Acts of Mercy

FIFTEEN

Agent Parrish, what else can I get for you?” Trula stood at the side of the kitchen table, her hands on her hips, and pointedly ignored the glare Robert was sending her way.

He knew she was ignoring him, knew the FBI agent had overstayed his welcome now by about two hours. Two hours the man had spent mostly talking to Susanna.

“Not another thing. You’ve already been way too good to me,” the agent replied. “I haven’t tasted cookies like that since my grandmother stopped baking and took up tennis.”

“How old was she when she did that?” Trula asked as if it really mattered.

“She was into her sixties when she started taking lessons.”

“God bless her,” Trula smiled.

“Let’s wrap this up, can we?” Robert grumbled. He’d had about enough of this good-looking guy monopolizing Susanna’s time. He had a business to run, and Suse was an integral part of it. He glanced at the clock. It was now late in the afternoon, well past the time Suse usually left for home.

“Ms. Jones, I’m just so impressed that you were able to locate the exact place where Mrs. Magellan’s car went off the road, after all that time, and after all those law enforcement agencies had given up.” Luke Parrish’s smile was one of admiration.

“There was no giving up,” Susanna replied. “And call me Susanna.”

“Then call me Luke.” The agent turned to Robert. “You are so lucky to have such a clever investigator on your staff.”

Before Robert could respond, Susanna said, “Oh, I’m not one of the investigators. I’m Robert’s personal assistant.”

Parrish raised an eyebrow and told Robert, “Her talent is being wasted.” To Susanna, he said, “You should think about applying to the FBI. You’d be great in the field.”

“I’m afraid I’m past the age of recruitment.”

“You have to be kidding. You don’t look a day over thirty,” Parrish told her.

Robert could barely believe his eyes. Susanna was blushing.

Susanna never blushed. At least, Robert could not remember a time when she had.

“So tell me what you’re going to do to find my son,” Robert said to bring everyone back on point.

“As I said earlier, I’m going to spend the day tomorrow with the Sisters of St. Anthony. I’m going to need a list of all the sisters who stayed at the cabin since they started renting it, and a list of everyone the owner ever rented or loaned the cabin to. We’ll start narrowing the search by contacting every one of them. We’ve run the fingerprints that were taken at the cabin but there were no matches, so at least we know that whoever has your son has no criminal record,” he told Robert. “I’m also going to canvass all of the merchants in the area to find out if they remember if anyone was buying baby equipment and food around the time your son disappeared. It’s a pretty rural area, the town’s small. Most places like that remember strangers. Maybe not that far back, but we’ll see what we can find. It’s a starting place.”

“The accident was in February,” Susanna said. “The cabin isn’t heated. Maybe whoever was staying there bought wood for the fireplace from one of the locals, or maybe propane for the stove.”

“An excellent suggestion.” Parrish turned to her. “See, what did I tell you? You’ve got really good instincts.”

Robert cleared his throat and Trula shot him a dirty look.

“Well, I need to get going.” The agent stood. “Trula, I can’t thank you enough for your hospitality.”

“Well, here.” Trula busied herself at the counter. She handed him a small bag. “Take some of those coconut cookies with you.”

“I’d be polite and refuse them if they weren’t so delicious,” he said. “Thank you. I’ll snack on these later.” He turned to Robert and extended his hand, which Robert took and shook with what he thought would be a bone-crunching grip. Parrish merely smiled and returned the crunch.

“Robert, I’ll be back to you as soon as I have something for you.”

“I hope it’s soon.”

“So do I.” The agent nodded again to Trula as he started for the door.

“I’ll walk out with you, Luke,” Susanna told him. “I should be heading home now. Bye, Trula. Robert, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Right.” Robert remained standing until Parrish and Susanna left by the back door.

“Isn’t his car out front?” Robert frowned.

“I’m sure he’s just being polite and walking Suse to her car,” Trula pointed out.

“Suse always manages to find it on her own,” he grumbled.

He pretended to sort through that day’s household mail, his eyes straying every few seconds to the backyard, where Susanna and Luke Parrish were in an animated conversation.

After nearly ten minutes, he said, “What do you suppose they’re talking about all this time?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Rob. Why don’t you go on outside and find out?” The smug tone in Trula’s voice was unmistakable.

He shot her another dirty look before going back to the window. Susanna and Parrish were standing close to her car now, still talking. Damn.

All at once, he saw Chloe running down the drive. When she saw Susanna, she came to a quick stop, then skipped over and said something that made Susanna and Parrish laugh. Then the kitten she and Trula had adopted from the local shelter and named Foxy ran into a nearby flower bed, and Chloe’s attention was diverted.

Robert remained fixated at the window, his curiosity just about killing him. The agent was clearly flirting with Susanna, and if Robert wasn’t mistaken, she was flirting back.

“He’s flirting with her,” he told Trula.

“Of course he’s flirting with her. She’s a very lovely woman, and he’s not a blind man.” She added under her breath, “Unlike some others I might mention.”

“What?” Robert looked over his shoulder.

“I said, why wouldn’t he be attracted to her? Suse is very pretty, she’s smart, she’s funny-” She paused. “Was that a harrumph I just heard? Did you harrumph?”

“No.”

Robert stood back from the window as Chloe came running through the back door, the kitten in her arms.

“Trula, I think Foxy is hungry. She was trying to eat a bug.” Chloe set the cat on the floor. “A very big bug. Like a grasshopper, but with long long legs and a funny little head.”

“A praying mantis?” Trula asked.

Chloe shrugged. “I don’t know if it was praying, but it was big.”

“Chloe, did Susanna introduce you to Agent Parrish?” Robert asked.

“Uh-huh.” Her dark head bobbed up and down.

“Did you happen to hear what they were talking about?”

Trula shot him a look of disapproval but she said nothing.

“Uh-huh. The man was asking Susanna where is a good place to have dinner and Susanna told him some places and how to get to them.”

“So she just gave him directions…?”

“Uh-uh. She started to, but he said, why don’t you pick your favorite and join me.”

“What did she say?” Robert leaned against the counter.

“She said, okay, you can follow me and we can-”

“She said okay?”

“Uh-huh.” Chloe sat on the floor attempting to distract the kitten while Trula prepared its dinner.

Robert scowled and looked out the window in time to see Parrish’s car pull to one side of the driveway in order to let Suse’s car pass before falling in line behind her.

“Damn,” Robert whispered as he watched both cars ease down the drive and disappear through the gates.