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‘Your feelings are hurt, I get that part. And you deserve to be pissed off, but don’t shoot the messenger. I have to deal with the owners and try to get the best deal for everyone on my staff, including you. I owe it to them all. The best way to fight fire isn’t always with more fire.’

  She nodded half-heartedly. Give him his due, Patrick always had played the game of office politics with the hand of a master. She, on the other hand, tended to speak her mind without first engaging her brain; especially when she was angry. Not a good idea but, hell, it had felt good to tell the owners of the Sentinel where to stick their job.

  Alexi screwed up her features, angry, upset and confused, wondering if Patrick knew how self-centred he sounded. ‘You want me to feel sorry for you?’ she asked. ‘Okay, you have my sympathy. Now get out of here.’

  ‘I thought I’d stay for a few days.’

  ‘I don’t want you here. Besides, you have a paper to run and Cheryl is full this weekend.’

  ‘You think you don’t want me, but I seem to remember when you couldn’t get enough of this.’

  Without warning, his lips covered hers, hard and demanding. Cosmo’s hissing turned into indignant yowls and Alexi half feared for Patrick’s calves. The other half of her befuddled brain was encouraging Cosmo to attack. Before she could knee Patrick in the balls and tell him for a second time to take a hike, the door behind her opened.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ Tyler’s voice said. ‘I didn’t realise you had company.’

  Chapter Nine

  Larry assured Tyler he’d be happy to fit the other two guys Natalie had dated into his schedule first thing the next day. Cassie was a harder nut to crack, proving resilient to Tyler’s most persuasive arguments, seeming to think his reluctance to return to Newbury was all to do with Alexi. She conveniently forgot that the future of his sister’s business hung precariously in the balance.

  Women!

  He’d finally persuaded Cassie to take a look at Natalie’s phone records and get an identity for Charles, but she was sulking and would probably take petty revenge by keep him waiting for answers.

  If Natalie was dead, which Tyler was starting to think was a real possibility, her body could turn up at any time. If that happened, Katie’s agency would be the police’s first port of call and further damage control would be out of Tyler’s hands. He’d tried to explain that to Cassie, but for an intelligent woman she could be damned stubborn sometimes. Anyway, he’d made up his mind. He needed to find Natalie, preferably alive, and put his sister’s mind at rest. If the situation had been reversed, Tyler would have lent Cassie his full support. If she couldn’t return the favour, perhaps they should rethink their business arrangement.

  Tyler’s disgruntled frame of mind wasn’t improved when he walked into the kitchen and found Alexi cosying up with some guy he’d never seen before. He apologised and turned to leave the room.

  ‘Don’t go, Ty.’

  Her voice caused him to pause and look back, asking a question with his eyes.

  ‘Patrick was just leaving.’

  Cosmo stopped making a God-almighty racket, blinked up at Tyler, then stalked across to him, rubbing his big head against his calves as he wound himself around his legs. The man with Alexi—Patrick—looked on with open astonishment.

  ‘Patrick Vaughan, Tyler Maddox,’ Alexi said curtly, walking away and half turning her back on them both. She didn’t embellish the introduction, but then she didn’t need to. Vaughan was obviously her ex-boss, and ex-lover. It looked as though he wanted to plant his boots back under her bed, and Alexi didn’t seem too averse to the idea. Vaughan extended his hand with obvious reluctance. Tyler accepted it with an equal lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘Patrick’s just leaving,’ Alexi said for a second time, breaking the brittle silence when Tyler and Vaughan continued to size one another up without speaking.

  ‘Drive safely,’ Tyler said, heading for the door, Cosmo in his wake. ‘I’ll be in the bar,’ he added for Alexi’s benefit.

  Drew and Cheryl were both already in there, sitting at a table with their backs to the wall, presumably so they could keep a discreet eye on activity in their bar which was half-full with the after work crowd. Drew saw Tyler and beckoned him over.

  ‘What’re you having?’ he asked.

  ‘A beer would hit the spot.’

  ‘I should have warned you Patrick was here,’ Cheryl said while Drew went to get Tyler’s drink. ‘I should have warned Alexi too, for that matter. He’s definitely on her shit list.’

  ‘Could have fooled me,’ Tyler replied absently.

