After Caroline (8 page)

She lifted a brow wryly. “I admit I wondered about that myself. So I checked at the library and saw her birth certificate. She was born right here in Cliffside, to parents who practically founded the town. I, on the other hand, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, also to parents well rooted in their community—and three days after she was born. So unless there was incredible chicanery committed in two places thousands of miles apart and for no apparent reason, I don’t see how we could be related in any way.”

“I guess not,” he said. “But for two women to look so much alike without being related … what are the odds?”

Joanna looked reflective. “I don’t know. But if you consider the theory that we all have a double—or doppelganger—living somewhere on earth—”

“Please, let’s not venture into science fiction.”

Liz arrived with their coffee then, and Joanna didn’t respond to his comment until the waitress had left. Then she said, “Yesterday’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact. Or don’t you believe that?”

Deliberately, he said, “I believe answers are usually ordinary and almost always simple, Joanna. Being a cop in a much bigger place than Cliffside for a few years taught me that much.”

“So you’re a hardheaded realist?”

“If you want to call it that.” He shrugged. “People are fairly predictable, on the whole, and their motives are seldom complicated. What you see is usually what you get. It makes my job easier.”

“And what do you see when you look at me?” she asked him seriously.

“I see … Joanna Flynn.”

After a moment, she smiled. “You’re a bad liar, Griffin.”

“I’m not lying.” He tried to keep his voice even. “Caroline McKenna is dead. Unlike most of the people in this
town, I saw her body, so I couldn’t begin to convince myself that you’re her. Even if I wanted to.”

Joanna’s smile had vanished. She looked down at her coffee, frowning. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you—”

“Of something painful? I was a cop in Chicago for nearly five years, Joanna; I’ve seen a lot of bodies. I can talk about her—and what that wreck left of her—without going to pieces.”

She looked at him, grave now. “Given your job, I’m sure you can. But when I said you were a bad liar, I didn’t mean I thought you literally saw Caroline when you looked at me.”

“Then what did you mean?” He knew he was so tense it showed, and he knew his voice held a harsh edge despite all his efforts to sound detached. Most of all, he knew that his quick denial of any pain about Caroline’s death had sounded jarringly untrue.

“What I meant was that you hadn’t gotten past the—the features I shared with Caroline. When you look at me, when anybody in this town looks at me, they see Caroline’s face. They see somebody who looks like Caroline looked. Nobody knows
me
. Nobody here has any idea who Joanna Flynn is, so they don’t see me at all.”

After a moment, Griffin nodded. “Okay, fair enough. It’s … disconcerting, I admit.” And no doubt explained his own turbulent feelings, he thought. His brain was just trying to reconcile images of two women who happened to resemble each other even though he knew they had to be different in other ways. That was all.

“How do you think I feel? People look at me as if they know me. They assume things. Do you know, when I went to the drugstore just before the library, the clerk automatically got a pack of cigarettes and pushed it across the counter to me?”

“Caroline smoked,” Griffin heard himself say.

“Yeah, so I was told when the clerk realized what she’d done. Mrs. McKenna smoked, she said, and she’d just assumed
…” Joanna sighed. “The poor kid didn’t know where to look, and neither did I. It feels peculiar, let me tell you.”

Griffin hesitated, then said, “Does that mean you’re going to cut your vacation short?”

She sipped her coffee, those big golden eyes fixed unwaveringly on his face, and didn’t answer until she had set her cup back on the table. Then she merely said, “No.”

“If we make you so uncomfortable…”

Joanna shrugged. “If it gets too bad, I can always leave. In the meantime, according to the Chamber of Commerce, Cliffside offers just what I need—wonderful scenery, peace, and quiet.”

“And if the people around here go on making you feel peculiar?”

“Then I’ll spend all my time staring at the scenery or reading peacefully on the veranda at The Inn.”

He wondered if he’d ever get used to her voice and that lazy accent. It was oddly pleasing, but startled him every time she spoke. “Is your life back in Atlanta so hectic?”

Her eyes lit with amusement, and her lips curved in that brief, just slightly crooked smile that was nothing like Caroline. “As a matter of fact, my life is pretty tame. I work in a private library.”

He nodded, trying to look as if he hadn’t already known that. “So why the need for peace and quiet?”

“Oh … maybe it’s not so much that as just a change of scene. And it’s so noisy in a big city.” She shrugged again.

Griffin wished he believed her, but his cop’s instincts were telling him that Joanna’s reasons for being here were hardly as simple as the need for a change of scene. There was nothing he could pinpoint, no obvious indication that she was hiding something, but he was certain she was. Despite the little he had been told about her blameless life, he was certain that it was no coincidence Joanna had come to Cliffside. She had a reason for being here, and he had the
unhappy idea that he wouldn’t like it when he found out what it was.

“You’re staring at me,” she murmured.

He shifted his gaze to his coffee, realizing only then that he hadn’t even tasted it yet. “Sorry.”

