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  ‘Oh well, that’s not long.’

  ‘She does go away quite a bit for a night or two at a time, but never without telling us,’ Drew explained. ‘We have her keys and keep an eye on the place for her.’

  ‘It’s just so out of character,’ Cheryl said, frowning in a way that enhanced the fine lines around her eyes and drew Alexi’s attention to the dark shadows beneath them. Either she was really worried about her friend or those visible signs of stress were caused by their financial problems. Alexi made a mental note to discover just how bad things actually were. Maybe she could help, either with an injection of cash or with suggested ways to boost their trade. She already had a few ideas but wasn’t ready to voice them until she’d done some research. She didn’t want to seem like a know-it-all. ‘She isn’t answering her mobile or emails either, and that’s just not like her. She runs a business and has to keep in touch with her clients, or risk losing them.’

  ‘What about her other friends? Husband. Men friends.’

  ‘She’s divorced,’ Cheryl replied. ‘With no significant other. No kids. Truth is, she’s lonely, but never seems to have much luck with men. They take advantage of her…well, I suppose she’s so desperate to be loved that she attracts the wrong sort.’

  ‘She’s got a nice house, drives a nice car, and she’s good looking; takes care of herself. She definitely stands out in a crowd. The moment those losers she dates see that, I’m betting they think they’re on to a good thing,’ Drew said, scowling. ‘And, by the way, her car is in the garage, but her laptop, iPad and mobile are gone, along with her handbag, but I can’t tell if any clothes are missing.’

  ‘That does seem odd,’ Alexi replied, her journalistic antennae twitching. ‘Have you told the police?’

  Cheryl rolled her eyes. ‘They didn’t want to know. Natalie is over forty, there’s no sign of a struggle or anything of that nature in her house; she often goes away, so they say there’s not much they can do. Besides, when Drew went to our part-time police office yesterday she’d only been gone for two days. They all but laughed him out the door.’

  ‘I know it’s not what you want to hear,’ Alexi replied gently, ‘but there probably isn’t any action they can take. People make out of character decisions all the time and unless there’s clear evidence that a crime’s been committed, the police have got more urgent things to do. They’ll list her as missing, make a few enquiries, and that’s about it.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s more or less what they told me when I reported it,’ Drew said, giving his wife’s hand a comforting squeeze. ‘They all but implied she’d taken herself off for a naughty weekend.’

  ‘I know a few people,’ Alexi said. ‘I might be able to get one of them to run a trace on her mobile.’

  Cheryl’s expression brightened. ‘Could you? I was hoping perhaps—’

  ‘That would give us some idea where she is. If she’s in an urban area, they might be able to get within fifty metres of her location. But fifty metres in a densely populated area is still a lot of space to get lost in. And, if she’s out in the sticks, there could be miles between antennae stations, impossible to pinpoint her exact location.’

  ‘I told her it was a mistake to…’

  ‘To what?’ Alexi asked when Cheryl’s words trailed off and she sucked in a shuddering breath.

  ‘Natalie has signed up to an online dating service,’ Drew explained.

  ‘Ah, I see.’

  ‘Pretty dumb, huh?’ Cheryl sighed. ‘What if she was being cyber-stalked by some creep, that’s what I keep wondering?’

  ‘If she’s with one of the reputable…what the hell was that?’ Alexi asked when shrieks and then raucous laughter interrupted their conversation.

  ‘The grooms returning home,’ Drew said, standing up and looking through the window, a broad smile on his face. ‘I think your cat and Toby have provided a welcoming committee.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry! I bet Cosmo’s hissing at them. He hisses at everyone.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Cheryl said. ‘It makes up for all the times they’ve disturbed us with parties they’re not supposed to hold.’

  ‘Whenever one of the horses they look after has a win, the groom usually gets a cash hand out from the owners,’ Drew explained.

  ‘And they feel duty bound to share.’

  ‘Ah, I get the picture. Okay, I’ll let Cosmo do his worst. Any more problems with your grooms, say the word, and I’ll get Cosmo to up his game.’