  ‘He just turned up. What was I supposed to do? Deny that Alexi was here?’

  Tyler allowed his surprise to show. ‘He didn’t know?’

  ‘She hasn’t been taking his calls.’ Cheryl screwed up her features. ‘I’ve never liked Patrick much, but it’s not me he’s trying to impress.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Tyler shrugged, unsure what else to say, or why he was so pissed off. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he said, when Drew returned and placed a foaming pint in front of him.

  Tyler took a long draught and felt himself beginning to unwind. He’d disliked and mistrusted Vaughan on sight, and had learned during his years on the force to trust his instincts, but it really wasn’t his problem. He moodily fiddled with a spare drip mat, deciding he was disgruntled because Alexi was selling herself short and deserved better than Vaughan. Yeah, that must be it, he thought as he took another swig of local ale.

  ‘How did you get on this afternoon?’ Cheryl asked. ‘Did you find out anything else about Natalie?’

  ‘More than you could possibly imagine.’

  Tyler turned at the sound of Alexi’s voice. She was alone and didn’t look too unhappy about that situation. She pulled out the chair next to Tyler and sat down.

  ‘White wine, Alexi?’ Drew asked.

  ‘How large do your bar staff pour them?’

  ‘That bad, huh?’

  Drew was laughing as he went off to get her drink.

  ‘Sorry, Alexi,’ Cheryl said. ‘Did I screw up by letting on you were here?’

  ‘No, it’s okay. He would have found me with or without your help. He’s gone now.’

  ‘He said he thought you’d be going back to the paper with him.’

  ‘He was wrong,’ Alexi replied succinctly.

  The largest glass of chilled white wine Tyler had ever seen materialised in front of Alexi. She took a healthy swig and sighed with pleasure.

  ‘Is that a glass or a vase?’ he asked, amused.

  Cosmo, who’d taken up a position beneath the table, resettled himself between Alexi and Tyler. If Tyler reached down to tickle his ears, his hand would be…damn it, get a grip!

  ‘Tyler says you found out some stuff about Natalie,’ Cheryl said, her expression grave.

  ‘Yeah, you could say that.’

  Between them Alexi and Tyler prepared the Hopgoods for a shock and told them just about everything they’d discovered.

  ‘She was an escort?’ Cheryl’s mouth fell open. ‘A hooker?’

  ‘A high-class escort,’ Tyler amended.

  ‘There’s a difference?’ Cheryl shook her head. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘A huge difference, not least in terms of earning power,’ Drew replied before Tyler could.

  ‘And you’d know that because…’ Cheryl turned accusatory eyes on her husband.

  Drew laughed. ‘Not from personal experience.’ He paused, his expression playfully regretful. ‘I don’t have that sort of money.’

  Cheryl punched his arm. ‘She’s attractive enough to make a living that way, and now you mention it, she has a way about her.’ Cheryl frowned. ‘I’m not sure how to describe it. A presence, an awareness? It’s in the way she carries herself, in her gestures, in the way she listens to what you have to say and actually appears interested. That’s rare. People seldom really listen nowadays.’

  ‘Sensual is how Tyler described her, and he’s never seen her in person,’ Alexi said swee
tly.

  ‘What can I say?’ Tyler spread his hands. ‘I’m a trained observer.’

  ‘A tough job, but someone’s gotta do it,’ Drew added with a boyish grin.

  Their banter momentarily lightened the mood.

  ‘So, let’s see if I’ve got this right,’ Cheryl said, her sober expression a timely reminder that Natalie’s life might hang in the balance. ‘Natalie was born Natalie Seaton but used the name Natalie Dwight to ply her trade, then changed it to Parker when she moved here. She was adopted at birth, Seaton being the name of her adoptive parents, and her adoptive mother was keen on gardens and flower arranging.’ Cheryl counted off the points on her fingers. ‘Something happened. She ran away from home and was picked up for soliciting when she was…how old?’

  ‘Fourteen,’ Tyler replied.

  Drew winced. ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘That’s all we know, and we’re lucky Tyler’s partner was able to find out that much,’ Alexi said.

  ‘Did she go back to her family?’ Drew asked.

  ‘We’re still trying to find that out,’ Tyler replied, thinking it would take Cassie a long time to do the finding. She had a point to make. Like Tyler didn’t already get the message loud and clear.

