CHAPTER NINE

BEN Paulson steeled himself before pushing open the door to Paulson’s Dry Goods, the general store that had been in his family for five generations. Six, if he counted himself, which he had no intention of doing. His mother hinted and outright cajoled – especially since his father’s death several years ago – reminding him that the store had been run by a Paulson ever since it opened. He, in turn, reminded her that Sabrina was a Paulson, and that the retail business was much more in line with her interests than it was with his.

That usually caused her to look like she needed to cough up a hairball. His mother and his youngest sister had never quite seen eye-to-eye, and the thought of them working together probably didn’t hold much appeal for either one. And aside from that, Bree was much better at doing her own thing without apologizing to anyone. That left him to bear the brunt of his mother’s guilt trips. As usual.

Sometimes it didn’t pay to be the favored child.

Ben expelled a frustrated breath, nodding at a couple of tourists panning for gems in the mining display that occupied one corner of the store before going in search of his mother. He had to warn her that Ainsley was in town before she heard it from someone else. Ainsley, whose presence here was stirring the sediment from the bottom of their family pond whether she intended it to or not.

He was going to wring Sabrina’s neck when he found her. And he would find her. Alive. He wasn’t willing to even entertain the thought of the alternative.

Yet.

Pushing the nasty little voice of doubt from his mind, he spotted his mom near the back of the store, restocking a display of souvenir T-shirts.

“Mom?”

She turned around, brightening when she saw him. Blonde and trim, she was still a pretty woman, although the strain of the past several days had made the lines in her face more noticeable. She and Sabrina might not see eye-to-eye, but she was still her mother. A mother who’d already lived through the nightmare of losing a child. It seemed horribly unfair to Ben that she might be forced to repeat it.

Not going to think that way, he reminded himself.

Yet.

“Ben,” she said, warmth in her voice despite the pallor of her complexion. She dropped the T-shirt she’d been holding back into the box and stepped forward to kiss his cheek. “What a lovely surprise.”

He could tell by the way her tone rose in pitch at the end, almost making the statement a question, that she was terribly afraid he was bringing bad news. He was, to a certain degree, but not the news she feared.

“Can I talk to you for a minute? In the office? It’s not about Sabrina,” he added quickly. Not directly, anyway.

“Of course,” she said, her smile slipping a little. She pushed her chin-length hair behind her ears and led the way to the back of the building. The office was located next to the stairs which led to the storage area on the second floor.

They went inside and after gesturing his mom to a chair, Ben closed the door.

Despite his assurance, fear flickered behind his mother’s eyes.

“Ainsley’s here,” he said, not wanting to beat around the bush, and not having time, even if he wanted to. He had to run the prints he’d lifted from the shed under Elias’s watchful eye. But at least the man hadn’t been a total asshole and demanded that he come back with a warrant.

It wasn’t a simple hairball his mom looked like she’d swallowed this time. More of a drain clog.

“Well,” she said faintly. “She has some nerve. But then I guess I shouldn’t expect her to have developed empathy or consideration in the past seventeen years. Not considering her home environment. The apple, as they say, doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Ben stifled a sigh. And resisted pointing out that that logic could be used to apply to herself and Sabrina as well, if the child necessarily mirrors the parent. Regardless, he found her antipathy toward both Ainsley and his aunt and uncle to be misplaced, but he wouldn’t belabor the point right now. In her fragile emotional state she’d just accuse Ben of turning against her, and he didn’t need either the guilt trip or the drama.

“I wanted to let you know before someone else told you. Or you bumped into her. She’s staying on the square.”

Her lips thinned even further. “You’re a good, considerate boy,” she said, reaching out to pat his arm “for thinking of my feelings. The only one of my children who ever has.”

It took immense fortitude not to pinch the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He could feel a headache brewing.

“I have to be going,” he said instead. And paused. “We’re doing everything we can to find Sabrina.”

“I know you are.” She smiled – or rather she stretched her lips in a pathetic approximation of one. “Wicked girl, taking off like that and making us all suffer. I thought she’d finally outgrown that phase, but…”

She didn’t finish the thought, and Ben didn’t disabuse her of the idea that Bree had simply taken off again of her own volition. She’d fled. Or had been abducted. And he suspected his mother knew that very well, but wasn’t quite ready to face the implications.

Ben could relate. Although he had to at least consider the implications, or he risked overlooking clues and evidence. That didn’t mean he had to give up hope, though.

Not yet.

After kissing his mother on the cheek, he exited the store, nodding to one of the clerks as he did so. His phone beeped, letting him know that he’d missed a call when he was in the office with his mother, and he started to unclip it from his belt just as he looked up and into a familiar face.

Callum Elias.

