The Smoky Mountain Mist. Пола Грейвс

no scam.” He took no offense. “The woman he hit on is a friend of mine, see. I’d like to talk to the man about his behavior toward her.”

      “I see.” Joe shot him an approving look. “Well, tell you the truth, she seemed to handle him pretty good all by her lonesome. But I’ll see what I can dig up for you. Just promise me you’re not gonna beat him up or shoot him or anything like that. I don’t want the cops trackin’ you back here and giving me any trouble.”

      “Just want to talk,” Seth assured him, although if he found out that Frat Boy had anything to do with drugging Rachel Davenport, he couldn’t promise he’d keep his fists to himself. She’d come way too close to going off the bridge the night before. She wouldn’t have been likely to survive that fall.

      Maybe the guy had slipped her something hoping it would make it easy to get lucky with her rather than to make her go off the deep end and hurt herself, but that distinction sure as hell didn’t make drugging her any less heinous a crime.

      And there was still the matter of the murders. Over the past two months, four women connected to Rachel Dav-enport had been murdered in what had initially seemed like random killings. Until investigators found the perpetrator and learned he’d been hired to kill those women and make the deaths look random. With his dying words, he’d admitted that it was “all about the girl.”

      All about Rachel Davenport.

      Joe came back from the cluttered office just off the bar bearing a slip of paper. “Guy signed his name ‘Davis Rogers.’”

      The name wasn’t familiar. Could have been someone Rachel knew from Maryville or even an old friend in town for her father’s funeral. He’d ask her about him when she got back from the hospital.

      The thought of her trip to Knoxville made his chest tighten as he left Smoky Joe’s Saloon and headed toward the road to Maryville. He’d taken the past two days off work, but he was scheduled to work the next four. He had some vacation time coming to him, and he figured this might be the right time to take it.

      He was surprised to find Paul Bailey in the office when he asked to see whoever was in charge while Rachel was out. Bailey had the account books open and looked up reluctantly when Seth stepped inside.

      “Mr. Bailey, I’ve had a family situation come up. I know it’s short notice, but I have a couple of weeks of vacation built up, and I’d like to take them now if possible.”

      Bailey’s gaze was a little unfocused, as if his mind was still on whatever he’d been doing before Seth interrupted. “Yeah, sure. Nobody else has any days off scheduled, and they’ll be happy to have the extra hours this time of year, with the holidays coming up. Just let Sharon at the front desk know what days you’re taking, and she’ll put it on the schedule.”

      “Thank you.” Seth started to turn away, then paused. “I’m real sorry about Mr. Davenport.”

      “Thank you,” Bailey answered with a regretful half smile.

      On impulse, Seth added, “By the way, do you know a Davis Rogers?”

      Bailey’s gaze focused completely. “Why do you ask?”

      “I just ran into a guy with that name last night at a bar,” Seth lied. “He mentioned he knew the family. We drank a toast to Mr. Davenport.”

      “Last night?”

      Seth kept his expression neutral. “Yeah. He mentioned he was thinking about selling his car, and I know someone in the market. I should’ve gotten his phone number, but I didn’t think about it until afterward.”

      “He’s not from here,” Bailey said with a dismissive wave. “Probably couldn’t work out a sale anyway before he heads back to Virginia.”

      Seth had a vague memory that Rachel had gone to college somewhere in Virginia. So, maybe an old college friend.

      Maybe even an old boyfriend.

      A sliver of dismay cut a path through the center of his chest. He tried to ignore it. “Thanks anyway.” He left the office before Paul Bailey started to wonder why one of his fleet mechanics was suddenly asking a lot of nosy questions.

      He stopped in the fleet garage, where he and the other mechanics shared a small break room. The three mechanics working in the garage today were out in the main room, so he had the place to himself.

      Grabbing the phone book they kept in a desk drawer, he searched the hotel listings, bypassing the cheaper places. Joe Breslin had described Davis Rogers as a slicked-back frat boy, which suggested he’d stay at a nice hotel.

      Was that Rachel’s type? Preppy college boys with their trust funds and their country club golf games?

      Drop it, Hammond. Not your concern.

      She wasn’t exactly what he considered his type, either. She was attractive, clearly, but quiet and reserved. And maybe if he hadn’t begun to put clues together that suggested the recent Bitterwood murders were connected to Davenport Trucking, he might never have allowed himself to think about Rachel Davenport as a person and not just a company figurehead.

      But ever since he’d given up the con game for the straight and narrow, he’d shown an alarming tendency to take other people’s troubles to heart. And Rachel Daven-port’s life was eaten up with trouble these days.

      An old twelve-step guy he knew had told him overcompensation was a common trait among people who felt the need to make amends for what they’d done. They tended to go overboard, wanting to save the whole damned world instead of fix the one or two things they could actually fix.

      And here he was, proving the guy right.

      Using his cell phone, he called Maryville hotels with no luck. He was about to start calling Knoxville hotels when he remembered there was a bed-and-breakfast in Bitterwood that offered the sort of services a guy like Davis Rogers would probably expect from his lodgings. The odds were better that he was staying in Knoxville, but Sequoyah House was a local call, so what would it hurt?

      The proprietor at Sequoyah House put him right through to Davis Rogers’s room when he asked. Nobody answered the phone, even after several rings, but Seth had the information he needed.

      He had a few tough questions for Davis Rogers, and now he knew where to find him.