Thinking quickly, she snapped her fingers as though she’d just remembered she’d forgotten something. “Damn.” She spun around. Smiling slightly as she passed the thug—am I getting paranoid?—she walked briskly back to George’s office. “I think there’s a guy out there after my jewels,” she said breathlessly.

“What?” George dropped his pen. “Are you sure?”

She shook her head. “No, but I have good reason to be suspicious.”

He jumped to his feet. “Let’s get security.”

“George, I have no proof. Nothing. It might not even be the right guy. I wouldn’t want the bank to get into trouble for pestering an innocent man.”

“Then we’ll delay him while you make your exit,” he said smoothly.

But when they got back out to the lobby, the big blond man was gone. If he were a professional at assault and intimidation, Ashley thought, he’d know when someone had made him. She started to apologize to George, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He was nothing if not cautious. He insisted on calling a cab and having a guard escort her and the tiara and choker out to it. He said he was free anytime for dinner with her; she promised she’d think about it and thanked him.

She didn’t dare stop at her apartment. If the blond meat wasn’t there, Jeremy Carruthers just might be. And she didn’t want to run into either of them. She had the cab drop her at Barky’s truck and asked the driver to wait until she’d gotten in, started it up and pulled out into the street. She tipped him heavily. He waited.

When she was out on Storrow Drive, she cranked the old truck up—it rattled ominously—and made Amherst in less than two hours.

Jeremy cursed Ashley all the way back to Chestnut Street. The security guards had nothing to hold him on—he’d spouted off like a lawyer—and had dumped him outside in the plaza. He’d promptly hailed a cab.

The front door was locked, and she didn’t answer his buzz on the intercom. He sat down on the front stoop and cursed her some more.

“If it isn’t Jeremy with two r’s Carruthers.” The photographer who’d caught them at the institute joined him on the stoop. “Just missed our mystery heiress.”

His heart thumped. “Did you see where she went?”

“Maybe. What rag you with?”

“None—”

“Free-lance? You know, if you’re on to something, I can get you good money. You do the copy, I provide the photos.”

“What about your partner?”

“We’re not married. Here’s my card.”

It was mass produced and dog-eared. Jeremy tucked it into his pocket. “I’ll think about it. But if I don’t find her, my story’s stillborn.”

“Got in some old truck parked on Mount Vernon and lit out of here like a bat out of hell. Storrow Drive West. My asshole partner’s trying to follow her, but she got a pretty good head start and was really cooking. The jerk’ll lose her. Hey— where’re you going?”