Where was the nurse?
It was time for someone to wake Lauren, to check her pupils, to see if her speech was slurred, to ask what she remembered.
Someone was supposed to make sure the stillness of her sleep didn’t mean she had slipped away into a coma.
Sylvia stared at the clock on the hospital wall, as she had all through the night in dim light while the hours crawled. Outside the window now, the sky began to pink up and coax another day to life. In an hour, Sylvia’s mother would dial her home phone number, and Sylvia wouldn’t be there to answer. Instead, she would have to call Emma and calm anxiety before it stirred. They had spoken last night when everything was over.
After the storm.
After the sirens.
After the oak tree shuddered and split.
After the ambulance.
Emma was fine. She went to her basement when the tornado warning siren sounded and stayed there until the wind subsided. Sammie Dunavant was already at the house checking on her when Sylvia phoned. Emma seemed to understand Sylvia’s explanation of what happened to Lauren, though whether she would remember this morning was uncertain. Emma might look out the window at the sunrise, predict a beautiful day, and not remember yesterday’s storm.
The funnel hadn’t actually touched down in Hidden Falls, but the wind had scattered aimless debris. Sylvia had seen enough television news at the hospital to know that the storm cut a swath across central Illinois that left every town in its path in cleanup mode. Downed power lines, tree limbs—like the one that nearly landed on Lauren—strewn trash bins, twisted street signs, dangling traffic lights, broken storefront windows.
At some point, Mayor Sylvia Alexander would have to emerge from the hospital and get a full assessment of what the whirlwind storm had done to Hidden Falls. Right now she only wanted to be aunt to the young woman lying in the hospital bed.
Where was the nurse?
Sylvia had emerged from the basement of Our Savior Community Church to find Cooper Elliott shielding Lauren with his body and making sure she didn’t try to untangle herself from the web of small branches that camouflaged them. The tree limb itself had just missed them. A gash on the side of Lauren’s head marked her impact with the sidewalk. Though she regained consciousness after only a few minutes, Lauren was confused about what happened.
Ethan was there, and the ambulance responded in record time. The ER doctor quickly concurred with Ethan’s opinion that Lauren was severely concussed but otherwise unharmed. Lauren was well cared for. Still, she looked frail asleep in the bed. Sylvia had helped to keep her niece awake through the elongated afternoon and evening. Finally, Lauren had been allowed to sleep for two hours at a time.
It was time for a nurse to come in and wake her.
Sylvia’s cell phone jangled, and the noise made her jump. As she reached to answer it, she glanced at Lauren, who gave no indication that she’d heard the sound. Sylvia decided to take the call in the hall where she could also track down the nurse.
“Hi, Larry,” she said to her brother-in-law, Lauren’s father.
“Janet just listened to your message,” Larry said. “There aren’t a lot of cell phone towers in this part of Alaska. Is Lauren all right?”
“They say she’s doing well.” Sylvia relayed as much medical information as she knew. “I know you’re in the middle of the vacation of a lifetime, but I thought you would want to know.”
“Of course we do. The fishing here is great, but there’s only one little plane out every two days, and then it’s another whole day to get home.”
“Stay. They’re only keeping her for observation. She’ll be home before you get here, anyway. I’ll look after her.” Sylvia took comfort in her own composed tone. Millions of people suffered concussions every year, she told herself. If she set aside the dramatic circumstances of Lauren’s injury and believed Ethan, Lauren could be released later that day. She would just need rest.
Sylvia finished the call and caught the eye of a nurse.
“Go ahead and wake her,” the nurse said. “I’ll be in soon. If her stomach has settled, we’ll see about breakfast.”
Sylvia returned to Lauren’s room and gently nudged her shoulder. When Lauren didn’t wake, Sylvia stroked her face and called her name. After Sylvia raised her voice a couple of notches, Lauren’s head turned and her eyes opened. Sylvia wished Ethan were there to determine whether Lauren’s eyes looked right. Ethan had left two hours ago, headed for Columbus to see if he could salvage his residency.
“Hi.” Lauren’s voice was breathy and soft, but she seemed to focus on Sylvia’s face.
“How do you feel?” Sylvia asked.
“My head hurts.” Lauren’s eyes moved from side to side. “I don’t remember….”
“Would you like to sit up?” Sylvia found the remote control and pushed the appropriate button. The head of the bed rose slowly.
“Did someone find Christopher?” Lauren rubbed her eyes.
“You did,” Sylvia said. They’d had this conversation several times already.
“He was in the tree. I was running.”
“I know. You got there. Cooper got Christopher out of the tree.”
“Cooper did?” Lauren leaned forward a few inches.
“You both did.”
“So Christopher is safe?”
“Yes.”
“And Molly?”
“Also safe.”
“That’s a relief.” Lauren sank back against the bed. “Was that today?”
“Yesterday.”
“So today is Sunday?”
“That’s right.”
“I should go to church.”
Sylvia picked up Lauren’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m sure everyone understands that you can’t be there.”
She wasn’t sure what was happening at Our Savior or any of the other churches in Hidden Falls. What happened in this room is what mattered.
“I can’t see without my glasses,” Lauren said.
“They broke when you fell.” During the night, Sylvia had offered to fetch Lauren’s spare glasses from her apartment, but Lauren said they were broken as well.
“Did someone find Christopher? Is he all right?” Lauren’s face filled with anxiety.
“Yes, he’s fine.” Sylvia would reassure Lauren as many times as it took. Eventually Lauren would remember the answer to the question, even if she never remembered racing against a tornado to find a little boy who climbed a tree and couldn’t get down.
“I’m thirsty,” Lauren said.
Sylvia picked up the water pitcher and took it to the sink to freshen it before filling Lauren’s cup.
Lauren sipped through the straw and swallowed. “What time is it?”
Sylvia pointed to the clock. “The sun’s just up.”
“It’s Sunday morning, right?”
“Right.”
“You should go home,” Lauren said. “I bet you’ve been here all night.”
She had been.
“There’s a whole hospital to take care of me,” Lauren said. “Make sure Nana’s all right.”
“She is.” Sylvia kissed Lauren’s forehead. She wasn’t going anywhere.
The ER had treated and released Cooper ten hours ago. His arms and face were a patchwork of bandages and minor scrapes, but the injuries weren’t serious.
So why, Liam wondered, had they sat together in a hospital waiting room all night, periodically changing places with their cousin Dani or Nicole Sandquist? At first, others from the church had come to the hospital, anxious to know the latest about Lauren’s condition. By suppertime, though, the crowd thinned, and by bedtime, only Liam, Cooper, Nicole, Ethan, and Dani remained. Every now and then, one of them left for the restroom or the coffee machine outside the cafeteria. At two in the morning, Dani scrounged up some doughnuts, probably abandoned at the nurses’ station. Around three, Ethan got a phone call, and by four he said good-bye.
For a week, Liam had avoided looking his brother in the eye. Now he’d spent an entire night within six feet of Cooper. If the oak limb had crashed eighteen inches to the left of where it landed, it could have smashed Cooper’s skull or broken his back. Picturing a very different scenario, Liam was unable to simply say good-bye to his brother and walk out of the hospital.
He wouldn’t have slept anyway.
Liam didn’t have the second envelope. He didn’t know what became of the box of brochures he’d found it in and into which he dropped it without reading it. Had someone carried it to safety? Where? Had the contents scattered in the gale-force wind? Had the sudden afternoon rain drenched the envelope in a ditch?
He would never know what the note said. And it didn’t matter, because Liam had made a decision while sitting under a blue-and-white-striped canopy at the health fair, watching Jessica behave in a cool, telling manner devoid of distress—while his own heart shattered like Dani’s boat smashing against the rocks of the falls. If Liam had needed any confirmation of his disturbing suspicions, he found it in Jessica’s unflapped demeanor.
Nicole was stretched out on a sofa, her fingers winding under the latches of her boot cast to scratch her leg. She had refused to let Ethan take her somewhere more comfortable before he left town. Liam understood why she remained. Nicole was enough younger than he was that she would have known Lauren Nock in high school. Liam had seen them sitting together at Quinn’s banquet last weekend, and they seemed friendly. Dani’s presence was more puzzling. Liam had expected her to leave hours ago, with the pronouncement that none of them could do anything for Lauren, so they might as well go home and sleep. But perhaps she stayed for the same reason Liam did.
Because they could have lost Cooper in one unpredictable moment.
And because Cooper wouldn’t leave, not while Lauren was lying in a room down the hall and he wasn’t permitted to visit. Liam hadn’t realized until the yawning hours of the night how attached his brother had become in the last few days. If only one of them could be happy in love, Cooper deserved it.
A nurse stepped into the waiting room, and all four vigil keepers braced for news. Cooper immediately stood up. Nicole gripped the back of the sofa.
“She’s awake and talking.” The nurse tipped her head forward and looked at them over the tops of the half-size frames of her reading glasses. “I can’t give you any more information than that, and Dr. Glass doesn’t want a room full of visitors. I’m sure Lauren would want you all to go home and get some rest and a decent meal.”
She turned on one heel and departed. Postures around the room went slack.
