Page 20 of Bachelor Cop Finally Caught? (Hot off the Press! 2)

“No. They went to a movie with some friends, and I think they were going to get dessert when it was over. They said they’d be home by eleven.”

The edginess of her answer had him reaching for his boots even as he asked, “What happened to frighten you?”

“I got a phone call. It was a guy. I didn’t recognize his voice. He asked if I’d found a notebook at school.”

“Look, I’m on my way over. You can tell me everything he said when I get there.”

“Okay.” Polly didn’t try to disguise her relief. “I’ll be watching for you.”

“Fifteen minutes. Don’t open the door to anyone but me.”

“I won’t.”

He had one boot on by the time he hung up the phone.

Apparently Polly had been quite literal in her promise to watch for him. He saw the curtains twitch when he climbed out of his car in her driveway, and she had the front door open almost before his finger touched the doorbell.

Closing the door behind him, he put an arm around her slender shoulders and led her to the deep, leather couch in the rustically furnished den. The room was decorated with his sister, Tina’s, primitive art collectibles and the stuffed ducks that her husband, Ron, had bagged during the past few hunting seasons. Early middle Americana—that was the label Dan’s ex-wife had given to most of their neighbors’ homes. Whatever Melanie and the other decorating critics might call it, Dan liked it. He was as comfortable in this room as he was in his no-frills mobile home—a place Melanie wouldn’t be caught dead in.

But he didn’t know why he was wasting time thinking about his ex-wife when he had so many more important things to think about. “Tell me about the phone call.”

Her hands nestled securely in his, Polly nodded, apparently choosing the right words to begin. She’d removed her makeup and pulled her hair back into a ponytail for the evening. That, combined with her Piglet T-shirt, jeans and pink-and-white-striped socks, made her look more like a little girl than the young woman who’d visited him that morning. Dan’s protective instincts were on full alert.

She cleared her throat. “I was talking to Jenny on the phone, and I got a beep, so I took the other call because I thought it might be Mom—you know, checking on me or something.”

“But it wasn’t your mom,” he offered, helping her along.

“No. It was some guy. He said, ‘Is this Polly Drury?’ and I said, ‘Yes. Who is this?’ He didn’t tell me his name, he just said he’d heard I found a notebook at school yesterday and he wondered if I still had it.”

“How did he find out about it?”

“I don’t know. I told you, I asked several people if the notebook was theirs. Maybe someone mentioned to this guy that I’d found it. He wouldn’t tell me.”

Trying to suppress his displeasure that his niece had been drawn into this unpleasant case, Dan asked, “You didn’t recognize his voice?”

“No. Either he was disguising it—you know, making it a lot deeper than n

ormal—or he’s someone I don’t know. One of the older students, maybe.”

“Exactly how did he ask about the notebook?”

She wrinkled her short nose, trying to recall the exact words. “Something like, ‘I heard you found a red notebook at school. Do you still have it?’”

“And what, exactly, did you tell him?”

“I told him I turned it in to lost and found.”

“That’s what you said? Lost and found?”

She nodded. “I didn’t want to tell him I gave it to you. I think he assumed I meant that I turned it in at the school office.”

“Then what did he say?”

“There was this long pause—I thought maybe he was going to hang up—and then he asked if I’d read what was written in the notebook.”

“And you answered…?”

“I told him no. I said I’d just looked inside the covers for a name and when I didn’t find one, I turned it in.”

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