Read Online Taken In by Elizabeth Lynn Casey - Free Book Online Page B

that day that made knees weaken around him.” Leona looked down at Paris and blew her a kiss. “That’s why, when I saw my precious baby for the first time, I instantly thought of John, even though I couldn’t recall his name at the time. His whiskers and his eyes were enough to transport me back to . . .”
    “Paris!” Beatrice aided.
    Again, Leona pinned the nanny with a stare before moving on with her story. “The next day, I went back to that same store to purchase a book I decided I wanted to try. He was there. Again. With the same enthralled look on his face.”
    “I s’pose he must have liked her fidgetin’, huh?”
    “You might think that,” Leona countered her sister’s comment, “if the woman seated across from him was the same woman. But it wasn’t.”
    Tori blinked once, twice, her mind working to absorb everything Leona was saying.
    “It was the same thing again on the third day. Same enthralled look aimed at yet another older, obviously infatuated woman.” Leona set Paris on the floor and watched as she hopped over to Debbie’s feet, the memory of the earlier carrot still alive and well in the rabbit’s thoughts. “That’s when I knew he was a gamer. A well-groomed, clearly well-off gamer. The young man behind the counter simply filled in the blanks when I asked.”
    “What blanks?” Tori asked.
    “The fact that John’s clothes and expensive car were
because
of the women he chose. Single women who wanted companionship badly enough they were blind to the ways of a real live—albeit attractive—con artist like John Dreyer.”
    “But—but he was so well read,” Rose wailed. “He knew all the classics and could speak intelligently about them!”
    “And he knew about the kind of places I’ve always wanted to visit,” Beatrice added glumly.
    Margaret Louise slumped in her spot. “He knew his way around a kitchen better than any man I’ve ever known.”
    Leona’s left brow rose, followed seconds later by her right. “And if you’d said you were into skydiving, he’d have told you about all his many encounters with that, too.” Then, dumbing her voice down to a pitch and pace in keeping with a preschool teacher, Leona continued, “That’s what a con artist does. He cons you into thinking he’s something he’s not, luring you in until you believe he’s something special and start showering him with gifts in order to keep such a wonderful man.”
    “But Dixie isn’t wealthy. She needs every cent of her social security check to make ends meet.” Tori looked to Rose for confirmation, her elderly friend’s head nodding almost immediately.
    Leona pushed off her chair and wandered around the room, stopping briefly outside Dixie’s door before continuing her aimless path. “That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.”
    “Maybe the bloke changed since you saw him in Paris, Leona. Maybe he’s no longer a wanker.”
    Tori began to nod along with Beatrice’s supposition, but stopped as a very different conversation drifted through her thoughts . . .
    “I know I shouldn’t be surprised. It was only a matter of time before one of those women wised up to his ways and exacted revenge.”
    “Well, could it be possible, Leona?” Debbie posed. “Could he have changed?”
    Leona opened her mouth to answer, but it was Tori who actually spoke. “From what I was told by his neighbor at the crime scene, it doesn’t sound like it. In fact, this woman seemed to not only know about his ways, but pointed to them as a reason for his fall.”
    “If that nice policeman is callin’ it murder, then it was a
push
, Victoria.”
    “And it probably was. Behavior like that has a way of catching up with you eventually.” Leona stopped halfway through her third lap around the room, bent delicately at the waist, and retrieved Paris from the floor. “But louse or not, John was still the visual inspiration by which I named this precious little girl.”
    “You thought she was a boy when