Page 153 of Hidden Nature

She looked down into her coffee. “We’d have dinner, and we’d chat the way friends do. Because we were. I thought we were very good friends. But.” She sipped more coffee. “I was clueless.”

Nothing, Sloan thought when she left. Just nothing fresh from that source. Except, she admitted, her own sympathy and respect for the widow.

For she was surely a widow.

If he hadn’t been taken, would Rigsby have come to his senses, cut off the affair, kept his marriage intact?

No way to know, but maybe she’d get something from the blonde.

Maci Lovette lived in a downtown apartment. By day she worked as a hostess for an upscale restaurant. Five nights a week she served cocktails in the lobby bar of a local hotel.

Where Karen Rigsby was tall and stately, Maci ran petite and curvy. Blond hair tumbled past her shoulders in careless waves.

She wore a short, snug red dress with stilettos to match.

If Sloan had cast the other woman, the much younger trophy wife, Maci Lovette would nail the part.

“I expected someone a lot older.” Her voice bubbled a bit as if a laugh waited to happen. “Come on in. You said you’d make it quick. Have to. I’ve got a date.”

Obviously neither grieving, angry, nor humiliated, Sloan thought as she entered the colorful chaos of the apartment.

“’Scuse the mess. Who has time to clean?” She dumped whatlooked like a pile of laundry out of a chair onto the floor. “So have a seat. I never heard of the National Resources Police.”

“Natural Resources.”

“Oh.” Her lips, red like the dress and heels, curved. “Like oil or something?”

“Public lands, waterways, wildlife. I appreciate you making time to speak with me, Ms. Lovette.”

“Oh, no problem. As long as it’s quick. Jerry’s picking me up in about a half hour. I talked to the regular cops a bunch of times about Artie. Do you really think he got snatched up? Like kidnapped?”

“We have reason to believe that, yes.”

“Well, I guess maybe. He’s pretty loaded. Everybody’s got teeth, right?”

“He’d often come into the restaurant where you work for lunch. That’s how you met?”

“Sure. He’s a real sweetie. Always remembered names, had something nice to say. I just couldn’t help but flirt with him. First he got kind of blushy, and some nervous. So cute! After a while he started flirting back some, so I slipped him my number. Took his time calling, but he finally did, and we flirted on the phone. Then we met for drinks, not around here because, well, you know.”

“He’s married.”

“Correct,” Maci said with a smile. “He just wanted to have a little flirt, a little fun. Cut loose a little. I mean, God, he’s been married longer than I’ve been alive. Can you imagine only being with one person for decades?”

“Actually, yes, I can.”

“Yeah?” Maci seemed surprised, then shrugged it away. “Not me. You got one life, right? So live it. Anyway, we had drinks, got snuggly in his car after. Then Wednesdays. We had fun. Different motel, like intrigue, and that was fun. He’s good in bed, too. Really considerate. Generous, too. He liked buying me things.”

She tapped her sparkling earrings. “He gave me these for Christmas. Men like buying me things.”

I bet, Sloan thought.

“He gave you those the last time you saw him?”

“Now that you mention it, that’s right. And we talked about our getaway.”

“Your getaway?”

“Artie always goes to this dentist convention the first week of February. But this year instead, he was taking me to the Caymans. See, he got another credit card, and he set up a new account for the bills and all that so they’d come to his office, not to his house. And with the earrings, he gave me a couple thousand for clothes. For the tropics.”

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