The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [60]
Simon pulled along the curb in front of the library and, ignoring the NO PARKING sign, hopped out and followed the path to the front door. He walked inside, scanned the two large rooms for Jude. Not finding her, he went straight to the desk.
“I was looking for Jude McDermott,” he told the woman who had offered assistance.
“Jude called in sick this morning,” she said in an exaggerated whisper apparently intended to remind Simon where he was.
Nodding his thanks, Simon left as quietly as he could. He reached the Mustang just as a Henderson police car slowed and the officer pointed to the sign that Simon had blatantly ignored.
“I was just leaving!” Simon called to him.
The officer nodded but waited until Simon had pulled from the curb, then followed him for a block or two.
Within minutes, Simon had parked his car in the lot across from the McDermott home and was standing on the top step ringing the doorbell. Inside he could hear Waylon alternately barking and sniffing at the door, but there were no other sounds from within the house. Simon glanced at the driveway, where the Taurus wagon was parked close by the back gate. He rang the bell again, eliciting more of a response from Waylon, but still the door remained closed.
Wherever Jude was, she didn’t appear to be sick at home.
Of course, she could be sick in bed, Simon told himself, remembering his last bout with the flu, which had kept him down for three whole days the winter before. Or she could be at the doctor’s, but there was the matter of the car in the driveway.
Maybe Dina had taken her mother to the doctor’s.
There was one way to find out.
Besides, Simon told himself as he got back into the car, after the dream he’d had the night before, he wanted—needed—to prove to himself that it had been nothing more than a dream. The rational part of Simon’s brain reminded him that he’d never had psychic powers. But the part of his brain that still held the image of the beautiful woman who had turned to him in terror and screamed his name was apparently still not totally convinced. He wanted to believe that he was merely a victim of the power of suggestion, that Norton’s intimation that Dina may be in some sort of danger had preyed on Simon’s subconscious during the night and had manifested itself in his dream. That was the only logical explanation for the edgy, uneasy feeling that had lingered into the morning hours.
Sure. Made sense. Logical. Reasonable.
Still . . .
Simon stopped once to ask directions, then took the road out of town for the designated 2.5 miles. Past the old yellow farmhouse and the orchard to the sign.
GARDEN GATES.
D. MCDERMOTT, ASLA
This would be the place.
Simon slowed down, made the right turn into the narrow lot, and parked near the door of the small shop. He got out of the car, leaned on his door, and looked around. The shop windows were crowded with wreaths artistically adorned with dried flowers and sheer ribbons, terra-cotta flowerpots filled with daffodils, and baskets of primroses. Across from the shop and set back fifty feet or so to one side was an old carriage house with lace curtains in the windows and pots of pansies near the door. The drive that wound past him led to a greenhouse, next to which was parked the pickup he’d seen at the library. Simon was hesitating, wondering in which of the structures he’d find her, when the greenhouse door swung open and a young man wearing headphones and carrying a flat of purple flowers emerged. Simon recognized him as Dina’s helper from the cancer garden. Mulch-boy, Dina’d called him. Simon hadn’t caught his real name.
“Excuse me!” Simon called to him.
The boy, who was just about to drop the back flap on the pickup, turned.
“Can you tell me where I can find Dina?”
Mulch-boy pointed to the greenhouse and continued to move his head in time with the music as he slid the flat of flowers onto the truck bed.
Simon nodded his thanks, slammed the car door, and stepped out of the way as