It both pleased and chagrined him to note the slight bruise darkening the man’s jaw.

“Paulson,” the other man said. “You have a minute?”

It would be easy to say no. After all, he had a call he likely needed to return and a thousand other things to do. But he looked at the bruise again and chagrin won out. He wasn’t the type of cop who abused his position, and he didn’t condone police brutality. Letting his temper get the best of him was more unprofessional than he cared to admit.

“Sure,” he said instead. “But just barely.”

Elias nodded toward a table in front of the pastry shop next door, which was tucked into a relatively quiet corner.

“I’d like to apologize,” Cal said as soon as they were both sitting. “My choice of phrasing today was deliberately insensitive, particularly given the circumstances. I don’t blame you for hitting me.”

Ben considered that. “You expected me to hit you. But you didn’t hit back.”

The man looked uncomfortable, but his gaze was direct. “I’ve felt bad,” he admitted “for a lot of years. For the things I said about Carly. And for what happened… afterward. I figured I deserved one more good punch.”

“Just one?”

“One is all I’m allowing. If you hit me again, I’ll hit back.”

“Threatening an officer of the law is considered a felony.”

“I’m not threatening. I’m stating.”

The old anger snarled, but Ben found that it had lost some of its teeth. Not that he trusted Elias – he didn’t. But a cool head would serve him better in their dealings.

“I appreciate you turning over the photo albums without making me get a warrant.”

“I’d already offered them to Sabrina. They belong to your family.”

“And you’re sure you can’t tell me what was in the journals.”

“Like I said, I didn’t read them. Only enough to realize that they’d belonged to Carly. After that, I… didn’t feel comfortable doing so.”

“Afraid you’d come across something she’d said about you? Maybe she’d reviewed your performance and found it inadequate?”

The man didn’t bother to answer, and Ben couldn’t blame him. It was a cheap shot. He slowly climbed to his feet. “I have to be going.”

“I’m sorry about Sabrina.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning that it has to be difficult on your family, not knowing where she is. And difficult on you to be heading the investigation.”

“You’re being considerate now, Elias?”

“It’s been seventeen years. I figured at least one of us should have matured by now.”

“Maturity,” Ben said with an unexpected smile. “Now there’s a scary thought.”

Elias didn’t smile back. He ran a hand over his face and sighed. “You should sit back down.”

Ben’s own smile faded. From the look on Cal’s face he had something to say, and Ben got the distinct impression it wasn’t something he was going to enjoy hearing.

He stared the other man down, and then sat. “I have places to be, Elias.”

“So do I, but this needs to be said. About two weeks ago I bumped into Sabrina, coming down the stairs from the hotel.”

He went on to detail a late-night encounter with what he described as his sister departing from a tryst. Ben’s immediate instinct was anger. Either Cal was telling him this to piss him off, or he was making something up to get Ben’s attention off him and onto some nameless, faceless person whom Sabrina had supposedly taken as a secret lover. But he made the effort to put a lid on his simmering temper since it wasn’t serving him well, especially not in his dealings with Elias.

Given the possibility that Cal wasn’t full of shit, Ben couldn’t overlook a possible lead. Secret lovers – if indeed his sister had one – were very frequently unsuitable lovers for one reason or another. And unsuitable lovers were even more frequently dangerous lovers, especially if their secret status wasn’t something they cared to have revealed.

He grilled Cal for every detail the man could remember, which unfortunately didn’t amount to much. But it gave Ben another avenue. He would find out who’d been registered at the hotel on the night in question, and if they were still in the area.

Ben found himself in the unenviable position of being indebted to Callum Elias twice in one day. “If you remember anything else, anything at all, call me.”

Cal nodded. “Will do. And you should probably be expecting a call from Ainsley sometime soon. I told her about bumping into Sabrina that night.”

Ben stared. “You told her that before I showed up at your house?”

“No, I told her that when I dropped off her phone at her hotel. She left it on my kitchen counter.”

Ben pulled his phone off his belt and glanced at it. He’d missed a call from a local number, and he had a new voice mail. He’d bet anything it was Ainsley.

He wasn’t sure whether to be happy that she had likely called to tell him about Cal’s confession or pissed that she’d somehow gotten entangled with Elias on her first day in town. The man was like iron, and Ben’s female relatives were magnets. Honest to God, it was some kind of curse.

Ben climbed to his feet again. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the way you were looking at my cousin.”

“Did you also notice,” Cal laced his fingers together over his stomach “that she was looking back?”

“You’re still an asshole.”

“Undoubtedly.” He nodded. “Just so we’re both clear.”

