Free Cold Blood by Lynda La Plante Page A

masculine muscles would more than likely be wrapped around another equally tanned male’s body.

    “You gay, Mr. Nathan?”
    “My, my, you are very aggressive.”
    “No, I don’t think I’d say that was an aggressive question but one I need to ask and know the answer to. You see, Mr. Nathan, I am trying to find a young girl who’s been missing for eleven months, and if you had sexual relations with her, then
    “
    He smiled, and relaxed his macho tennis pro image.
    “Yes, Mrs. Page, I am,”
    he said, looking at the card she had passed him.

    “Thank you. So, tell me what you know about Anna Louise Caley.”
    “Well, I was her personal coach, so I’ve lost a nice income. Anna
    fl
    ift
    “,’ Louise could have played professional standardshe was very coordinated, strong, but she had a major fault; if she made a mistake she couldn’t forget it. She hgfllfrne very angry at herself and it usually fouled up the rest of her game. The more anger she felt, the worse she played.”
    He cocked his handsome head to one side.
    “You see, I really did know her only as her ‘ coach. I can tell you about her game but nothing about her personal life.”
    f
    “What about her father?”
    Lorraine asked.

    i;, Nathan shrugged.
    “Good player, hard hitter, but no speed. He’d wait
    ! for the ball to come to him, never used the court. She was never interested ‘ ,’,’, in being a serious player. All she ever wanted was to beat her father, but ‘“I, whenever they played she lost it. And she could have beaten him.”
    ^
    “Did she come on to you?”
    Lorraine asked as they walked toward the
    ‘& court. She found his fake capped-tooth smile unattractive but realized that M!’, for a young kid it could be devastating.

    “Come on to me? My dear, that is, sadly, the main part of why peoHr!’ piewen> women, girls or whateverkeep hiring me. I have to look and ť’ act the stud.”
    “Were you?”
    She tried one more time.

    “Was I what? A stud? Oh, please …”
    Nathan’s tanned neck stretched, I’ his perfect features wreathed in smiles. ,B|i
    “So she was, say, infatuated?”
    He smiled, showing his perfect white teeth.
    “Mayb^ but I assure you it was not in my interest to encourage her in any way. Like I said, the CaHpft leys paid me well to coach their daughter and I would have been foolish
    9ftij to foul up a good weekly income.”
    If—
    m
    “Weekly?”
    i
    “Yep, although sometimes I’d get to their place and she didn’t feel like jRi playing, but I was always paid.”
    Nathan turned as a petite blond woman |K,> with a frilled white tennis skirt waved to him from across a court.
    “I gotta
    9R[ go, but if you need to speak to me again, anytime. Do you play?”
    R, Lorraine looked at the blonde attempting to knock a ball over the net. HI
    “About as good a game as maybe she has!”
    He laughedshe rather liked
    9E’ him.
    “Thanks for your time, I appreciate your seeing me.”
    I She hadn’t got much from Nathan, again nothing that had not already
    jH| been recorded by the police files. She watched him in action with his
    “stuHr dent”
    and realized on closer inspection she was well into her late forties. H{‘ Poor woman, she thought, she must have the same infatuation with Jeff as ^R his students, staring at his rippling muscles as he began to drag his ball bas^n ket to the center of the court opposite the blonde.

    ^B
    “Let’s just warm up with a few easy ones, shall we, Mrs. Fairley? See ^H how you’ve progressed.”
    ^^K Lorraine made her way back to the parking lot and she heard Mrs.
    Fairley squeal a lot of
    “Ooops”
    and
    “Oh, I’m so sorry …”
    as the balls she attempted to swipe expertly dribbled into the tennis net.

    Lorraine felt totally drained by the time she drove out of the university complex, and she was also irritated. Maybe it was the students’ youth, their nonchalance, but no one had given her any real insight into the missing girl. Just as nobody seemed to