Mountain Sheriff. B.J. Daniels

I don’t know anything about her.”

      “You must have talked to her,” Mitch said.

      “I might have complimented her on a couple of the designs she came to me with, but nothing other than that. I let my group leaders or my secretary handle all personnel problems.”

      “Were there problems with Nina?” Mitch had to ask.

      “None that I know of.” Wade seemed to avoid his gaze.

      Mitch didn’t like the feeling he was getting. “You told me earlier that she didn’t have any family or friends or boyfriends.”

      “That’s just what I heard.” He straightened several items on his desk, obviously nervous.

      “Who is the group leader in the paint department?”

      “Sheryl Bends.” Sheryl who hadn’t said squat the whole time Mitch had asked questions.

      “Do you have a photograph of Nina?”

      Wade seemed startled by the question. “Why would I have a photo of her?”

      “I thought maybe you had some sort of employee card with her photo on it or possibly a photo that was taken at some Dennison Duck function,” he suggested.

      Wade shook his head. He was perspiring, although the office was quite cool. There were large patches of sweat darkening the underarms of his shirt. “Nina had only worked here a month. She missed the company summer picnic.”

      Mitch asked for a copy of the one-page application and a W-9 form she had filled out stating only one deduction, everything that had been in her file. Wade made the copies himself on a small copier just outside his office.

      “Where’s Ethel?” Mitch asked, wondering where Wade’s secretary was today.

      Wade blinked as if he’d been a thousand miles away. “She’s off sick.” He handed him the copies, his fingers shaking as he did.

      The man was awfully upset about an employee he’d hardly known and who’d only worked for him a month.

      “Wade,” he said folding the copies and putting them into his coat pocket, “I need you to be honest with me. If there’s something more going on with Nina—”

      Wade waved him off. “I’ve got a lot on my mind today, some personal things I need to tend to. I’m just concerned about her, that’s all. I don’t want anything to have happened to her.”

      “Why do you think something has happened to her?” Mitch asked. Wade didn’t know about Nina’s ransacked bungalow. Or did he? Wade knew something. That much was clear.

      “I just think about Desiree…” Wade broke off, shook his head and looked away. “You know, if she was the one missing…”

      “How is Desiree?” Mitch inquired, pretty sure he already knew the answer. Desiree was twenty-nine and pretty wild.

      “Fine,” Wade said quickly. “Desiree is fine.”

      Mitch studied him for a moment. “Okay,” he said, and got to his feet, thinking about the baby spoon in his pocket, wondering how to ask about it, deciding now wasn’t the time. “If you hear anything…”

      Wade glanced at his phone. “I’ll call you,” he said, seeming anxious to get Mitch out of his office.

      As Mitch passed the secretary’s desk on his way out, he wondered if Ethel Whiting had ever missed a day of work in her life. Ethel had been with Wade since day one. She probably knew the family better than anyone in town.

      Coincidence that she’d called in sick on the day Nina Monroe had gone missing?

      The phone rang in Wade’s office as Mitch started down the stairs. “It’s about time you called,” Wade snapped, making Mitch pause on the steps. “Listen to me, Desiree. I’ve always bailed you out of trouble, but this time you’ve gone too far. You know damned well what I’m talking about—” The office door closed, cutting off anything further.

      Mitch could only imagine what sort of behavior Wade had been referring to. He’d heard stories about Desiree Dennison and her wild antics. Who hadn’t? Mitch had picked her up for speeding in that little red sports car on several occasions. Recently she’d reportedly run Sissy’s brother T.C. off the road. T.C. made furniture at his small shop outside of town.

      Fortunately for Desiree, T.C. hadn’t wanted to press charges, but it was obvious that Desiree had purposely forced T.C.’s old pickup off the road because he’d been going too slowly.

      Maybe what had Wade upset and concerned this morning was really Desiree, not Nina Monroe. Wade should be concerned about Desiree. The woman was headed for trouble, sure as hell.

      It was still raining, coming down in sheets, as Mitch stepped outside to find decoy painter Tracy Shank having a cigarette under the overhang of the roof. She glanced around when she saw him as if she thought someone might be watching her and stubbed out the cigarette.

      “Did you find out anything?” she asked.

      He shook his head. “Nothing more than I already knew.”

      Tracy lit another cigarette, took a drag and blew the smoke out into the rain. “There’s something going on. Something…odd.”

      “With Nina?”

      “With Nina, with Wade, with this place,” she said, and glanced over her shoulder. “Nina was no painter. She just showed up one day and Wade hired her. She acted like all she wanted was to learn how to paint decoys. That’s why she worked late all the time.”

      “You don’t think that was the case?” he asked.

      She let out an oath and shook her head.

      “Then why work late?”

      “I don’t know. The plant is deserted after six. She’d have the whole place to herself. Painters are pretty much allowed to work their own hours, but something else was going on with that girl.”

      “You think she was meeting someone here? Having an affair? Wouldn’t that make more sense at her apartment?” he asked.

      “She was living at Florie’s,” Tracy pointed out. Everyone in town knew how Florie was about minding everyone else’s business. It ran in the family. “If she didn’t want anyone to know, the plant would be the perfect place.”