Page 3 of The Other Lady Vanishes

She wanted to run but she did not dare. If, in the darkness, she stumbled over a rock or a fallen tree limb, she could twist an ankle or worse.

The emergency vehicles passed her a short time later. They never noticed her hiding behind the heavy shrubbery at the side of the lane.

• • •

?Dawn found her standing on the side of a highway, hoping that a passing motorist would take pity on a nurse whose car had run out of gas in the middle of nowhere.

She raised her hand to wave down a truck. The gold wedding ring on her finger gleamed malevolently in the morning light.

Chapter 2

Burning Cove, California

Two months later

“Your new neighbor is back,” Florence Darley said in a low voice. She plucked the kettle off the stove and poured hot water over the leaves in the teapot. “That makes eight days in a row except for Sunday.”

Adelaide did not look up from the small scale she was using to measure a quarter pound of Tranquility tea. “We’re closed on Sundays.”

“Which only goes to prove my point. Mr. Truett has become a regular. I see he’s reading the morning edition of theHerald, as usual. Five will get you ten he’ll order the same thing—a pot of that very expensive blend of green tea you convinced me to order from the San Francisco dealer, no sugar, no tea cakes, no scones, no cookies.”

“Mr. Truett does seem to be a man who likes to keep to a routine,” Adelaide said.

She did not add that Truett’s apparent preference for keeping to a schedule made it easy to time his morning walks on the beach. He never failed to show up at seven thirty. He always walked for preciselythirty minutes. It was June and there was often fog in the morning at this time of year, but that did not stop him.

She was the one who was annoyed by the fog, she thought. It meant that she could only catch fleeting glimpses of him taking his daily walk. And she had to admit she had come to look forward to watching Jake Truett in the mornings. He might be a man of strict habits, but he did not move like a man who was a stickler for rules and regulations. He did not march across the sand like a martinet. Instead he prowled the beach with the easy physical power of a large hunting cat.

Florence chuckled knowingly. “I don’t think he’s here every day because of your fancy tea. And he doesn’t come in because we’re fashionable these days. He’s not the type to care one bit if the customer at the next table is a celebrity or a garbage collector. Got a hunch you’re the reason our Mr. Truett has developed the habit of stopping by.”

Adelaide flushed. She was very fond of her new boss, not to mention extremely grateful for the job, but Florence’s newfound determination to play matchmaker made her uneasy.

After two months in Burning Cove, she was just starting to breathe more easily. No manhunt had been launched to recapture an escaped mental patient. In fact, there had been no mention in the press of her late-night departure from the Rushbrook Sanitarium.

As far as she could tell, no one was looking for her. Nevertheless, she was not yet ready to take the risk of dating. At least, that’s what she told herself every day when Jake Truett walked into the tearoom carrying a leather briefcase, sat down at the same table, and asked for green tea, no sugar, no tea cakes, no scones, no cookies.

Florence had other ideas. She was a plump, comfortably proportioned woman in her late sixties. She had opened the tearoom nearly a decade earlier in the wake of the crash and somehow managed to keep it going during the worst of the hard times.

The tearoom had survived because the exclusive town of Burning Cove was a retreat for the rich and the famous, two groups that werelargely insulated from the financial disaster that had shaken the rest of the country. But even in such a wealthy community it took fortitude and sound business instincts to stay profitable. Florence possessed plenty of both qualities. Adelaide was learning a lot from her.

In addition to hiring a waitress with no restaurant experience and no references, Florence had helped her find an inexpensive place to live, a cottage on the bluffs above Crescent Beach. When Adelaide had explained that she could not come up with the first month’s rent, Florence had waved off the problem.Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it and you can repay me later. Something tells me you’ll earn your keep.

Adelaide was pleased that she had, indeed, begun to earn her keep. She badly wanted to repay the debt. When she suggested that Refresh start creating and marketing specialized teas and herbal tisanes, Florence was dubious but she agreed to let the experiment take place. Within a month, the Refresh Tearoom, which had enjoyed a quiet but steady business for years, moved up to an entirely new level of prosperity.

Recently, a few of the celebrities, socialites, and tycoons who used Burning Cove as a vacation playground had begun requesting exclusive blends designed for specific personal needs. In the past few weeks Adelaide had concocted teas and herbal tisanes to treat a variety of complaints—insomnia, anxiety, and lack of energy. One of her most popular teas was the one she had created to alleviate the symptoms of a hangover—a common problem for the Hollywood set who tended to party until dawn.

Business had picked up so much that Florence was thinking of hiring another waitress so Adelaide could concentrate on creating and packaging the special blends.

All of which made it more difficult to come up with excuses for a failure to show an appropriate interest in an apparently eligible male. Jake Truett did not wear a wedding ring, but Adelaide reminded herself that that didn’t mean much. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, either.

She filled the small sack with the quarter pound of Tranquility tea blend that she had just measured. “I really don’t think Mr. Truett is interested in me, Flo. We’re two very different people. He’s a wealthy businessman who has traveled the world. I’m a tearoom waitress. I’ve never been out of California. It’s not as if we have a great deal in common.”

“I think Mr. Truett is just shy,” Florence said. “He’s trying to work up his nerve to ask you out. You should give him some encouragement.”

“Trust me, the man is not the shy type. I’m very sure that if he wanted something, he would go after it.”

“I told you, I heard that he was widowed a few months ago. That means he’s out of practice when it comes to dating.”

“He’s probably still grieving,” Adelaide said. “That would explain why he never smiles.”

---