Wyatt said, “We were wondering if you’d seen Francine Duvall lately.”
Daphne Charlene took half a step back and acted like Wyatt had just slapped her. “Francine Duvall?” Her sudden frown made Raphael uneasy. “Why are you asking about another woman?”
“She’s missing and her fiancé,” he pointed to Raphael, “is looking for her. I’m helping him.”
Her posture relaxed. “Oh, that’s nice of you, Wyatt. You are such a good man and a truly great sheriff.” She eased closer to Wyatt as she stared at Raphael. “I haven’t seen Francine lately. I heard a rumor going around at the Supernova Supermarket in Alienn that she left town with some guy.”
“That was me, but we came back last night,” Raphael said. “Have you seen her today?”
Daphne Charlene looked around the room, her expression confused. “Francine Duvall? Today?” She crossed her arms, hugging herself as though chilled. “Nope. I don’t know anything about her.”
Raphael didn’t believe her. She was acting odd. “I don’t believe you.”
Daphne Charlene stiffened and gave him a menacing stare. “I don’t know where she is. I don’t know her very well. I don’t have any information about her. Just like I told that other man.”
“Other man? What other man?” Raphael moved into her personal space, the tips of his boots a whisper from the pointy toes of her stiletto-heeled shoes. His gaze drilled into her eyes as he willed her to spill her guts. “Tell me everything you said to him.”
She sucked in a breath. “There was a man here asking about her a couple of weeks ago or so.”
“What did he look like?”
She shrugged. “Um, I don’t know.”
“Make an effort.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Okay. Well, he was tall and sort of attractive, I guess.”
“Sort of? You guess? Be more specific.”
Daphne Charlene tilted her head. “Well, he was handsome, in a rough around the edges sort of way, but he had a beer belly he tried to hide by sucking in his breath when he wasn’t talking. It didn’t work.” Her scoffing tone was quickly replaced by more description once she caught Raphael’s impatient gaze.
“He said he was a bounty hunter and was looking for a woman. He kept going on and on about her. That he had been watching her and he wanted to make a good first impression when he introduced himself and that he wanted to take her away from here forever. That woman’s name was Francine.”Is it…? Could it be? Edgar? Randel Edgar?
Raphael reassessed that night at the Supernova Supermarket. Edgar had shown up so soon after he and Francine started talking and truly out of nowhere.
Without further prompting, Daphne Charlene added, “He even asked me what I thought he should do to impress this woman. I gave him an idea and that’s all I know.”
Raphael lowered his face. “What did you tell him?”
Daphne Charlene gulped once. “I told him to bring her a special present.”
“Such as?”
“I should have told him jewelry, but I thought I could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”
“What does that mean?” Raphael said in his,I’m losing patience with youtone. He leaned forward, his breath ruffling a strand of hair alongside her face.
“Okay. Fine. A stray cat made a home in my storeroom a few months back and gave birth to a litter of five kittens before I could shoo it outside. My staff gave me grief about getting rid of them. I’ve been trying to give away kittens for quite a while. I gave this man a black kitten—the last one in the litter—to give her.”
Raphael’s memory zoomed to the night he’d rescued Francine from falling onto the black kitten. The one she’d named Angel, for him. He hadn’t been outside the Supernova Supermarket very long before noticing the little black kitten on the sidewalk. But then Francine had exited the building and his focus went immediately to her. He’d been running through scenarios of what he could say to impress her, while watching as she walked toward the kitten.
She’d lost her balance and he hadn’t thought, just moved to keep her from hitting the ground, and the kitten, too.
“Was this man’s name Randel Edgar?”
“He didn’t tell me his name.”
Raphael fished out his communication device and selected the photo library. He found an older, and much more flattering, picture of Edgar and showed it to her.
