The B Girls - By Cari Cole Page 0,20

be rude. The guy seemed to know something about what Belle was up to. "No, she didn't come home yesterday and I'm afraid something's happened to her. Did she tell you where she was going?"

Perry looked a little alarmed now as well as desperate. "No. She was helping me with something and I thought she told you about it. It's pretty important. Maybe you can help me."

Incredulous, Lucy started to slam the door in his face but decided to give him a piece of her mind first. "Didn't you hear me? I said Belle is missing. Now is not the time." She stepped back to close the door.

"Wait! Maybe I can help you figure out where she went. It probably had something to do with the Dunlap Broadside? My PhD dissertation?"

An academic. She should have recognized the signs. Dunlap Broadside? Something about the phrase tickled Lucy's brain but she couldn't make the final connection. She found it hard to believe Belle was involved in some sort of research for this odd man's dissertation. "I doubt Belle went missing in a library."

"She wasn't helping me that way. She was trying to find a rare copy of the Dunlap Broadside. She was supposed to get in touch with me yesterday after she checked out a lead she'd found."

"What lead? I thought you said she didn't tell you where she was going."

"She didn't. She said she found a clue but she wouldn't say what it was. She said she didn't want to get my hopes up if it didn't pan out. Maybe if we put our heads together we can figure it out."

When Lucy hesitated, Perry gave her a pleading look. "Please! If you'll just give me ten minutes I can explain."

The guy looked desperate. He also looked harmless. Of course they say Ted Bundy looked harmless too when he faked a broken limb to lure women to their doom. But this guy had the look of some of the people who had stumbled in and out of her parent's sphere of influence from time to time. People who spent so much time in the mustiest parts of the library with old crumbling books that when they came up for air they had trouble interacting with real live people.

Social skills were not a top priority for people like Perry Thiel.

The question was what to do with him now that he'd arrived on Belle's doorstep. Belle would have let him in. She never turned down an opportunity to meet someone with a new perspective.

With a sigh, Lucy stepped back and opened the door wider. "Maybe you should come in so we can sort this out."

He stepped inside without meeting Lucy's eyes. His own eyes darted around as if he thought maybe what he was looking for would be written on the walls, floors and ceiling. She'd bet money the walls of his workspace--and maybe his bedroom for that matter--were covered with notes, pictures and other bits of academic flotsam.

"Let's go into the kitchen. I need coffee," she said.

Perry snapped his attention back to her as if he'd already forgotten she was there. "Uh, sure."

Maybe he was better with the written word, Lucy thought.

She pushed her unruly hair out of her eyes, irritated to realize she must look a bigger mess than usual after having slept in her clothes, and more irritated that she was worried about her appearance when Belle could be hurt or scared or God knew what.

She detoured to the end-table, retrieved her reading glasses and pushed them up onto her head to hold her hair back as she led the way to the coffee pot. For Lucy, glasses were as much a hair accessory as an aid to her vision.

"So, tell me how you knew I was coming here," she said as she rounded up the coffee, filters and water and started the brew.

"Belle told me when I called yesterday." He stood shifting from foot to foot while he watched--or rather stared at--Lucy making coffee.

That was odd. "Do you talk to Belle often?"

"I've only known her for a couple of weeks. Your family turned up in my research on the Dunlap Broadside."

Back to the Dunlap Broadside whatever that was. She invited him to sit and offered him a cup of coffee. "Maybe you should start at the beginning."

"I contacted Belle about two weeks ago--"

"Good--whoa," Jane said as she came into the kitchen with wild hair and a silk robe. "Who are you?"

Perry blinked and stared.

"This is Perry Thiel. Belle was helping