  ‘We’ll bear that in mind,’ Drew said, still grinning.

  ‘Hey, Mrs. H.’ An attractive young man waved in the window. ‘Can you call your guard cat off?’

  Laughing, Alexi got up, opened the back door and called to Cosmo. Cheryl followed Alexi out of the door.

  ‘Fine feline,’ the young man said, looking at Alexi rather than Cosmo. ‘Here you go, Mrs. H. The guv’nor asked me to give you this.’

  ‘Thanks, Tod.’ Cheryl replied, taking the envelope he held out to her.

  ‘Are you going to introduce us?’

  ‘I suppose I have no choice. Alexi, this is Tod Naismith, Graham Fuller’s head lad and self-appointed leader of this motley crew.’ She waved a hand negligently in the direction of the annexe. ‘Tod, this is my good friend, Alexi Ellis.’

  Alexi shook Tod’s outstretched hand. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said.

  ‘You too.’ Tod waggled his brows. ‘Things are definitely looking up around these parts. Do you plan to stay with us for long?’

  ‘She’s out of your league, Tod,’ Cheryl said, laughing as she and Alexi returned to the house. ‘Sorry,’ she added as she closed the door behind them. ‘I should have warned you about Tod. He’s incorrigible.’

  ‘No worries.’

  ‘Did he offer to show Alexi his trophies?’ Drew asked, grinning.

  Alexi’s jaw dropped open. ‘He does not use that line!’

  ‘I’ve heard him do it, and it works more times than not.’ Drew laughed. ‘He’s a trainee jockey as well as being a good looking kid, which makes him a bit of a magnet for the girls in this neck of the woods.’

  ‘He seems like fun.’ They heard a series of doors banging and winced. ‘Well, perhaps you can have too much of a good thing.’

  ‘Graham’s sent over the cheque he owes us,’ Cheryl said, handing the envelope over to Drew.

  ‘About bloody time.’

  The noise gradually subsided, but Alexi could see the damage the grooms would do to the hotel business. People who paid through the nose for quality accommodation expected peace and quiet and the grooms’ presence was unlikely to encourage repeat bookings. Alexi felt truly sorry for her friends and doubly determined to try and help them.

  ‘Anyway,’ Alexi said, returning to their conversation. ‘If your friend is with one of the more reputable dating agencies, I’d say she’d be pretty safe. Those sites conceal members’ true email addresses and block their personal details.’

  ‘Yes, but what if she’s met someone and revealed those things?’ Cheryl asked. ‘I warned her about it, and she promised me she wouldn’t, but if she really liked and trusted a man, who knows what she might have done?’

  ‘Do you know if she went on any dates?’ Alexi asked. ‘Did she meet anyone special?’

  ‘To begin with we had a good laugh about some of the men she’d met, and how diametrically opposed they were in real life to the images they projected on the site.’ Cheryl fell into momentary contemplation. ‘But recently she’d become quite tight-lipped about her activities. She seemed distracted, and I hoped it was because she’d met someone nice.’

  ‘She promised us she would only meet dates in public places,’ Drew added. ‘Bars, restaurants, stuff like that, and if she did invite anyone back to hers, she also promised to let us have his details in advance, just in case.’

  ‘But she didn’t do that?’

  ‘No.’ Cheryl shook her head. ‘Natalie is level-headed and a good business woman, but when it comes to personal relationship
s, I wouldn’t put it past her to be have been sweet-talked into keeping stuff to herself. Some charismatic guy would only have to spin her a line and she’d fall for it.’

  ‘It might not be so bad,’ Alexi replied, even though she had a nasty feeling about the circumstances. ‘Between a quarter and a half of all new relationships start online nowadays. Did you know that?’ Cheryl and Drew both shook their heads. ‘Welcome to the cyber age. Online dating has got an iffy reputation—’

  ‘With good reason,’ Drew said.

  ‘It’s like anything, opportunists will find a way to exploit it, but the majority of people don’t have any problems, if they’re careful.’

  The wine bottle was empty. Drew opened a second while Cheryl dished up the food.