 

 

AINSLEY stared at the worn, narrow stairs that led to both the inn and the Cajun restaurant that Cal mentioned. So this was where he’d encountered Sabrina – allegedly, anyway. The door to the gallery stood open at the bottom of the stairs, but when she’d glanced inside she’d seen a woman at the counter rather than Cal. Good. She’d prefer not to see him right now. For one thing, she wanted to poke around without him knowing she was poking around, and for another, he would probably lecture her about the inadvisability of walking on her ankle and climbing up and down stairs.

Unfortunately, he would have a point. She would have to put pressure on her ankle in order to climb, and the experiment of climbing and descending the few shallow steps at the front of the hotel let her know that the experience wouldn’t be comfortable. But she’d come over here with a purpose – to get something to eat, for one thing, and to try to procure some information, for another – so she was going to have to suck it up.

As she was standing there, glaring at the stairs, the door to a neighboring shop opened.

The man who emerged flashed a charming smile that instantly made his rather plain face infinitely more attractive. And then he winced in sympathy when he noticed her boot.

“Ouch. That doesn’t look like a lot of fun.”

“It isn’t. Especially when you’re hungry and the restaurant is up seventeen steps.”

His smile deepened. “You counted?”

“I’m afraid that I did.”

“Well that’s an easy fix,” he told her. “There’s a bar and a patio seating area right through that doorway,” he pointed past the stairs. “Same restaurant. And you won’t have to climb seventeen steps.”

“Oh.” Ainsley glanced toward the doorway and answered his smile with one of her own. “Thank you.”

“No problem. In fact, I missed lunch earlier, so I’m heading that way myself. I’m Tanner. Cross. I own the Tasting Room.” He tilted his head toward the door behind him.

Ainsley had been so intrigued by the gallery – or what she’d seen of it, anyway – when she’d first come in that she hadn’t paid the other business much attention. But now she saw that it was a wine tasting establishment connected to Crossings, one of the local wineries.

“And the vineyard,” he admitted a little ruefully, following the direction of her gaze.

“Lucky you.”

“It’s a burden, but somehow I bear it.”

“I’m amazed that your shoulders aren’t stooped. I’m Ainsley, by the way. Tidwell.” She stuck out her hand.

“It’s a pleasure,” he said, shaking. “If it’s not entirely presumptuous, may I escort you to the hostess stand?”

She smiled, thoroughly charmed by his polished manners. “That would be lovely.”

He didn’t take her arm, but he did walk beside her, obviously waiting to see if she needed assistance. She didn’t, although her gait was still awkward.

“I’m afraid I’m just learning how to walk in this thing. It’s not difficult in and of itself, but trying to avoid putting weight on that ankle complicates matters.”

“Did you suffer a sprain?”

“That’s a nice euphemism that makes it sound like I’m an innocent bystander, somehow, instead of an idiot who fell into the creek, but yes, it is indeed sprained. And I’m suffering.”

But she smiled to show that it wasn’t all that bad. Just inconvenient.

“Dare I inquire how you fell in the creek?”

“That,” she admitted “is far too humiliating to share on such short acquaintance.” They’d arrived at the hostess stand, and the young woman behind it divided a welcoming look between them.

“Hi, Mr. Cross. Table for two?”

“I’m afraid I’m just the lowly escort,” he said before turning to Ainsley with raised brows. “I imagine you’re meeting someone.”

She gazed at him for a moment and then made a quick decision. “Actually, I’m not. You’re welcome to join me, unless you’re meeting someone.”

“I was planning to take up a single barstool. I’d be delighted to dine with you. Does the patio sound okay?”

“Perfect.”

The hostess led them outside.

Ainsley wasn’t in the habit of dining with perfect strangers on less than ten minutes acquaintance, but she also wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Tanner Cross owned a business in the same building as the gallery, which meant that he was likely acquainted with both Callum and Sabrina. She wasn’t entirely sure what sort of information she hoped to glean, but she had to start somewhere. Especially now that traipsing all over the wilderness yelling Sabrina’s name was out.

And aside from that, he had an easy, congenial air about him.

Ainsley shook her head as she sat down, pulling the neighboring chair over in order to prop up her foot. She still couldn’t believe her return to Dahlonega had gotten off to such an ignominious start. Hopefully things would improve from here.

She knew better than to assume they couldn’t get worse. They could. Immensely. Sabrina was still missing, after all.

Because anxiety for her cousin threatened to overwhelm her, Ainsley deliberately smiled at Tanner Cross.

“I hope you’ll excuse my… appendage,” she said, gesturing toward her foot. “Keeping it elevated helps reduce the swelling. Or so I’ve been told.”