“Maybe she’s right,” Liam said. “In a few hours, they might let Lauren have visitors.”
“I’m not going anywhere just yet.” Cooper sat down and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
“The mayor’s with her,” Liam said. “She won’t be alone.”
“Don’t feel you have to stay.”
Liam leaned back in his chair. He couldn’t leave if Cooper wouldn’t.
“The cafeteria will be open by now.” Dani stood up and dug in her pants pocket for money. “I’ll get us some breakfast.”
Nicole reached for her crutches. “If you don’t mind my pace, I’d like to come along.”
Dani nodded and waited for Nicole to get herself organized for ambulation. Liam watched the unlikely duo move slowly into the hall.
“I don’t want to hurt Dani’s feelings,” Cooper said, “but I don’t feel much like eating.”
Liam didn’t either. “I have to talk to you about something. It’s important.”
Cooper glanced up at Liam. “More important than what Lauren’s going through?”
“A different kind of important.”
“It can’t wait?”
After avoiding this conversation for so long, now that they were alone in the waiting room, Liam didn’t think he could stifle himself.
“I’m in trouble, Cooper,” Liam said. “I need your help.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Big trouble. Legal trouble.”
Cooper took in a slow breath. “I’m a sheriff’s deputy. You can’t tell me you’re in that kind of trouble and not expect me to think like a cop. Maybe you should talk to Jack Parker before you say anything else.”
“You’re my brother,” Liam said. “You’re the one I need.”
“Be careful, Liam. There won’t be any way to back out. If you put me in a compromising position, I will be obligated to do the right thing.”
“That’s what I’m counting on.” Liam chose a path and began to pace back and forth.
He started with the day he realized something was amiss with one account, and then another, and another. He moved on to how he arrived at the total of seventy-three thousand dollars and the panic that surged through him by the night of the banquet. Liam skipped over breaking into the marketing coordinator’s office at the banquet hall and taking an envelope from a bank. If he had to, he would confess later. Right now he didn’t want Cooper to trip over that technicality. He had put the envelope back, and he’d done nothing with the information it contained. Cooper—so far—had overlooked a litany of infractions by Ethan, Nicole, Dani, and even Lauren in the search for Quinn, but Liam knew that when it came to his own brother, Cooper wouldn’t risk being thought complicit in a crime. It could destroy his career.
Liam watched the clock, unsure how long it would take Nicole to gimp to the cafeteria and back. He moved on to the first note, the missed breakfast meeting, his suspicions about Jessica’s newfound money, the breakup, the scratched setting of her ring.
Stone by stone, weight lifted off Liam’s chest.
“You have to help me,” he said. “I did not take that money, but I don’t know how to prove it.”
“And you think Jessica has it,” Cooper said.
“I don’t know how to prove that, either.” Liam peered into his brother’s face, aching for a glimmer of belief. Liam was always the gullible Elliott brother and Cooper the one whose face gave away nothing. It had always been that way. “Cooper, I’m telling the truth.”
Cooper moistened his bottom lip. “I know.”
Liam let out his breath. “So you’ll help?”
“Within the constraints of the law, yes.”
“Do I need to talk to Jack Parker?”
“I promise to let you know if you should.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s Sunday,” Cooper said. “I’m not sure how fast I can turn the wheels of bureaucracy on the weekend, but I’ll try.”
“Anything you can do, I’ll appreciate it.”
“Here’s my deal,” Cooper said. “I was going to go over to the church later. People will want to know how Lauren is, and there’s a lot of cleanup to do.”
Liam nodded. He’d seen the soggy detritus that had overtaken the church lawn in the wake of the storm.
“My guess is the trustees aren’t going to leave that mess alone any longer than they have to,” Cooper said. “There’s too much risk of someone getting hurt.”
Liam scrunched his forehead. What exactly was Cooper getting at?
“I want you to go over to the church,” Cooper said. “Go to the service, find out what the plan is, and do what you can to help.”
Liam swallowed hard. Yesterday’s reluctant community service was the closest he had been to attending church in years, but he would do whatever it took to keep Cooper on his side.
“I’m going to go make some calls,” Cooper said, “and then I’m going to the church. So if you want to know what I came up with, then that’s where you’d better be.”
Nicole wrinkled her nose at the scrambled eggs. Few things were more disgusting than cold scrambled eggs, and even if they were hot when spooned onto a plate, they’d be cold long before she sat down to eat them. A bagel with cream cheese was a much safer choice, and she could never go wrong with a banana.
Dani pushed a tray along the rails of the cafeteria line and loaded it with an assortment of rolls, fresh fruit, and juices. Nicole admired the decisiveness Dani displayed without frittering away time speculating about what her cousins might want to eat. She made straightforward choices in efficient succession. If Cooper and Liam couldn’t find something appealing on the tray, it would not be for lack of options.
“You were awesome yesterday.” Nicole moved her crutches along behind Dani.
“What do you mean?” Dani picked up three pats of butter.
“You kept the looky-loos out of the way.” While Ethan’s medical training kicked in and he examined Lauren and Cooper, Dani had taken control of the crowd, impressing on everyone that they had to stand clear while a select few dragged the tree limb out of the way and the EMTs came in with a stretcher.
“Lauren will be fine.” Dani stopped in front of the cashier and waited for the total before handing over several bills.
“I’m sure she’ll be grateful to hear what you did.”
“Nothing to hear. Sometimes a situation just calls for someone to be sensible.”
They started back down the hall toward the elevators, Nicole’s crutches clunking rhythmically against the tile floor as she swung her good foot between them. The heels of her hands were sore, but she progressed confidently alongside Dani, who carried the laden tray.
Nicole pressed the button that would bring the elevator to them and eyed her bagel on the tray. Hunger had kicked in, and she salivated for the cinnamon raisin meld of flavors. If she weren’t on crutches, she might have reached for the bagel and bitten into it while they waited. The numbered light above the door changed with a ping, and the elevator doors opened. Nicole readjusted the grip on her crutches. Behind her, footsteps thumped rapidly toward the elevator. She started to turn to assure the person they’d hold the doors, but instead of a polite, grateful face, Nicole saw only the blur of a form pushing her aside and kicking one crutch out from under her. Hopping, she caught herself against the wall as the doors closed in her face. Dani’s carefully balanced breakfast tray clattered to the floor as she pounded on the doors.
“Green shoes!” Dani shouted.
“Dani, what—?”
But Dani was already yanking open the door to the stairwell.
Nicole surveyed the damage. Breakfast for four spilled across the floor—including a hefty slosh across her fallen crutch. She looked in both directions down the hall.
“Of course, nobody’s around when you need help,” she muttered as she balanced carefully and leaned forward to pick the crutch out of the mess. Nicole’s admiration only moments ago for Dani’s organization and calm evaporated in the reality that Dani had abandoned her. And the tray hadn’t been knocked from Dani’s hands. She’d dropped it in favor of hot-headed pursuit.
They could have pushed the button again and still had their breakfast.
Nicole had seen enough of the elevator thief to recognize the blue scrubs of a nonmedical employee. It was a man with dark, close-cropped hair. Beyond that, Nicole wasn’t sure.
The handle of her crutch was sticky with jelly, but Nicole gripped it enough to safely report to the cafeteria cashier that there was a mess in the hall. Then she went into the restroom to clean up. By the time she returned to the elevators, an employee from housekeeping was dropping the breakfast remains into a rolling trash can.
The hospital wasn’t large. There were only three floors. Nicole went up one story to tell the Elliott brothers that the breakfast plans had gone awry—but the waiting room was occupied only by a young couple Nicole had never seen before.
“There were two guys in here,” she said. “Did you see which way they went?”
The couple blinked at her and shook their heads.
Cooper and Liam should have been expecting breakfast. Why would they both leave?
Nicole huffed back into the hall. There weren’t many places they could go. In one direction was a set of swinging doors leading to two squares of patient rooms around central nurses’ stations. In the other was an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign. Nicole did due diligence and hopped a short distance in both directions to satisfy herself that Cooper and Liam were not simply loitering just out of sight.
Ethan had left for Columbus.
Dani got a bee in her bonnet about chasing somebody just for being rude.
Liam and Cooper had disappeared without explanation.
She didn’t even have a cell phone number for Dani or her cousins—or Sylvia Alexander, who was probably still down the hall in her niece’s room.
Nicole pressed her lips together and hopped back into the waiting room. Her stomach still rumbled for breakfast, but at the moment, she needed to sit down and give her sore hands a break. The young couple were both absorbed in magazines. Nicole moved past them and settled in a chair against the opposite wall.
Ethan would be more than halfway to Columbus by now. Nicole had been dozing with her head on his shoulder when his phone rang at three in the morning and he eased away to take the call in the hall. When he returned, he didn’t say anything more than that he would have to leave.
Nicole had wanted to protest.
What about Lauren?
What about me?
What about Quinn?
But she’d held her tongue. She knew no more about the reality of Ethan’s life in Columbus than he knew about hers in St. Louis. With the upheaval of the newspaper she worked for, the future of her job likely was beyond Nicole’s control, but Ethan might still have a choice. He deserved the chance to choose.
