LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Four

      “Okay,” Colin said, closing his ticket book and putting it away. “I’ll check with the other officer your director talked to. What’s his name or badge number?” he asked.

      Miranda shook her head. She hadn’t thought to ask for that information when the director had given her an update. “I’m afraid Amelia didn’t mention either one.”

      Colin looked at her. The name meant nothing to him. “Amelia?”

      “Amelia Sellers,” Miranda specified. “That’s the shelter’s director. She didn’t give me the officer’s name, but seemed pretty upset that he wasn’t taking the situation seriously.”

      Colin read between the lines. He assumed that the officer the shelter director had talked to hadn’t told her that he would get back to her. Not that he blamed the man.

      “I take it this Amelia isn’t as pushy as you,” he commented.

      Miranda wasn’t exactly happy with his description, but the situation was far too important for her to get sidelined by something so petty.

      “Actually, she can be very forceful. But the officer taking down the information really didn’t seem to think that Gina was missing,” Miranda said.

      She was looking at him with the kind of hopeful eyes that made men seriously consider leaping tall buildings in a single bound and bending steel with their bare hands in an attempt to impress her.

      If he was going to interact with this woman for any length of time, he was going to have to remember to avoid looking into her eyes, Colin told himself. They were far too distracting.

      “I bet you were prom queen, weren’t you?” he asked.

      The question came out of the blue and caught her completely off guard. It took Miranda a moment to collect herself and answer, “Actually, I didn’t go to the prom.”

      “No one asked you?” He found that rather hard to believe. She struck him as the epitome of a cheerleader. Was she pulling his leg?

      Miranda didn’t answer his question directly. She actually had been asked, just hadn’t said yes.

      “I had a scheduling problem,” she said vaguely. “The prom interfered with my volunteer work.”

      “In high school?” Colin asked incredulously.

      “You look surprised,” she noted, then told him, “People in high school volunteer for things.” At least, the people she’d kept company with had.

      Shrugging, he said, “If you say so.” He’d never concerned himself with social activities, even back then, nor did he involve himself with any kind of volunteer work. Most of his life he’d been a loner.

      Securing the ticket book in his back pocket, he told her, “I’ll see what I can find out.”

      “Don’t you want the phone number at the shelter?”

      He caught himself thinking fleetingly that he’d rather have her number. The next second he deliberately pushed the thought away. If he had her number, that might very well lead to complications, which was the very last thing he wanted. He supposed that obtaining the shelter’s number was innocuous enough. Most likely if he used it he’d wind up speaking to the director.

      “Right,” Colin answered, doing his best to exercise patience. “So what is it?”

      Miranda gave him the number to the shelter’s landline, then waited for him to take out the ticket book again so he could jot it down.

      Sensing what she wanted, he did just that. As he put the book away a second time he heard her asking, “Aren’t you going to follow me to the shelter?”

      It just didn’t end with her, did it? he thought, exasperated. “Why would I want to do that?”

      “To see Gina’s picture,” she reminded him. “I told you that there’s one at the shelter. Lily has it.”

      He looked at her blankly for a split second until the information clicked into place. “Lily. Right, the little girl.”

      For a moment, he thought about telling her—again—that this wasn’t something he did. His main sphere of expertise was keeping the flow of traffic going at a reasonable rate.

      There were patrol officers who took this kind of information down, as well as detectives back at the precinct who specialized in missing persons. But he had no desire to get into all that with her. It would just lead to another prolonged debate.

      Besides, it wasn’t as if leaving the area was tantamount to abandoning a hub of vehicular infractions and crimes. And how long would following her to the shelter and getting that photograph of the runaway mother take, anyway?

      Making no effort to suppress the sigh that escaped his lips, he said, “Okay, lead the way.”

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