“I vaguely recall that from when I sprained my ankle many years ago,” he smiled back. “And just between us,” he added conspiratorially “it was under far less dignified circumstances than simply falling in the creek. I fell down an old well. Luckily for me, it was mostly filled in, but I still had to suffer the embarrassment of first waiting to be found while I shouted myself hoarse, and then having the local fire department haul me out. The blow to my pride was far more bruising than the one to my ankle.”

“You win,” Ainsley agreed. “Would it be rude to ask how you managed to fall in?”

“My grandfather owned a parcel of land that had been his grandparents’ before that. Part of the original log cabin they’d lived in still stood, and of course it proved irresistible to a young boy. It became my playground – my strictly forbidden playground, I should add. But that just made it more irresistible. Anyway, I’d made a game of leaping from one side of the stone wall to the other. Needless to say, I eventually slipped. I was stuck in the well for over eight hours.”

“Your parents must have been frantic.”

“Actually, I was raised by my grandpa. And he was… well, let’s just say that my backside hurt worse than either my ankle or my pride after he’d expressed his displeasure. I stayed away from the old cabin after that.”

Although there was humor in his tone, Ainsley felt a stab of pity for the child he’d been, but the arrival of their waitress prevented her from expressing it. Which was probably a good thing. Most people hated to be pitied, even retrospectively.

“So what brings you to our fair city?” he said after they’d placed their order.

“Actually,” Ainsley said “I came because my cousin is missing. You might know her, as she works in the gallery across from your store. Sabrina Paulson?”

His brows crunched together. “Lots of blonde curly hair?” he said, gesturing with his hands to indicate a sort of cloud around his head, which was a fair description of Sabrina. “I recognize her enough to say hello in passing. I spend most of my time at the winery, you understand, and leave The Tasting Room to my manager. Missing? I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I’ve been out of town for the past two weeks and only got back last night.”

There went Ainsley’s hopes that he’d… what? Seen something suspicious? Knew who Sabrina was sleeping with, if indeed she was sleeping with anyone? Could offer her the lowdown on Callum Elias from an unbiased source?

Maybe she should speak with his manager. Or the wait staff here. Or half the people in town, whom Ben had almost certainly spoken with already. She didn’t imagine her cousin had been sitting on his laurels for the past several days, not when his sister was missing.

As if reading her thoughts, Tanner spoke.

“Do the police… wait, this is Ben Paulson’s younger sister we’re talking about, right? I’m afraid I just put two and two together. I went to school with Ben, though we were never close. Still, this has to be terrible for him – and for your whole family. I remember Carly’s death like it was yesterday. The whole town was shaken to its core, especially when the police failed to...”

Make an arrest, Ainsley silently added for him, when his cheeks turned a dull red. It made her suspect that he was recalling who Ainsley was, and her role in that story. The only reason no arrests were made – or at least one particular arrest – was because Ainsley had come forward. She’d been terrified and guilt-stricken, unable to identify or adequately describe the man she’d seen with Carly that night, only knowing that it wasn’t Grant.

If the town had been shaken to its core, Ainsley’s family had been blasted apart. And she was the detonator.

“I’m sorry,” Tanner said again, more quietly this time. “This must be a difficult topic for you. I certainly didn’t mean to distress you further.”

She managed a smile. It was coming back in general that had distressed her, far more than she was willing to admit. She’d thought she was prepared – after all, she handled high pressure courtroom cases on a regular basis, some of them with her client’s freedom or even their very life riding on the outcome. But there was a level of distance, of detachment there that allowed her to do her job. It was so much more difficult when it was personal.

Which made her question once again whether Ben was the best person to be handling this case. And whether she’d been fooling herself when she’d thought that she would in any way be of help.

“You haven’t,” she assured Tanner. “It’s just… difficult. Waiting for news. And feeling helpless. I’m pretty type A,” she admitted with a rueful smile “so patience and complacency are not my strong suits.”

“In a situation like this,” he said “I guess there isn’t much to be done except to allow the police to do their job. At least you have a connection to the local police force here in town.” He looked pensive. “I wish I could think of something else to do to help, but I’m sure Ben is taking all the appropriate steps. Whatever those may be. I confess that I’m not too familiar with the investigative side of police work. Generally speaking, we don’t have a lot of violent crime in the area.”

Which made the fact that two members of her family were victims or possible victims even more awful.

Their food arrived, and even though the jambalaya looked delicious, Ainsley found that she had little appetite.

“I’m sorry,” Tanner said when he noticed that she was picking at her food. “I hope my comments didn’t seem insensitive. You’ll be regretting having agreed to dine with me.”

Ainsley opened her mouth to assure Tanner that wasn’t the case when a familiar bark startled her. She looked over to see Beaumont straining at his leash in the alley behind the patio, wagging his tail in recognition.

And on the other end of the leash was Cal, illustrating his own recognition with a scowl.