They’d had no privacy or time for the conversation Nicole wished for.
The one where she’d look in his eyes to discern what he felt for her.
The one where she’d say that the storm had frightened her with the thought she might lose Ethan as well as Quinn.
The one where she’d agree he was right when he said they should have no more regrets about each other.
The one where she’d wish he would kiss her.
Instead, they’d stared at each other over the cup of vending machine coffee Ethan would depend on to keep himself awake for a hundred miles or so when he pulled out of the hospital parking lot long before dawn.
Ethan promised to call, that it wouldn’t be like last time.
Nicole wanted to believe him.
She took her phone from her pocket. Nicole’s only charger was at Lauren’s apartment. During the night, Ethan had brought in the charger he kept in his car, so Nicole had some juice, but the battery was not full. She opened her contact list just to stare at the entry under Ethan’s name. Nicole knew the name of the hospital where he worked, and she had his cell phone number. This was more information than she’d had for most of the last ten years. Nicole shut off the phone to save the battery and instantly felt disconnected from Ethan. With the top of the phone pressed against her forehead and her eyes closed, she pictured him in his Lexus driving on Interstate 70 into the rising sun.
He would call. He would.
In the meantime, Nicole kept watch for Lauren, not even knowing if her friend was conscious. Nicole supposed she could call Benita Booker for a ride, once the morning progressed further toward a reasonable hour, but if Sylvia came down the hall with news of Lauren, Nicole didn’t want her to find the room empty of her niece’s friends.
Where had they all gone?
Her eyes still closed, Nicole leaned her head back against the wall. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt Lauren’s phone against her ear and Quinn’s tune playing from somewhere in Oklahoma.
Or anywhere. If the 918 number belonged to a cell phone, its owner—and Quinn—could be anywhere. Nicole wondered if anyone at the newspaper would still talk to her. She needed investigative help, but maybe none of the people she trusted still had jobs. Later Nicole would turn on her phone and try to reach somebody.
While the tune played in her head, the sequence of pitches formed in Nicole’s throat, and she softly released them to the empty corner where she sat. She longed to hear Quinn’s soothing whistle. Ethan’s scent wafted around her, and for a moment Nicole marveled at how real it seemed even in his absence. When someone dropped into the seat beside her, Nicole’s eyes fluttered open.
The scent was not a memory.
Ethan’s dark eyes were inches from her.
“What are you doing here?” Nicole’s heart raced. He should have been closing in on Columbus by now.
“Aren’t you glad to see me?”
A grin split her face. She drew in breath. “What about your job?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Whatever damage I’ve done to my career is not going to get worse at this point.”
Nicole swallowed the thickness in her throat. “I’m glad you’re here.” She was—though she hoped he hadn’t thrown away his residency in his decision to turn around.
“As long as I’m here, I might as well act like a neurologist,” he said. “I want to see Lauren’s chart and check her CT scan.”
“Will they let you?”
“I might be able to prevail on professional courtesy, especially if Lauren says she’d like my opinion.”
“I’m sure she would.”
“It’s almost the start of visiting hours, anyway,” Ethan said. “Let me go see what I can do.”
He stood up, and she tilted her face up at him. When he bent to kiss her cheek, Nicole said, “Bring me breakfast.”
Ethan figured twenty-four minutes before the official start of visiting hours was close enough to push through the swinging doors. He hoped one of the nurses on duty would remember his presence yesterday afternoon, when he followed Lauren’s transfer from the ER to a regular room. A gray-haired woman in the corner, probably the charge nurse, looked up from her stack of paperwork.
“Dr. Jordan, isn’t it?”
“Good memory, Nurse Wacker.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for Dr. Glass.”
“Right. About your friend with the head trauma.”
“I was hoping for sort of a professional courtesy conversation.”
The nurse picked up her phone. “I’ll page him.”
“Thanks.”
Ethan wandered a few yards away from the nurses’ station but stayed within sight. When his phone rang, he glanced at the ID.
BRINKMAN.
He ignored the call. Ethan had nothing to say to Phil Brinkman, and he doubted his friend Hansen would call. Good news from Columbus, scarce to begin with, was out of the question now. If Dr. Gonzalez had not already returned to the hospital, he would within hours. Brinkman would alternate between a martyr who never left his duties in the chief’s absence and a tattletale about Ethan’s negligence. Ethan hoped Hansen had covered his own tracks enough not to be caught in the fallout. The next conversation Ethan expected to have would be with Gonzalez himself.
And it was not going to be pleasant.
“Dr. Jordan.” Nurse Wacker signaled from the nurses’ station. “Dr. Glass just got here. He’s in the lounge down the hall and would like you to join him. Just push the buzzer by the employee doors and he’ll let you in.”
Ethan hadn’t met Dr. Glass yesterday. A generalist in the ER had treated Lauren and admitted her for observation. But Ethan remembered the public health nurse mentioning Dr. Glass yesterday at the health fair.
That was less than twenty-four hours ago, and once again, everything had changed in Hidden Falls.
Ethan buzzed the doors, and a man more than twice his age peered through a narrow pane of plexiglass before opening the door.
“Dr. Jordan, I presume.”
“Thank you for seeing me.”
“I understand you’re a friend of one of my patients.” Dr. Glass led the way down the hall to a staff lounge.
Ethan took the chair Dr. Glass offered. “I haven’t seen Lauren in the last twelve hours. I wondered about her status.”
“I haven’t seen her yet this morning, either, but my understanding is she had a good night, considering. My orders were for the nurses to wake her every two hours.”
Ethan nodded. “Do you think I could see her chart?”
“Don’t worry. We did all the scans. She has a significant concussion, but we’re following protocol.”
“I’m sure you are. I’m a neurosurgical resident. If you could indulge me, I’d appreciate it.”
“Neurosurgical, eh?”
“Nine months to go.”
“Where?”
Ethan named the hospital in Columbus.
“Ah. Gonzalez still running that program?” Dr. Glass asked.
Ethan blinked.
Dr. Glass laughed. “Did you think a small-town doctor like me wouldn’t know his reputation?”
“I meant no disrespect, sir.”
“He was full of himself even in med school.”
Ethan allowed himself a half smile. “You know Dr. Gonzalez?”
“I’m not sure he’d admit to knowing me. We had rather differing perspectives on the human side of practicing medicine when we started out, but I have no doubt he runs a fine residency.”
“I’m there because of him.”
“Despite his quirks.”
Ethan relaxed. He liked Dr. Glass.
“Where are you going when you finish?” Dr. Glass asked.
Ethan shrugged. First he had to figure out if he still had a residency to finish. If he survived this crisis, maybe the hospital in Columbus would keep him on. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“I’ve been trying to retire for years. I send as many surgical cases as I can somewhere else, but they keep calling me in for emergencies. We could use someone like you around here.”
Ethan smiled blandly. “I’m not sure Hidden Falls is for me.” He was sure it wasn’t.
“You’re here now.”
“I came for Quinn’s banquet last weekend.”
“Well, we all know how that went, don’t we?” Dr. Glass stood up. “Let’s go see our patient.”
They stopped at the nurses’ station, and Nurse Wacker handed Dr. Glass a chart. He read the overnight notes and then handed it to Ethan.
“See?” Dr. Glass said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Relieved, Ethan agreed. The radiologist’s notes on the CT scan mentioned nothing remarkable, and other than a mild headache and residual memory issues, Lauren had no significant symptoms.
When they entered her room, Lauren gave them a drowsy grin. “They’re not going to charge me extra for two doctors, are they?”
“Maybe you’re just seeing double.” Ethan held a finger up to see if she would follow it with her eyes and then automatically lifted the bedding off her feet to check her response to his touch.
“I feel everything I’m supposed to feel,” she said.
As he checked Lauren’s grip, Ethan glanced at Sylvia, settled in the chair beside the bed. “Is she behaving herself?”
“I’m here to be sure she does,” Sylvia said.
“Do you remember what happened?” Ethan asked.
“Not exactly. But I remember that Aunt Sylvia told me what happened. Does that count?”
He nodded. “It counts for something.”
Ethan listened while Dr. Glass asked some questions about headache and nausea and made some notes in Lauren’s chart.
“I’d like to keep you until we’re clear of the twenty-four-hour mark,” Dr. Glass said. “But right now I don’t see any reason why you should spend another night in the hospital.”
“You can come home with me,” Sylvia said, “at least for a night.”
“What about Nicole?” Lauren asked. “I’m supposed to be looking after her.”
“She can come, too, if she’d like,” Sylvia said.
“Nicole’s in the waiting room,” Ethan said. “She’ll be glad to hear you’re doing better.”
“Your friends can visit now.” Dr. Glass clicked his pen closed and slipped it into the pocket of his white coat. “But they shouldn’t stay long.”
With a wave, Dr. Glass left the room, taking Lauren’s chart with him.
“Would you like to see Nicole?” Ethan asked.
“Has she been here all night?” Lauren asked.
“We all were. Dani, Cooper, Liam, Nicole, and me.”
“Goofballs. You should have gotten some sleep.”
