Longarm 245: Longarm and the Vanishing Virgin Read Online Free Page B

He couldn’t imagine living like this, being surrounded by such luxury day in and day out. He wondered if a fella could even scratch himself in such surroundings without feeling self-conscious about it.
    Canady took him along a hallway with a thick rug on the floor and stopped in front of a heavy door. “This is Nora’s room,” he said as he grasped the knob and turned it. The knob was made out of crystal and gave off a shimmering reflection of the light from the lamps along the hall.
    A lamp was lit inside the room too. It sat on a mahogany table next to a big four-poster bed with a silk and lace canopy over it. The rug on the floor in here was even thicker than the one out in the hall. A massive wardrobe sat along one wall, and opposite was a dressing table with a large mirror over it. Another wall was taken up by a spindly-legged divan covered with brocaded upholstery. Two heavy chairs rounded out the furniture. The paper on the walls was decorated with flowery curlicues, and the windows were covered with lace curtains that matched the canopy on the bed. It was undoubtedly a feminine room, yet Longarm thought there was something ... oppressive ... about it. The place oozed wealth, but there was still something cold about it. The whole house was that way.
    Longarm’s eyes were drawn to a painting hung on the wall above the divan. It was a landscape, a golden plain in the foreground, a range of mountains in the background. Longarm recognized the Rockies. He’d seen the view often enough. There was Pikes Peak in the center of the painting, and he figured that the artist must have been down in Colorado Springs when he painted it. Most of Longarm’s experience with art consisted of barroom nudes, but something about this picture captured and held his attention.
    Canady saw what Longarm was looking at, and said, “Nora’s quite talented, I suppose. A shame that nothing will ever come of it.”
    Longarm looked over at him. “Your daughter painted this?”
    â€œThat’s right. She’s been drawing sketches and painting pictures for as far back as I can remember. Pity that she’ll have to give it up when she marries Jonas.”
    â€œGive it up?” echoed Longarm. “Why should she do that?”
    â€œWell, painting is hardly a fitting hobby for a senator’s wife, is it? Whoever heard of such a thing?”
    Longarm shrugged. Just because something was unheard of didn’t necessarily mean it was a bad idea. He wasn’t going to argue the point with Canady, though. Instead he went over to the wardrobe and paused with his hand on the door, looking back quizzically at Canady.
    â€œGo ahead,” Canady said. “I’m sure Nora would be embarrassed to have a strange man pawing through her clothes—but she should have thought of that before she disappeared, shouldn’t she?”
    â€œI’ll be as careful as I can,” Longarm promised.
    For the next half hour, he tried to keep that promise as he searched the room for anything that might indicate where Nora Canady had intended to go when she left the mansion. That was assuming, of course, that she’d even had a destination in mind. She might have been in such a hurry to leave that she hadn’t cared where she ended up.
    The time was wasted, however. Longarm didn’t find a thing that was suspicious. He looked at Canady, who had watched him in silence, and asked, “Is this the way the room was found?”
    â€œNothing has been touched,” Canady assured him. “At least, there are no signs of ... of foul play, are there, Marshal?”
    â€œNo, there ain’t,” admitted Longarm. “I’d say you and Senator Palmer are right about Miss Nora leaving on her own, judging from the state of this room leastways. If anybody got in here and grabbed her, there would’ve been some sign of a struggle.”
    â€œSo, how will you proceed from