  ‘My guess is probably not,’ Cheryl said. ‘I mean, she obviously inherited her adoptive mother’s love of all things floral, yet chose to enter the oldest profession. I’m betting she did that through necessity. If I was her adoptive mother, I wouldn’t stand by and let her sell herself if there was anything I could do to stop her.’

  A tall man wearing a flat cap, silver hair showing beneath it, entered the bar and nodded to Cheryl and Drew.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Alexi asked.

  ‘That’s Graham Fuller, a local trainer. It’s his lads who occupy our annexe.’

  ‘I recognise the name,’ Tyler said, watching as Fuller ordered a half with a whisky chaser and took a seat on a barstool. He kept glancing at his watch, as though waiting for someone.

  ‘Yeah, he’s a big shot around these parts,’ Drew replied. ‘Which is saying something because the place is riddled with training yards and locals aren’t easily impressed by reputations. He’s married to a rich American woman and has a couple of grown kids.’

  ‘He looks angry, or furtive. Not sure which,’ Alexi remarked, watching him as he struck up a desultory conversation with another barfly.

  ‘He has a high opinion of himself,’ Cheryl said, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘You don’t like him?’ Alexi asked.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t like his attitude. He thinks he walks on water and that his word is law.’

  ‘Which it more or less is in this neck of the woods.’

  ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean he has to flaunt it, or use it as an excuse to be rude to people,’ Cheryl replied. ‘Which he is, all the time. Rude, I mean.’

  ‘Going back to Natalie and her chosen profession,’ Tyler said, curious about Fuller and still keeping him in the periphery of his vision. ‘Her adoptive mother may not have known what she got herself involved with since we have no idea what made her go that way so young. A lot of families are blissfully unaware how their daughters actually make a living. I’ve heard of some escorts passing themselves off as flight crew, others as executives, and…well, people believe what they want to believe. You’d be surprised, especially if the girl’s family live outside the capital.’

  ‘She dated one guy three times,’ Alexi said. ‘We’ve just been to visit him and we’re convinced he knows nothing about her disappearance.’

  ‘What about her other dates?’ Drew asked.

  ‘One of my guys is looking into them,’ Tyler replied. ‘But they don’t look likely.’

  ‘So, it all comes back to her mysterious past,’ Drew said, leaning back in his chair. ‘Do you think she moved to Lambourn at random? I mean, I know she’s interested in horses—’

  ‘Or claims to be,’ Cheryl added. ‘All the things we thought we knew about her are no longer set in stone.’

  ‘Good point. But I still want to know, why Lambourn? Is there a reason for that choice? Some ulterior motive?’

  ‘Hard to say until we know more about her,’ Tyler replied, drinking more of his beer.

  ‘The problem is,’ Alexi added. ‘The more we find out, the more complicated her background becomes.’

  ‘Shame she isn’t addicted to the Internet, like everyone else nowadays,’ Cheryl remarked.

  ‘Being secretive goes with the territory if you’re trying to hide your past,’ Tyler said. ‘Quite a few people nowadays are reverting to pen and ink if they want absolute confidentiality.’

  ‘Because the net is so easy to hack?’ Drew asked.

  Tyler nodded. ‘Any geeky teenager with a bedroom, computer literacy and a grudge against the world in general—’

  ‘Most of them, in other words,’ Alexi said.

  ‘Right, kids like that have a command over the net you can only dream about. They can’t resist showing off and causing mayhem. So, it’s safer to put nothing online unless you’re prepared for the entire world to know about it.’

  Tyler noticed another man walk into the bar. He met Fuller’s eye but didn’t acknowledge him as he purchased a pint and took it to a corner table. Tyler was unsure what it was about the newcomer that held his attention. He didn’t look out of place and was unexceptional in every way. Even so, Tyler noticed him get up after a few minutes and head for the gents. Fuller followed him almost immediately.

  His curiosity piqued, Tyler excused himself as well, convinced that the man had come with the specific intention of meeting Fuller. Nothing wrong with that, but Tyler wanted to know what was so private about their business that they felt the need to conduct it in the gents’ room. You can take the copper out of the force but…

  Fuller and the newcomer were huddled together beside the hand basins, talking in whispers. They both looked up when Tyler walked in, frowned at him and stopped their conversation. Tyler nodded at them and headed for a cubicle rather than the urinal. It had the desired effect. With a flimsy wooden door separating them from Tyler, the two men seemed to think that would make Tyler deaf and continued their muted conversation.