Ethan watched as Lauren rolled her head to one side and sighed. Clearly she was concussed, but her condition could have been much worse. She seemed in good shape to him for sixteen hours after a head trauma.
“Nicole’s the only one still in the waiting room,” Ethan said.
“Cooper’s gone?” Disappointment tinged Lauren’s voice.
“Maybe he went for breakfast or a shower,” Ethan said.
Sylvia patted Lauren’s hand. “He’ll be back. He was anxious to see you.”
“Is he all right?” Lauren asked.
“Scraped up,” Ethan said, “but all the parts are working properly.”
“Good.” Her eyes closed.
“Looks like you could use a nap,” Ethan said. “I’ll let Nicole know how you’re doing, and we’ll figure it out from there.”
“Thank you.” Lauren was already drifting off.
She conversed coherently. Ethan was satisfied she was progressing well.
“I promised Nicole some breakfast,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”
He went down to the cafeteria and picked up orange juice, coffee, bagels, and bananas before returning to the waiting room.
Nicole moved magazines aside, and Ethan set the tray on a coffee table.
“She’s doing well,” he said.
Nicole exhaled. “Good.”
“I think you’re both going home with Sylvia tonight.”
“I could be on my own.”
Ethan laughed softly. “I think it’s already been decided.”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “I’d be fine.”
Ethan opened the juice bottles and handed one to Nicole, but she seemed more interested in lathering a bagel with cream cheese. She’d always liked three times as much cream cheese as he did. Closing her eyes, she moaned as she bit into her breakfast.
Ethan turned toward steps slowing on the tile in the hall and saw Jack Parker pause in the doorway.
“Here you are.” Jack came in and sat across from them. “My daughters made me promise to come and see how Lauren is doing.”
“She’s doing well.” Ethan gave a brief report.
“The girls will be glad to know that,” Jack said. “They both like her a lot.”
Ethan took a long swig of juice, suddenly realizing how thirsty he was. “You wanted to talk to me about something yesterday, before all this happened.”
Jack tapped his knees with his fingertips. “It was about that will I found earlier in the week.”
Nicole leaned forward. “The Tabor will?”
“Right.”
“What about it?” Ethan asked. “I thought you said you wanted to study it some more.”
“I did. Harold Tabor stood to inherit a great deal of money.”
“But he had to have a male heir,” Nicole said. “That’s what you told us the other night. Otherwise the money went to his brother.”
“Correct,” Jack said.
It seemed to Ethan an odd provision in a will, but in a time of higher infant mortality, perhaps a child who survived to five had better odds of reaching adulthood.
“And he did have a son,” Nicole said. “A boy named Merrill.”
“Correct again.”
Ethan looked from Jack to Nicole. What had she figured out and not told him?
Nicole put her bagel down and wiped her sticky fingers with a napkin. “But the Tabors left town when Merrill was two.”
“Was that in Old Dom’s ledgers?” Ethan asked.
“Those notes I was puzzling over yesterday,” Nicole said. “They had something to do with Merrill Tabor. But there was another family involved.”
Jack nodded.
“The Peases,” Nicole said.
Jack nodded again. Ethan felt lost.
“There’s some connection between the Tabors and the Peases,” Nicole said.
“I think I know what it is.” Jack raised his eyebrows. “And I think you’ll find it very interesting.”
Jack had their attention now. “The man in the photo who looks like Ethan is standing in front of a Pease grave.”
Nicole nodded tentatively. “I want to go back to the cemetery to double-check that with Old Dom, but I think you’re right.”
“I haven’t quite got it sorted out,” Jack said, “but there’s a red herring involved—something that looks like it should matter, but it doesn’t.”
“You’re losing me,” Ethan said.
“I found a contract between Harold Tabor and Stephen Pease.”
Ethan turned his palms up. “So they had a business deal.”
“The Tabors were a wealthy family,” Jack said. “Back in the day, they owned half of Hidden Falls and had business ventures all over the Midwest. They had losses during the Depression, like everyone, but they came out all right in the end. Harold was a fourth-generation business tycoon. Stephen Pease was an uneducated man who drove a fruit truck when he could get the work.”
This contract could be nothing, some technicality an attorney advised. Or it could be much more. That’s what Jack didn’t know yet.
“Buying and selling fruit?” Nicole said. “Did the Tabors have orchards?”
Jack was impressed. “As a matter of fact, they did. Apples mostly. I have a stack of contracts six inches deep profiling the business operations of the orchards until they were sold.” Jack knew the fruit truck drivers were day laborers—and they had to have their own trucks.
“I still don’t understand what we’re talking about,” Ethan said.
Jack leaned forward and made sure he had eye contact with both Ethan and Nicole. “Why would a man like Harold Tabor draw up a contract with a transient worker like Stephen Pease for a vague transaction that on the face of it has no value?”
Jack let the question sink in. Ethan’s brow furrowed in confusion and impatience, but Nicole sucked on one corner of her mouth, thinking. Jack didn’t have all the answers to his own questions, but he felt fairly certain he was still a few steps ahead of Nicole.
“What exactly was this transaction?” Nicole tore off a piece of her bagel and tucked it into her mouth. “And what kind of money was involved?”
“Depends on your perspective,” Jack said. “To Harold Tabor it would have been pocket change, even in the Depression. To Stephen Pease? It would have meant a fresh start. Options. A chance to get out of debt.”
“And what did Pease have to do?”
“Deliver a package.”
Nicole leaned back in her chair. “Must have been some package.”
“The contents were never specified in the contract,” Jack said. “It was Harold Tabor’s prerogative to consider the package satisfactory, and Pease would get his money.”
“Sounds like Tabor had all the power,” Ethan said.
Nicole chewed. “Not necessarily.”
“He has the money, and he has the prerogative to call the deal null and void,” Ethan said. “What does Pease have?”
She smiled. “The package. Whatever it was, it mattered enough to Tabor to tempt Pease with the money.”
Jack waited. If Nicole solved this, he would know immediately. And he had the evidence she would need to prove any theory.
“So,” Ethan said, “what could the package have been?”
The three of them stared at one another.
“The babies,” Nicole said. “Quinn’s notes in Old Dom’s ledgers were about babies.”
Jack held his breath, his mind rapidly indexing the pages of notes he’d taken as he sorted files. Harold Tabor’s younger brother had three children—all sons. But Harold had married after his brother, and his only child had not come easily. If he did not have a living son on his fortieth birthday, his brother would inherit the lion’s share of the family business.
Yes, babies were an important link. But Harold had a son who would be five, two years before Harold turned forty. All had been well.
Jack looked up to see Sylvia Alexander enter the waiting room. “Good morning, Mayor. How is your niece?”
“Doing well, thank you.” Sylvia paced toward the group. “She’s sleeping at the moment. It seemed like a good time to get up and stretch my legs.”
“I could go sit with her,” Nicole said.
“Not just yet.” Sylvia pulled a chair up to the huddle. “Nicole, what babies were you talking about when I came in?”
“I’m not sure,” Nicole said. “Those Morse code notes Quinn was making in the cemetery records seemed to be about the age of some babies during the thirties. But what stumped me is that I don’t think it was necessarily about the death of the babies. Old Dom’s father had all sorts of notes in those books about the families.”
Jack cleared his throat. “It could be useful to compare those notes against my files.” He was not entirely comfortable with Nicole’s access to information that he hadn’t seen. She might get ahead of him.
“Babies during the Depression?” Sylvia tilted her head.
Ethan grunted. “Somebody has to catch me up. We were talking about a contract between Tabor and Pease about some package, and now we’re talking about babies? And what does any of this have to do with Quinn? Why was he making those notes?”
“Oh my goodness,” Sylvia said. “My mother’s story.”
“What story is that?” Jack asked.
Sylvia blinked three times. Something was coming together behind her eyes, Jack realized.
“Sylvia?” Nicole said.
“My mother was young during the Depression,” Sylvia said. “Her mother was the town gossip, so it’s hard to know if the stories she told were true. But just a week ago, my mother was remembering a story about two families with little boys about the same age. Both families left town and no one heard from them again. But there was money involved, and at least one of the boys was sickly.”
“That fits,” Jack said, nodding.
“What fits?” Ethan asked.
Nicole’s eyes widened. “That grave. It’s the marker for Stephen Pease’s little boy.”
The pieces snapped into place for Jack. “A little boy would be a valuable package to a man who needs a healthy male offspring in order to inherit a fortune.”
Nicole’s face simultaneously filled with horror and certainty. “One of the boys got sick. It just wasn’t the one everybody thought. Old Dom’s father figured it out.”
“Wait a minute,” Ethan said. “You think Tabor bought Pease’s kid?”
The outrageous truth swirled around them.
“My word,” Sylvia muttered. “Why didn’t I see this before now?”
Jack scratched his nose. What did the mayor know? He folded his hands in his lap and waited.
“I found some things of Quinn’s on Friday night.” Sylvia stared at a spot on the floor, concentrating. She covered her mouth with three fingers.
Nicole scooted forward in her seat. “What did you find, Sylvia?”
