Entranced by Nora Roberts Page B

the fence and bumped Mel’s shoulder. Automatically she lifted a hand to stroke down the smooth white cheek. “I got an earful on Jimmy. He was the kind of guy who just invited trouble. Not a bad-looking boy—and I quote—but always had his pockets turned out. Always seemed to scrape up enough for a six-pack, though. The landlady claims to have taken a … motherly interest in him … but I have a hunch it wasn’t quite so platonic. Otherwise she wouldn’t be so steamed.”
    “Two months’ rent,” Sebastian reminded her, watching the way Mel’s hand rubbed over the horse.
    “Uh-uh. This was personal. She had that bitter tone a woman gets when she’s been dumped.”
    Sebastian tilted his head, trusting Mel’s intuition. “Which made her more talkative—to a sympathetic ear.”
    “You bet. She said he liked to gamble. Mostly on sports, but any game would do. He’d gotten in pretty deepover the last few months, started having visitors.” She flicked Sebastian a glance. “The kind who have broken noses and lumps under their suit coats where their guns ruin the line. He tried to hit her up for some quick cash, but she claimed she was tapped out. Then he said how he had a line on how to get himself out of it, once and for all. Last few days he was there, he was real nervous, jumpy, hyped up. Then he split. The last time she saw him was a week before David’s kidnapping.”
    “An interesting story.”
    “It gives me something to work with. I figured you’d want to know.”
    “What’s the next step?”
    “Well, it hurts, but I turned over what I had to the local cops. The more people we have looking for old Jimmy, the better.”
    Sebastian ran a hand over Psyche’s flank. “He’s about as far away from Monterey as you can get and still stay in the country.”
    “Yeah, I figure he’s—”
    “I don’t figure.” Sebastian turned those compelling eyes of his on her. “I know. He’s traveling in New England, too nervous to settle yet.”
    “Look, Donovan …”
    “When you searched his room, did you notice that the second drawer down on his dresser had a loose pull?”
    She had, but she said nothing.
    “I’m not playing parlor games with you, Mel,” Sebastian said impatiently. “I want to get that boy back, and quickly. Rose is losing hope. Once she loses it completely, she may very well do something drastic.”
    Instant fear. It gripped Mel by the throat with vicious fingers. “What do you mean?”
    “You know what I mean. Use what influence you have. See that the Vermont and New Hampshire police look for him. He’s driving a Toyota now. Red. The plates are the same.”
    She wanted to dismiss it, but she couldn’t. “I’m going to go see Rose.”
    Before she could back away from the fence, Sebastian laid a hand over hers. “I called Rose a couple of hours ago. She’ll be all right for a while longer.”
    “I told you I didn’t want you to feed her any of this business.”
    “You work your way, I’ll work mine.” His hand tightened on Mel’s. “She needed something, a little something to hold on to, to get her through another night when she goes in and looks at an empty crib. I gave it to her.”
    She felt something from him, something so akin to her own fear and frustration that she relented. “All right, maybe it was the thing to do. I can’t second-guess you there. But if you’re right about Parkland being in New England …”
    “You won’t get first shot at him.” Sebastian smiled, relaxed now. “And that just burns the hell right out of you.”
    “You hit that one dead on.” She hesitated, then let out a long breath and decided to tell it all. “I got hold of an associate in Georgia.”
    “You have far-reaching connections, Sutherland.”
    “I spent about twenty years knocking around the country. Anyway, there’s a lawyer there, and he put me on to an investigator he trusts. As a professional courtesy, he’s going to do some checking.”
    “Does that mean