police know? And what was she going to do about it?
“No,” Dornier agreed grimly, “not Tina.”
A sudden stab of…something—longing? Regret? Envy, maybe?—hit Maggie. What would it be like to have a brother who could get so quietly, dangerously angry at even a hint of doubt against you? Who would drop everything and drive eight hundred miles the minute he learned you were in trouble?
She forced the thought away. Life, she’d long ago decided, was what you made of whatever you were handed. Wishing for what you didn’t have was a waste of energy.
“Have you talked to anybody besides the police?” she asked. “And Tina’s roommate. What did you say her name was? Grace? Besides suggesting you talk to me, what did she say?”
Maggie had no intention of revealing just how much she knew about Grace Navarre. What she needed was to know how much Rick Dornier knew, then decide what she was going to do about it.
Even as Rick told Maggie about the people he’d talked to and the little information he’d gathered that day, he wasn’t sure why he was doing it. He’d never been one to spill his guts to strangers…until now.
Maggie Mann made a good sandwich. She had a nice smile and a great body and just looking at her was distracting, but none of that was reason for chewing her ear off about his worries. Especially since she had more questions than he did, and not one answer. And yet, he couldn’t stop talking. After twenty-four hours of nonstop worry, it was a relief to share that worry with someone who was