“A Matchbox collection.”
Now Jack felt as lost as Ethan had been looking for most of this conversation. “Matchbox? Like the little toy cars?”
Sylvia nodded. “I guess they’re Quinn’s, but I never knew he had them. Sports cars, I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention.”
“They must have been his when he was little,” Nicole said. “Why would he hide them in your attic?”
“I don’t know.”
“What else?” Jack asked. A few small metal cars didn’t connect to anything except perhaps Quinn’s mysterious past.
Sylvia shrugged. “A hood ornament. At least that’s what I think it was.”
Ethan spilled half a bottle of juice over his knees. Nicole fumbled with a pile of napkins to help with the mess.
Ethan soaked up the liquid haphazardly. “Kind of a rocket-looking thing?”
Sylvia looked up. “Yes! How did you know?”
“It’s from a 1955 Oldsmobile. I gave it to him when I was in college.”
“Why didn’t I know about this?” Nicole asked.
“It was just something I found online,” Ethan said. “It was a lot older than Quinn’s Oldsmobile, but I thought he would like it.”
Sylvia stood up and began to pace. “You gave that to him when you were in college? Like when you were nineteen or twenty?”
“Something like that.”
“So only ten years ago?”
“Yes, I think it was the last time I saw him.”
“The box has been in my attic for twenty years.”
“What box?”
“The box with the Matchbox cars. But the hood ornament couldn’t have been in it twenty years ago.” Sylvia paced faster. “And that means the documents might not have been there all that time, either.”
“Documents?” Jack said. He thought he was the only one in possession of relevant documents.
“A few weeks ago,” Sylvia said, “Quinn volunteered to take some boxes from my garage up into the attic. I didn’t think it was urgent, but he insisted.”
Nicole reached for her crutches and pulled herself to her feet. “So you think—”
“He put something new in the box.”
“My hood ornament?” Ethan asked.
Sylvia turned to look at him. “And the papers. The hood ornament means he meant them for you.”
Jack thumped one hand on the arm of his chair. He didn’t want to admit he was losing the line of logic.
“Nicole,” Sylvia said, “are you still willing to go sit with Lauren?”
“Of course.”
“Then, Ethan, I think you should come with me to my house.”
Jack took comfort in the fact that Ethan looked as disoriented as Jack felt.
“Quinn must have meant for you to have the documents,” Sylvia said. “That’s why he put them in the box. They were safe there. No one else even knew the box was in my attic, and he knew I wouldn’t look in it.”
“But you did look,” Jack pointed out.
“Well,” she said, “circumstances changed when Quinn disappeared.”
“What do these documents say?” Ethan asked.
“Come with me and I’ll show you,” Sylvia said.
Ethan looked around the room. “I think we’re all in this together at this point. What did you see?”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait to see for yourself?”
“Please, just tell me.”
“Well, first of all, there was a marriage certificate for Kay Petersen and Richard Jordan.”
Nicole’s jaw dropped open. “Why would Quinn have a copy of the marriage certificate for Ethan’s parents?”
“It’s like your dots and dashes,” Sylvia said. “One thing leads to another. There’s also an adoption certificate.”
Jack’s stomach fell away.
“I’m adopted?” Ethan looked dumbfounded.
“No,” Sylvia said. “Your mother was. The document shows Kathleen Pease will henceforth be known as Kay Petersen.”
Jack heard the breath of every person in the room.
“Her original birth certificate shows her parents as Dennis and Linda Pease.”
Jack’s chest heaved. When he’d opened this can of worms, he hadn’t expected to hear any of this.
“Maybe we should have a look at those documents together,” Jack said.
“Pease,” Nicole said. “Your mother is a Pease. But …”
“I really wish you’d let me look at the documents,” Jack said. He was an attorney. He would know what they meant better than anyone else present.
“Just hold on.” Nicole put her fingers to her temples. “The man in the picture—he’s a Pease? Is he Stephen or Dennis?”
“I only had a cursory glance at the picture yesterday,” Jack said. “We’d have to pin down the date.” And he would have to sort out the relationship between Stephen and Dennis. Getting at the truth was going to require a few more birth certificates.
“But the babies,” Nicole said. “The package changes everything.”
“You have to go see your parents.”
This wasn’t the first time Nicole made this statement, but it was the first time Ethan thought she might be right. They stood murmuring outside the waiting room while Sylvia checked on Lauren before leaving the hospital.
“What in the world will I say to them?” Ethan opened his hands in a wide gesture. “Hi, Mom. Did you know you were adopted?”
Nicole rested a hand on his arm. “First go with Sylvia to see the documents. I hate to say it, but I think Jack’s right. He should have a look. And I don’t think he’s telling us everything he knows.”
Ethan eyed her. “I don’t think you’re telling him everything you know, either.”
“Know is a strong word. It’s more like suspect.”
“Okay, suspect. You found something in the cemetery notes, didn’t you?”
Nicole looked over her shoulder and shuffled her crutches a little farther down the hall. “This is going to sound gruesome.”
“More gruesome than the possibility of a rich man buying a poor man’s baby?”
Nicole sucked in a deep breath. “When we were at the cemetery that night looking at grave markers, I noticed that sometimes when a baby died, the marker might only say infant or baby with a year. Not even a last name.”
“So?” Ethan knew sickly babies did not always receive a name, and grieving families might find it costly to purchase and inscribe a tombstone.
“So … the grave the man in the photo is standing in front of is near two markers with the name Pease. But Old Dom’s father didn’t think it was a Pease baby buried there.”
“Who did he think it was?”
Nicole shrugged. “The notes just say a Tabor child took ill.”
Ethan stiffened. “A Tabor?” Harold’s younger brother, Truman, also had several children. It could have been any one of them.
“Quinn’s code says things like right age or this one.”
“So you think—”
“Don’t you see, Ethan? If the ‘package’ in the contract Jack found was a baby, we’re in a new game.”
Jack lurked, leaning against the wall a few yards away with his hands in his pockets. Sylvia’s steps slapped the tile floor as she approached. “Lauren’s waiting.”
Nicole gripped her crutches. “Then I’ll go.”
Ethan caught the gaze of her emerald eyes and wished he didn’t have to leave her behind. “I’ll call you.”
Thirty minutes later, Sylvia lifted Quinn’s box from her mantel, and Ethan’s trembling hands unfolded the documents.
The marriage license.
The adoption papers.
A birth certificate listing Dennis Pease as the father of Kathleen Pease, born in a town in Kansas that Ethan had never heard of.
Ethan laid the papers in a neat row on the coffee table while he rubbed his eyes. He’d been up more than twenty-four hours now. Small letters typed into tiny boxes were running together, but Ethan had the feeling he was missing something obvious. He felt the same way on a regular basis when he was running through diagnostic protocol but not coming up with an answer that made sense for a patient’s symptoms or treatment didn’t relieve the symptoms. It had to be here. If Nicole were there, she’d have a hunch, a theory to turn and look at from every direction.
Sylvia sat quietly across from him.
Ethan looked at the morphing forms of his mother’s names. Kathleen Pease. Kay Petersen. Kay Jordan. He looked again at the names of the men identified as her father. Dennis Pease. Carl Petersen. He blinked at the names of the women identified as her mother. Linda Pease. Linda Petersen.
“My grandmother,” he murmured.
“What about your grandmother?” Sylvia asked.
Ethan pointed to the names on the birth and adoption papers. “Linda. It’s Linda on both forms. I think she was married twice. The adoption was so my mother would have her stepfather’s name—Petersen.”
The doorbell rang. Sylvia stood up. “That must be Jack with the papers from his office.”
Ethan was reluctant to change position or even turn his head for fear of losing the thread that was beginning to make sense. Jack shuffled across the carpet and dropped onto the sofa next to Ethan to examine the pages Ethan had laid out.
“What did you find?” Ethan asked without looking up.
Jack reached into his briefcase, riffled through notes, and tapped the information he sought. “Dennis Pease was the only son of Stephen Pease. He was born here in Hidden Falls—a home birth, which was typical at the time. According to official records, he died eight months later, and his parents ran out on their lease and left town the day they buried him.”
Ethan ran his tongue over his lips. “Then how is it he grew up to be listed on my mother’s birth certificate?”
“How indeed?”
“Identity theft?” Sylvia speculated. “Someone found a record of an infant no one would miss and used the name. People still try to do that.”
Jack nodded. “With enough basic information, much of which would be available in public records, it’s possible to get a birth certificate.”
That struck Ethan as random. He was a man of science—of patterns and predictability. Even in treating disease, he depended on understanding causation and consistency.
This was no disease. This was his mother. And there was causation and consistency. No one had to obtain a birth certificate by fraudulent means when already in possession of one that would never be questioned.
“Jack,” he said, “what was the date on that contract you found between Harold Tabor and Stephen Pease?”
“Why does it matter?” Jack gripped his notepad.
“I suppose the date doesn’t matter,” Ethan said. “What matters is the time between when the contract was drafted and when it was considered fulfilled.”
Jack flipped a couple of pages. “Two days.”
“And the money was paid?”
“In full. In cash.”