  ‘Oh God, I’m in love!’ Alexi cried, groaning as she took a mouthful of Cheryl’s homemade lasagne. ‘I’d forgotten quite what a good cook you are.’

  ‘Now you know why I married her.’

  Cosmo, presumably attracted by the smell of food, appeared in the open kitchen window. Toby’s pathetic barks from outside had them all laughing as Drew got up to let him in.

  ‘So, do you think we’re wrong to be so worried about Natalie?’ Cheryl asked as they continued to eat.

  ‘What dating agency did she use?’

  ‘Heart Racing,’ Cheryl replied, giggling at the name. ‘Apparently online dating has gone interest-related. In other words, if someone likes the turf, then cut to the chase and meet similarly-minded people through an agency that caters for that interest.’

  Alexi grinned. ‘Whatever happened to opposites attracting?’

  ‘People don’t have time for proper relationships nowadays,’ Cheryl replied. ‘Like you just said, everything’s virtual. But now, it’s not enough to have general dating agencies, they have to be targeted at specific interests.’

  ‘Either that or there are too many of them and some enterprising person decided to diversify,’ Alexi remarked.

  ‘I got in touch with Heart Racing,’ Drew said. ‘I wanted to put Cheryl’s mind at rest, but they wouldn’t tell me who Natalie dated. They gave me all the spiel about confidentiality and wouldn’t even confirm she was registered with them.’ Drew scowled at the wall. ‘They wouldn’t open up even when I told the snotty woman I spoke to how worried we were about Natalie and threatened them with a visit from the police.’

  ‘They could get sued, I suppose, if they revealed anyone’s details.’

  ‘Even if they have a pervert on their books?’ Cheryl demanded hotly.

  ‘They probably have a get-out clause when it comes to perverts,’ Alexi said in a futile attempt to lighten the mood.

  ‘Count on it,’ Drew replied.

  All sorts of questions filtered through Alexi’s journalistic brain, but to voice them would only upset Cheryl more than she already was. Pregnant women with money worries didn’t need stress. She caught Drew’s gaze, which seemed to ask her to play the dangers down. She nodded and let the subject drop. But while Drew stacked the dishwasher and put the coffee on, Alexi mentally ran through the steps she would take if this was an assignment.

  Locate Natalie’s mobile phone; hack into her email and see who she’d been talking to; check her bank account to make sure it hadn’t been cleaned out; check her social media sites to see how open she was about herself online. If she’d registered with Heart Racing under her true name and given an honest picture of herself, it would be child’s play for a cyber-stalker to get all her personal information elsewhere without asking Natalie any intrusive questions. More troubling was the fact that if the guy’s intention was to steal her cash, he wouldn’t want her around afterwards to identify him. One woman wouldn’t have enough cash to see him set for life, so he’d want to do this again. And again. Which meant he would go for wealthy, needy women.

  Women like Natalie.

  Women who could be sweet-talked into acting impulsively and going on a date to die for.

  Chapter Three

  By the time she returned to her room, Alexi’s curiosity had got the better of her. She fired up her computer, just to see what a little creative surfing might throw up about Natalie. Cheryl’s pregnancy had probably sent her hormones haywire but, even so, she seemed convinced something bad had happened to her friend. Cheryl had never been one to panic unnecessarily, so Alexi didn’t dismiss her concerns out of hand. Besides, Alexi had what the old hacks referred to as a ‘nose’ for a story, and right now that nose was twitching like it was hay fever season.

  It couldn’t hurt to poke about a bit; see what shook loose. She told herself she was doing it for Cheryl’s peace of mind but if she’d stumbled across the situation by chance she probably wouldn’t have been able to resist taking a wee look. Just because she was unemployed she didn’t seem able to switch off her inquisitive gene. Blessing or curse?

  The jury was still out on that one.

  The absolute peace and stillness of Lambourn—no traffic noise, no sirens, no hustle of a city on steroids—made it hard for Alexi to concentrate. She switched on the television news, the volume turned down low, just for company. The background noise helped her to focus upon what might have happened to Natalie, and why. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that she was still alive. A murder would see Natalie’s private life torn to pieces by the police. The dating agency would have to release the details of all the people Natalie had connected with, putting paid to the scumbag’s lucrative little side line of fleecing wealthy, vulnerable and lonely females of a certain age; always supposing said scumbag and side line existed.