  Tyler, with his ear pressed against the door, heard horses’ names mentioned, along with race meetings and, he was pretty sure, specific races. Shortly after that the two men left the facilities but Tyler remained inside the cubicle, leaned against the door and mulled things over. The newcomer had to be a bookie’s scout and Fuller, the renowned trainer with his ear to the ground and a wealth of information inside his head, was giving him tips.

  Either that or he was colluding in race-fixing.

  Both activities were highly illegal, dangerous and stupid things to do. Why would he take that chance? And why do so in the men’s room in a Lambourn hotel? Tyler had no idea how to answer his first question, but he figured the second was less of a conundrum. Tyler knew next to nothing about the types who hung around the racing scene, but was pretty sure from what he’d overheard that he’d pegged Fuller’s associate for what he was. Locals, who lived, worked and breathed horseracing, would have even less trouble identifying him if they were seen together in a public place, causing speculation about Fuller’s association with the man. But who could possibly read anything into a chance meeting in a men’s room?

  ‘What are you up to, Fuller?’ Tyler muttered aloud as he washed his hands and returned to the bar, storing away what he’d just learned for later examination. The scout’s empty glass sat on the table he had occupied and the man himself was nowhere in sight. Fuller had returned to the group he’d been chatting with and was acting perfectly normally.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Alexi asked him. ‘You’ve been gone a while and look preoccupied.’

  ‘Sure.’ Tyler wasn’t ready to share what he thought he’d just witnessed, partly because he couldn’t prove it, and also because it didn’t have any bearing on Natalie’s disappearance. ‘Where were we?’

 
‘We were talking about Natalie’s apparent mistrust of computers,’ Drew reminded him. ‘But if you’re right about that, it throws up a few questions. Like why would she be so cautious about her email and stuff like that, yet have a Facebook page and openly talk about buying a share in a racehorse?’ He shook his head. ‘It makes no sense.’

  ‘That is a very good question,’ Tyler replied.

  ‘What do you plan to do now?’ Cheryl asked. ‘Since you’ve satisfied yourself that your sister’s clients aren’t involved, will you keep on digging?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t think they’re involved but I want to find an alternative reason for Natalie’s disappearance that will point the police in a different direction, if it comes to that. Preferably one that will end with us finding her alive and well.’

  ‘How?’ Drew asked.

  ‘The escort agency where she worked,’ Tyler replied. ‘I’m hoping they will be able to enlighten us since I’m convinced her past life is the key to her disappearance.’ He turned towards Alexi and grinned. ‘Fancy a trip up to town tomorrow?’ he asked.

  ***

  Drew and Cheryl insisted that Alexi and Tyler ate in the restaurant, but didn’t join them.

  ‘Cheryl needs to put her feet up and I have paperwork to catch up on,’ Drew explained.

  Alexi figured they sensed the tension between her and Tyler and wanted to leave them to iron it out. The tension in question had been brought about by Patrick’s visit and Tyler’s untimely intrusion. She had absolutely no idea why, but did know she hadn’t ditched Patrick only to have Tyler get all proprietorial on her—if that was what he was doing.

  Cosmo, much to his disgust, was banished to the kitchen, while Alexi and Tyler were shown to a round table in an intimate corner of the restaurant. There was an orchid in its centre, and a waiter lit a candle as he handed them menus. Alexi thanked him, then hid behind hers, pretending to study it as she tried to figure out why Tyler was suddenly so put out with her. Hell, she so did not need this!

  She put her menu aside, waited while Tyler had a long discussion with the waiter about wines and ordered a bottle without bothering to consult her. They then ordered their food and were finally left alone. Before either of them had time to instigate a conversation, the waiter returned with their wine. Tyler went through the ritual of tasting it and giving it the seal of approval. The waiter then filled Alexi’s glass and she took a sip, tempted to tell him it was corked. Since it wasn’t, she refrained. Water was then poured, a basket of bread with olive oil dip placed between them and finally…finally, they were alone.