Ethan stacked the documents. “May I take these with me?”
Jack jerked slightly. “I think we need to make sure those documents remain in safekeeping.”
Ethan wasn’t asking Jack’s opinion. He raised his eyes to Sylvia.
“Of course,” she said. “I believe Quinn meant you to have them. That’s why he asked you to come to town.”
Jack protested. “We should at least make photocopies.”
“These are not original documents.” Ethan folded the papers. “Wherever Quinn got them from, we could get them again.”
“Santorelli is my guess,” Sylvia said.
Ethan nodded.
“I have to advise against this recklessness.” Jack stood when Ethan did.
Ethan wasn’t interested in Jack’s advice. He thanked Sylvia with his eyes and went out her front door, leaving Jack with his jaw hanging open.
He drove straight to Quinn’s house and parked in front. When he spoke to Nicole, Ethan wanted to give his full attention to the conversation.
“That package,” he said when she answered her cell phone. “I think it was a two-way exchange. And I’m not talking about the money.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Nicole said.
Ethan hadn’t expected her to be surprised. He was confident she knew what he was talking about. A substitution. A trade. A sickly baby boy for a healthy one of the same age.
“My mother doesn’t have to know,” he said. She had lived her whole life without the truth. Ethan was certain of that. What would it change now?
“She deserves to know,” Nicole said.
“It’s not what’s between us,” he said.
“No,” she said. “Your father is what’s between you and your mother. Don’t add this. Everything can change in a day. Remember—no regrets.”
They hung up and Ethan sat in his car in the full light of day, staring at the features of Quinn’s house.
The shutters Ethan had once helped to paint.
The hail-struck dent in the gutter above one window that Quinn never replaced because it didn’t leak.
The strip of siding that he had replaced because squirrels nibbled through it.
The polished door knocker Quinn shined with his handkerchief nearly every day when he left the house.
It all looked so ordinary, as if the house itself was waiting for Quinn to pull into the driveway, turn his key in the front lock, and resume his life. Tomorrow he would go to the high school and relieve the substitute teacher who had taken his classes. The next day he would decide that his lawn needed mowing one last time before winter. He would be the same reliable Quinn so many people in Hidden Falls depended on, with that understanding gleam in his eyes that made people want to tell him their troubles.
Ethan was sure Sylvia was right when she said Quinn wanted him to have the documents. He was equally sure Quinn had wanted him to stay in town for a few days because he knew this moment would come and Ethan would resist it. Quinn had been patient with Ethan’s sullen nursing of familial wounds but never accepted that Ethan’s sense of rejection was final.
Ethan removed his keys from the ignition and opted to walk around the block to the Jordan household, where he stood on the sidewalk and took three deep breaths before knocking on the front door. His father, Ethan knew, would leave it to his mother to see who stood outside the house. He would have the TV on, and he wouldn’t turn it off if the president of the United States came through the door. It had always been that way. Richard Jordan put in his hours at work and figured he’d fulfilled his obligation to support his family. Beyond that, his time was his own. It didn’t matter how tired his wife got keeping up with everything else or what was going on in the lives of his sons. His father’s passivity had fed Ethan’s ambition for as long as he could remember.
“Hello, Mom.” Kay Jordan paid the price for the difference between Ethan and his father. Ethan fished around in his mind for a memory of his mother standing up to her husband. He had none.
He had startled his mother. Maybe she never expected to see him again. Maybe her life had been more peaceful that way. Ethan hadn’t even spoken to his mother on the phone in over a year.
“Can I come in?”
“Of course.” Kay Jordan leaned her head over one shoulder. “Richard! Ethan is here.”
Ethan stepped into the entryway and closed the door behind him while he waited for his father to appear. The paint on the walls looked reasonably fresh, and a vase on an accent table held a vivid array of flowers, probably from the grocery store. The accent rug was plush and bright with color. Hanging from a decorative ribbon was a framed photograph of Ethan’s older brother with his wife and son—neither of whom Ethan had ever met. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected—that life would have frozen the day he left? Obviously his parents had gone about their lives.
Richard Jordan came into the hall in a faded cardigan with a newspaper folded under one arm.
“Hello, Ethan.”
“Dad.”
“I’m surprised to see you here.”
Ethan didn’t know what to say. He heard the TV.
“I’ll make some coffee.” Kay smoothed her gray hair, still cropped at shoulder length as it always had been when its hue was darker.
Coffee would only make him more jittery, but Ethan didn’t stop her. He could nearly feel both Nicole and Quinn nudging him into his parents’ living room to accept their hospitality. Ethan sat in a chair at a right angle from the one his father had always preferred. This would be easier if he didn’t have to look Richard in the eye.
“Dad,” Ethan said, “would you mind if we muted the sound? I’d like to talk to you and Mom.”
Richard huffed slightly, but he picked up the remote, and the droning from the television dropped out of the room.
“I didn’t know you were in town,” Richard said.
Ethan said nothing. Would anything be different if Ethan had let his parents know he was coming? If he had stayed with them?
To Ethan’s relief, just then Kay returned with a tray of sandwiches and cookies to go with the coffee. Ethan forced himself to answer the perfunctory questions about his career before clearing his throat and unfolding the papers and explaining each one in chronological sequence.
His mother blinked in disbelief as she looked at the dates on the documents and discovered that she was a year old when her parents married and nearly two when her name changed from Kathleen Pease to Kay Petersen.
Richard scrunched his face toward his wife. “You’re adopted and you never knew it?”
Kay picked up the adoption decree. “I used to ask my mother to show me pictures of when I was a baby. I’m not so old that people didn’t routinely have portraits made of their babies. The answer was always that she didn’t know where they were. And then when she died and I went through her things, I never found a single one. But both of my younger brothers had baby pictures.”
“So you have no recollection of the man who claimed to be Dennis Pease?” Ethan asked.
“Claimed?” Richard pointed at the birth certificate. “His name is right there.”
Ethan nodded. “He might not have known himself.”
“Known what?” his mother asked.
“I think he was Merrill Tabor.”
“Tabor?” Richard sat up straight in his chair. “Like Tabor Avenue? Tabor Orchards? Tabor Mills?”
Ethan nodded.
Merrill Tabor was not supposed to survive. That’s why his father needed a healthy infant of the same age. Ethan suspected the two children also must have had some resemblance.
What Ethan had not yet figured out was what had become of little Dennis Pease once he was taken into the Tabor household.
And if the infirm child had not been buried—regardless of what name was used at the cemetery—then whose child was in that grave?
And who was the man standing in front of it who looked so much like Ethan?
Liam couldn’t make himself go inside Our Savior Community Church. His justification was that after going home to clean up, he’d arrived too late for the start of the service, though he had dawdled intentionally to create this excuse. Then he told himself the parking lot would be full, left his car a few blocks away, and ambled to the church in no particular hurry. Eventually Liam reasoned there was no point in going in, and he sat on the cement steps outside the front entrance until an usher pushed open the doors and worshippers spilled out of the building.
Liam was only there because it was part of his deal with Cooper. That was hours ago. What was taking so long?
The day’s weather carried no vestige of yesterday’s wreckage. Midday sun illumined branches stripped of leaves the previous afternoon and spread its pervasive glare as if the occasion were only another mild September afternoon. Puddles formed in worn depressions of earth and asphalt bore witness to the brief drenching rain that followed the howling wind, but most of the water had run off as quickly as it came down. Debris, however, was widespread. Television meteorologists named the places where the tornado had touched down, and Hidden Falls escaped all the lists. No structures had splintered or collapsed. Nevertheless, a force beyond anyone’s control left its evidence in papers scattered in the wind, downed branches, trash cans rolling through the streets blocks from where they belonged, tumbled signs, broken glass, shingles in all the wrong places.
The church had not been spared. Liam noticed now that the second-story window above the main entrance had cracked, and the church’s sign on the corner was missing most of its letters. A tent pole was lodged in the bushes across the front of the building, carried all the way from the back lawn. Most of the booths at yesterday’s health fair had been abandoned before they were fully disassembled. Liam hadn’t made much of an effort to deconstruct the tent he’d occupied, choosing instead to heed the warning to take cover.
Liam wasn’t sure what to do. He had to stay. This is where Cooper would come—and he’d be expecting to find Liam hard at work. Liam moved out of the way of Bruce and Raisa Gallagher, who carried their two little girls down the front steps. He looked up and spotted Henry Healy from the sporting goods store.
“You here to help?” Henry raised his bushy eyebrows.
Liam nodded. “Figured there would be plenty to do.”
“You figured right. Somebody’s gone for pizzas to feed the crew, but Pastor Matt wants everyone out on the back lawn as soon as possible.”
“Then that’s where I’ll go.”
“First come with me to the shed for a couple of the big trash bins,” Henry said.
Liam followed. Henry unlocked the shed, and they rolled two massive waste receptacles out to the lawn. Matthew Kendrick righted a collapsed table, and a couple of women folded back the tops of pizza boxes and set out a stack of paper plates. Liam wondered if anyone had more recent information about Lauren than he did. If anyone asked, he would tell what he knew. She’d come through the night well and shouldn’t be in the hospital too much longer.