  Working on that assumption, the guy had probably whisked Natalie off to some exotic location, spinning her a line about wanting her all to himself and persuading her to cut herself off from the outside world: hence Natalie not answering her phone. He’d wine and dine her; give her his undivided attention and ply her with the best of everything. She probably couldn’t believe her luck at having landed such a charismatic guy, and any lingering doubts would be swept away in a romantic tsunami of vintage champagne and hot sex.

  Those types of men always were charismatic, Alexi thought, wrinkling her nose derisively. They also had a repertoire of hard luck stories to fit all occasions, guaranteed to evoke sympathy. They chose their victims carefully, then traded on their looks and charm, relying on the woman’s desperate need for a man to love and nurture to seal the deal.

  Having established himself as numero uno in Natalie’s life, it would be comparatively easy for a computer-savvy guy to access her online banking. Alexi hadn’t lost sight of the fact that Natalie’s electronic devices were all missing. She’d come across situations like that before. The scam worked well if the person operating it didn’t get too greedy. If he didn’t clear Natalie out, the chances were she’d take the hit without reporting it. Women in her situation got too embarrassed about being played by master manipulators to have their stupidity plastered all over the papers, or revealed to their friends.

  ‘Okay, Cosmo, where do we start?’

  Cosmo, who had finally been fed, completed his ablutions without comment, then curled up in the middle of the bed, sent her a condescending look that said she should know better than to ask him, and closed his eyes.

  ‘There’s no need to be so aloof,’ Alexi told him. ‘You’re not as independent as you make yourself out to be. If you were, you wouldn’t have felt the need to adopt me.’

  Alexi quickly checked her email. There was a long missive from Patrick, which she told herself she wouldn’t read.

  She read it.

  He was sorry, and he could explain. Where was she? He loved her. He’d only been trying to protect her. He had a proposition for her. One that was right down her street and would be more financially rewarding than slaving away on the Sentinel.

  ‘Yeah right,’ she muttered, deleting the email with only a slight pang of regret for what they’d once had.

  Cheryl didn’t know what picture of herself Natalie had used on the Heart
Racing site; nor could Alexi access that information unless she either hacked into the site or registered with them. She had no intention of doing the latter. The former was a possibility, but before she could decide if it would be necessary she first needed to see what else she could learn about Natalie as a person.

  Her business website was bright, easy to navigate and professional. It showed a smiling image of an attractive woman in her early forties with blond hair cut in a neat bob and an open, friendly smile. Just from that picture, Alexi would have pegged her as emotionally needy, although she couldn’t be sure if her opinion was coloured by what she’d already learned from Cheryl. There was a contact form for people to get in touch if they wanted information about Natalie’s services. It would be child’s play for anyone who knew their way around a computer to trace the IP address. The chances of it not being registered to Natalie’s business, which was located at the same place as her home, were slim to non-existent.

  ‘Oh, Natalie,’ Alexi muttered, shaking her head.

  She was on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and half a dozen other social media sites. Her chatty posts on Facebook gave enough away about her daily activities to allow a stalker to develop a good idea of her interests. She liked horses which, given where she lived, wasn’t exactly a surprise. She was thinking of investing in a part-share of a race horse, which was news to Alexi, who audibly groaned. Easy enough for a potential date to pretend a similar interest, along with a passion for hiking, flowers and photography.

  By the time Alexi finished her initial foray into Natalie Parker’s life she’d become as worried about her as Cheryl was. But there wasn’t anything much else she could do that night. Her eyes began to droop, which surprised Alexi since she was a night owl as a rule and did her best work after the witching hour. She figured the overdose of clean, country air she’d been unable to avoid ingesting had messed with her lungs, which were accustomed to unhealthy doses of carbon monoxide and second-hand smoke. Then there’d been the physical and emotional upheaval, the big meal and too much wine.