The group of workers gathered around the pizza table. Liam hung back. Pastor Matt whistled for attention.
“We’re going to give thanks,” Matt said, “for willing workers, for the fact that more people weren’t hurt in yesterday’s storm, and for the ministry of Lauren Nock, who helps so many people. I want to offer the opportunity for any who wish to pray aloud for Lauren’s healing and recovery, and then we will bless the food.”
Liam bowed his head but looked out of the sides of his eyes at the people circling the table. He hadn’t done this in years, but something about it comforted him. People cared about Lauren, and their heartfelt words were persuasive that God cared. A soft angst oozed through Liam. He couldn’t think of anyone who would want to pray for him. Besides, his mess was more complicated than praying for healing.
He wished Cooper would show up. Instead of taking a slice of pizza, Liam picked up a large, thick plastic trash bag and moved to the outskirts of the lawn. Soggy papers littered the grass—blank forms and food wrappers and blurred recipes. Liam picked up one piece or sometimes a fistful at a time and stuffed it all in his bag. Others joined him. A chain saw started up, and a group of men attacked the fallen tree limb that easily could have killed Liam’s brother. Someone backed a pickup truck onto the lawn; volunteers tossed bent poles and ripped canvas and broken folding chairs into the truck’s bed to be hauled to the dump. When Liam filled his bag, he tied it closed, tossed it into one of the huge receptacles, and pulled another bag off the roll. He murmured greetings to people who were no doubt surprised to see him there but offered no explanation. After filling another bag, Liam switched to helping stack the pieces of oak that the chain saw trimmed to size. A couple of trustees inspected all the trees on the lot and designated a few more branches to be cut down before they fell.
Liam wiped an arm across his forehead, drawing sweat away from his eyes. When he looked up again, Cooper fell into step beside him. They crossed to a quieter corner of the lawn.
“I only have a preliminary opinion,” Cooper said.
Liam welcomed any encouragement he could get.
“It would have helped,” Cooper said, “to have the second note for comparison.”
“The storm,” Liam said. He’d never meant to leave yesterday without picking up the envelope from where he’d dropped it in the box of health brochures.
“I know.” Cooper stooped and picked up a two-foot piece of tree limb. “The note you did have uses a mixture of complete sentences and fragments, but everything is spelled correctly and punctuated. That seems to indicate a level of sophistication.”
Liam had never thought of blackmailers as sophisticated. Sinister was the word he would have chosen.
“There’s a certain cadence to it,” Cooper said, “a certain structure in the three lines.”
“And what does that mean? Is it a clue?”
Cooper cocked his head. “It might indicate a person with a mathematical bent. Or a highly organized person.”
“Like Jessica, you mean.”
Cooper put up one hand. “I’m not pointing fingers. I’m just giving you the preliminary profile I got from my buddy.”
Liam swallowed. “What else did your friend say?”
“It’s a person who likes to be in control, to call the shots.”
In other words, just like Jessica. “I’ve been an idiot, Cooper.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been saying that for thirty years, but in this case, let’s not jump to conclusions.” Cooper adjusted the Cubs hat on his head. “I kept my inquiries general. If you want to take this further, the sheriff is going to want to know more.”
“They’ll suspect me.”
“Maybe. But do you have a choice?”
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“You haven’t been accused of anything yet.”
Liam looked away. The men with the chain saw dropped a tree limb.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Liam said, “except be stupid in love.”
“Innocent until proven guilty.”
“Why doesn’t that comfort me? I’ve been over those accounts enough times that I could practically prove myself guilty. It won’t take much to make a case against me.”
“If there’s a crime,” Cooper said, “I can’t be complicit in concealing it.”
“I know.” Liam had set his own course when he confided in his brother. “When can you get more information for me?”
“Probably tomorrow.”
“You’ll have someone look at the accounts?” Liam asked.
Cooper nodded. “If that’s what you want. We’ll need your cooperation. But there won’t be any turning back from what we find.”
“So maybe I should put Jack Parker on retainer after all.”
Cooper let out a controlled breath. “I’m not going to advise you on that.”
“You don’t like Jack.”
Cooper pressed his lips together. “Not too much, no. But that’s no indication of his legal abilities.”
“I’m innocent, Cooper. Embarrassed, and probably naive, but innocent.”
Dani wasn’t leaving. It had taken her all morning to get this far. Apparently Sunday mornings at the Hidden Falls hospital were not highly administrative, but she had eventually wormed her way into the human resources offices at one end of the third floor.
Green shoes.
Why hadn’t she realized it sooner?
The assistant to the human resources director blinked and squinted and gingerly rubbed a spot in one eyelid.
He should just take out those stupid contact lenses, Dani thought. People did the oddest things in the name of vanity. Dani had no pity for someone who continued to cause their own discomfort.
“I just want you to help me find this man.” Dani crossed her legs and her arms. If her body language made her appear hostile, all the better in this situation.
The assistant looked at her and tilted his head. “You do realize that we don’t track employees according to the style of their footwear.”
What an idiot.
“I don’t care how you track employees as long as we find this one. Male. Thirties. Dark hair.” And green shoes.
He pulled open a desk drawer. “We have a form appropriate to situations like this one. If you fill it out in detail, we will call the incident to the attention of the shift managers, and they will remind their staff of our policy.”
“What policy is that?”
“Defer to hospital guests in the use of elevators, stairwells, and common areas, except in the case of medical emergency.”
This guy could probably quote every policy in the five binders on the shelf behind him—if Dani didn’t choke him first.
“I mean no disrespect,” she said carefully, “but I am not here to fill out a form. I want to know who this man is.”
“And no disrespect to you, Miss Roose, but I can’t point fingers at employees. This is a hospital. We are a significant employer in this community. We have policies in place for the sake of everyone’s safety and confidentiality.”
Dani uncrossed her limbs and then folded them in the other direction. “Dark blue scrubs. What is that code for around here?”
“Code?”
“You know what I’m talking about.” He couldn’t stand behind patient safety on this question. A system of colors was supposed to help patients identify types of caregivers and employees.
One eye twitched when he met her gaze. “Dark blue is the uniform of our well-trained patient support staff.”
Dani didn’t need this guy. If she had to, she would ask every employee on duty in the hospital. Someone would have noticed a patient support employee who wore green tennis shoes.
It was a daring touch, those green shoes. Catch me if you can, they said.
Well, she would.
In a hospital, green shoes would pass for a statement of quirky personality. In the woods outside Dani’s lake cabin, they would pass for camouflage—especially in the dark.
She stood up. “I commend you. You’ve done your job well and have been only the most minimal help to me. Perhaps you would like me to write that on a form.”
Dani gave the door an extra tug on her way out to make sure it slammed.
When Green Shoes nearly knocked Nicole over and stole the elevator, Dani had raced up the stairwell. But she was too late. Both elevators were idle and the hall around them empty. Ignoring signs about where she was and was not permitted to enter, Dani strode through the corridors glancing into rooms and under desks. She loitered in the cafeteria watching people come and go and made another round of the hallways. Eventually she made inquiries that sent her to the fruitless session in the hospital’s administrative offices.
Dani hadn’t gotten a good look at Green Shoes’s face, but she had an idea what it looked like. She paused in the hall to take out her phone and scroll through a set of photos she had transferred to it two days ago. They came originally from Ethan’s camera, but Dani had cropped and enhanced small pieces of the images. Clothing, height, body shape, face—she had tried to capture it all. But she hadn’t thought about the feet. Now nothing on her phone looked like it would hint at footwear.
But she had the side of a face, with one eye peering out from leaves hanging over the forehead. Olive skin. Dark hair. High cheek bones. Brown eyes.
It wasn’t a photo Dani could show anyone and ask, “Do you know him?”
She practiced putting a smile on her face and sauntered away from the administrative offices and into a patient area.
“I’m looking for a guy who works in patient support services.” Dani smiled at the nurses at their station. “Dark hair, wears green shoes?”
The nurses shrugged. Dani thanked them anyway and moved on down the hall to a nurse standing at a computer and filling little paper cups with various assortments of medications.
“Maybe you can help me?” Dani gave her description again, but the meds nurse just shook her head.
Dani made another stop at the end of the hall that yielded nothing. She turned around and headed back toward the elevators. A young woman in maroon scrubs emerged from a patient room and tossed a wad of sheets into a hamper stretched open on a cart.
“You looking for Bobby?” the woman said.
Dani smiled. She’d been asking the nurses. How many people on the housekeeping staff had she walked past?
Bobby.
“Yes,” Dani said. “Have you seen him?”
“They keep him pretty busy on Two. He doesn’t get up here to Three much.”
“Oh. Okay, thanks. I’ll look for him there.”
“If he’s not on Two, try the basement. He transports patients down for X-rays and scans.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” Dani wondered if this young housekeeper was aware of hospital policies safeguarding employees from wild, aggravated strangers.
Dani strode to the elevators and punched the button. When she emerged on the floor below, she looked both directions. She had abandoned Nicole six hours ago. Pretty soon she was going to feel guilty about that.
When she ducked her head into the second floor waiting room and saw no one she knew, Dani decided to check on how Lauren was doing. Maybe Cooper was there holding her hand or something.
He wasn’t. Instead, Dani found Nicole at Lauren’s bedside. Lauren was sitting up in bed, picking at a turkey sandwich on wheat, red grapes, and cottage cheese. She looked good. Maybe Cooper had satisfied himself that Lauren was fine and dared to leave the premises.
“Sorry about this morning,” Dani mumbled.
“As you can see, I survived.”
Nicole looked none the worse for wear to Dani. “I thought Cooper might be here.”
Lauren shrugged. “Haven’t seen him all morning.”
Lauren didn’t fool Dani with her nonchalance. She was disappointed Cooper wasn’t there. As soon as Dani found Bobby Green Shoes, she would track down Cooper and tell him to get himself back to the hospital. She was going to need him to arrest Bobby, anyway.
“How’s the head?” Dani asked.
“Hurts. But they say I’m better.”
“They’re probably right.” Dani looked at the clock, wondering what time Bobby had come on duty and when his shift would end. If she didn’t find him in the hospital, he could be anywhere.
There was no place to sit, which suited Dani. She was glad to know Lauren was in good shape, all things considered, but she didn’t want to feel obliged to sit and chitchat.
She heard the wheels of a gurney in the hall and reflexively looked toward the rapid rhythmic rattle of emptiness.
It was empty.
And it was being pushed by a man wearing green tennis shoes.
Dani bolted into the hall. “Hey!”
Bobby glanced over his shoulder, showing half his face. He couldn’t know that he’d given Dani the exact pose she needed to be sure the face matched the image on her phone.
Dani ran with her phone in her hand, taking one photo after another. Click. Click. Bobby put the gurney between himself and Dani and gave it a shove. She leaped out of the way. Click. Click. Click. Dani ran hard. Staff and visitors in the corridor pressed up against the walls. Bobby was headed for the stairwell, and Dani intended not to let him reach it. She dove for his ankles, and he tumbled. Dani scrambled to sit astride his chest.
The elevator doors opened, and Cooper stepped out.
Ethan opened a deep lower kitchen drawer and found the dish towels neatly folded, just as he’d expected. They weren’t the same dish towels as ten years ago, of course, but floral patterns in blues and greens still dominated the collection. Beside him, his mother rinsed the platter she’d served baked chicken on.
“You don’t use the dishwasher?” he asked. She used to.
She turned the platter over and rinsed the other side. “It’s only the two of us, and I cook fairly simply these days. It seems easier to wash up the old-fashioned way.”
Ethan took the platter, dried it, and put it away. So far he hadn’t yet opened a cupboard and not found essentially the same contents they’d contained since the Jordan family first moved into the house when he was a little boy.
His father, of course, sat in the living room watching the TV. His mother was making an effort, Ethan realized. Perhaps she always had. Perhaps she had never shared her husband’s passivity and disinterest in their children. Because she had never put her foot down and made her husband do the right thing for their boys, Ethan had lumped her in with him. Now he realized the dynamic of their relationship was more complex.
This day had proven anything could be more complex than it seemed on the surface.
Kay was eager to please her younger son, pointing out that she still kept his favorite chewy chocolate chip cookies in the cookie jar and showing him that a houseplant he’d once given her for her birthday was thriving and enormous. Ethan hadn’t expected to spend the whole afternoon or sit at his mother’s dining room table after all these years. When he arrived, he hadn’t thought beyond her right to know the truth of her own heritage. The way she paled surprised him. His medical training made him want to check the pulse in her wrist, but he refrained. He settled for restoring color to her face simply by not leaving an hour after he got there.
The antique clock in the dining room sounded.
“I suppose you’ll need to go.” Kay wrung out the dishrag and used it to wipe down the counter.
“Soon.” Ethan neatly hung the damp dish towel through the round wooden hoop above the sink. He wanted to see Nicole one more time. Then he would have to make a decision about driving straight through to Columbus or sleeping a few hours first.
“I’m glad you came.”
“Me, too.” Ethan put his hands behind him and leaned against the counter. “Mom, how are you feeling about what I told you today?”
Kay scrubbed at a stubborn spot on the stove. “Your grandmother used to call me Katie-bug.”
“I never knew that.”
“I’d forgotten until today. My father didn’t like it. He scolded her once about it. Do you know that’s probably my earliest memory of him?”
“I’m sorry it wasn’t happier.”
“I’ve been thinking about that all afternoon. My mother still called me Katie-bug when we were alone, but she made a big game of how it was our secret. But do you know what I think?”
“What’s that?”
“I think my birth father gave me that nickname. Dennis Pease or Merrill Tabor or whoever he was. I think my dad was trying to erase the fact that my mother had been married before, that I’d had another father.”
Ethan scratched the back of his neck. “Well, I suppose he loved you. He adopted you, after all.”
“I never doubted he loved me.” Kay rinsed out the rag and draped it over the faucet. “But why should he be jealous of a man who was dead and someone I was too young to remember anyway?”
“Because your mother remembered him, I suppose. She’d loved him first.”
Kay took in the thought. “I hadn’t got that far in figuring it out.”
Ethan said nothing but only watched the muscles of his mother’s face move as her next words formed in her mind. Outside the window above the kitchen sink, the day had sunk into darkness.
“I’m the same person I always was,” Kay said. “Blood doesn’t make you who you are.”
Ethan had never thought of his mother as pensive. As she looked into the darkness, wistfulness crept through her expression.
“I’m curious,” she said. “I’ll admit that.”
“About your birth father?”
“No. Maybe someday I’d like to know what happened to him, but I was thinking of the Tabors.”
As far as Ethan knew, there hadn’t been any Tabors in Hidden Falls in decades. Their businesses had been sold or merged through the decades.
“Somewhere out there,” his mother said, “is a man who thinks he’s Merrill Tabor—if he’s even still alive. I guess he’d be close to eighty. Maybe he has children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And none of them knows what you and I know now.”
“Maybe,” Ethan said. “It’s ironic that you and Dad ended up in Hidden Falls so long after all this happened.”
“I suppose so, though I lived here when I was very small.”
“What?” That didn’t make sense. Ethan’s parents had moved to Hidden Falls together.
“I told you I went through my mother’s things when she died.”
“Right. You were looking for baby pictures.”
“I was looking for all sorts of things, anything I might find that would make me feel close to her. I found an old letter addressed to her, with a return address from Hidden Falls.”
Words refused to form on Ethan’s tongue.
“It was just a note,” Kay said. “Somebody forwarded an electric bill with a few cheery words about how lovely it had been to know my parents for their few months in Hidden Falls.”
Few months. “When was this?”
“Judging by the postmark, before I was old enough to go to school. Now I wonder if my mother knew something—if my birth father knew something and might have told her. Maybe that’s why they came here.”
It hadn’t occurred to Ethan that either of the boys who had been exchanged—a premise that remained an unproved theory—would have learned the truth.
“I guess there’s no way to know that,” he said.
“And I guess it doesn’t matter anyway.” She touched his cheek. “I know you need to go.”
Ethan took his mother in his arms. Very little mattered in that moment except that they were together. Why had he thought all these years that his mother understood so little of the world? That she hadn’t crafted a life for herself? He inhaled the fruity scent of her shampoo.
“I’ll come back,” he whispered.
“I’ll be waiting.” She kissed his face.
Ethan moved into the living room.
Richard looked up. “Are you leaving?”
Ethan nodded.
“Don’t forget your documents,” his mother said.
Ethan picked them up. “Would you like to keep them?”
Kay shook her head. “You’ll do the right thing with them.”
Ethan picked up the papers from the end table. His father stood up to shake his hand, but his eyes didn’t leave ESPN. Ten or fifteen years ago, Ethan would have found only insult in his father’s habit. Today it didn’t matter.
His phone rang as he stepped out the front door and began the walk around the block to where he’d left his car parked in front of Quinn’s house.
“Hi, Nicole.”
“Where are you?”
“Just leaving my parents’ house. Where are you?”
“At the hospital.”
“Still? I thought they would have discharged Lauren by now.”
“Something happened, Ethan. She was doing fine, and then all of a sudden—I don’t even know. They made everybody get out of the room. Cooper’s going crazy, the nurse is trying to find Dr. Glass, people are going in and out of Lauren’s room. Some doctor from the ER came up.”
Ethan’s phone beeped in his ear to alert to him to a call waiting. He pulled the phone away from his ear long enough to look at the caller’s name.
GONZALEZ.
He let it go to voice mail and began to jog.
“You have to get over here, Ethan,” Nicole said.
“I’m coming.”
They ended the call, and while he ran toward his car, Ethan listened to the voice mail Dr. Gonzalez left.
“If I find out you are still in that Podunk town, I will throw the book at you. I want to hear from you in the next three minutes. Whatever shenanigans you’ve been up to are over, Dr. Jordan. I seriously doubt you can offer any persuasive justification for your professional negligence, but if you are not in my office at six o’clock tomorrow morning, you can consider your career ended.”