“So, tell me about Caroline.”

It caught him completely off guard, and when he looked quickly at Joanna, he knew she had intended to do just that. “Didn’t you find out all about her at the library?” he asked stiffly.

“Oh, I found out a few things. That she was on a lot of committees. That she was highly respected in this town. That she was intent on improving the quality of medical care here. That she was a concerned parent, involved in her daughter’s school.”

“And all that isn’t enough for you?”

Joanna shook her head very slightly. “None of it tells me who Caroline was, not really. I still have a lot of questions about her. What did she do with her life besides serve on committees and paint scenery for the school play? Did that fulfill her? Did she have hobbies, interests? Did she like animals? What about music, art—did she like those things? Did she love her husband? Was she happy?”

Griffin drew a breath. “Why ask me?”

“Because you won’t go to pieces talking about her,” Joanna said quietly. “That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

Goddammit
. “I can’t answer your questions,” he told her.

“Can’t—or won’t?” Then she shook her head a little before he could decide how to answer, and said, “Sorry, I shouldn’t push. It looks like you’ve got another nosy person in your town, doesn’t it?”

Griffin frowned at her. “Joanna, I meant what I told you at the library. Don’t go around town asking questions about Caroline. There are too many people you could hurt.”

“Is that an order from the sheriff?”

He couldn’t read very much in her expression, but he
had the distinct feeling that he had made her mad. “No, it’s a request from me.”

She inclined her head slightly. “Noted. And now, I think I’d better head back to the hotel. Thank you for the coffee.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said.

Joanna didn’t offer to shake hands with him outside the cafe when they parted company; she merely said, “See you around,” and strolled off down the street toward the library and her car.

Griffin stood there for a moment looking after her, until it occurred to him that every patron in the cafe, as well as Liz, was watching him watch Joanna. He was tempted to turn around and glare at everybody, but finally just walked away in the opposite direction so that he could tell Ralph Thompson he couldn’t have those extra parking spaces he wanted.

Fifteen minutes later, having listened patiently, until Thompson finally ran out of breath, to a diatribe on the consummate arrogance and utter ignorance of the town council, Griffin walked back to the Sheriff’s Department. Joanna’s car was no longer parked in front of the library, so he could only assume she had returned to The Inn.

He retreated to his office without speaking to anyone and closed the door behind him, fighting the impulse to lock it. He took off his jacket and hung it on its peg, then sat down at his desk and unlocked the top drawer. Inside were a few confidential files, but he didn’t reach for any of them. Instead, he pulled out a piece of pale blue notepaper. It was folded once, the crease worn because he’d opened and closed it so many times. He opened it now, and read the rounded, almost childish handwriting with the ease of someone who had long ago memorized the message.

Griffin
,

I must see you. Meet me at the old barn at noon
.

Caroline

He closed the note and returned it to his desk drawer, then leaned back in his chair and stared out the window.

It was raining again.

“Damn this rain,” Scott McKenna said.

“You live in Oregon,” Holly reminded him. “It rains a lot here.”

“Too much. I should go back to San Francisco.”

“Where it doesn’t rain at all, of course. And where there are earthquakes to boot. Besides, you’ve lived here for twelve years. Your roots are here.”

“Are they?”

Holly looked up from the keyboard and watched him for a moment. He was standing at the window of his study, gazing out at the drenched garden beside his house. He was a strikingly handsome man, with dark hair and hooded gray eyes, and there was something remote in the very way he stood. He always looked alone, she thought, even in a crowd. It was something she had noticed about him from the first day they’d met.

“Well, the majority of your money’s here anyway,” she told him. “You have to run things.”

He turned his head and looked at her, that direct, measuring stare that no longer unnerved her. “You could handle most of it alone,” he said.

“What, you mean the stores, the greenhouse, the lumber mill,
and
the new wing for the clinic, to say nothing of The Inn? News for you, boss—I don’t want to handle it all.”

Scott smiled slightly. “I know. But you could.”

“Yeah, right.” She finished entering figures from her clipboard into the computer on his desk, and said, “Okay, that’s everything, I think. All the estimates and bids, the materials lists, including the list from the medical supplier. Cost of grading, even landscaping.”

“Thank you, Holly.”

“No problem. I don’t mind, Scott, really.” She might have said more, but the door opened just then and Scott’s
daughter looked in. As always these days, Regan was solemn, her dark blue eyes large and unreadable.

“What is it, Regan?” Scott asked a bit abruptly.

“Mrs. Ames says I can stay up tonight and watch all of that movie if you say it’s all right.” Her voice was flat, without expression.

Scott didn’t ask what movie, he merely nodded. “It’s fine.”

Without another word, Regan departed as suddenly as she had arrived.

Holly sat back in his desk chair and looked at her employer. He was gazing out the window once again, his aloof expression daring her to comment. Never one to refuse a dare, Holly said, “Does the housekeeper always supervise Regan after Mrs. Porter goes home?”

“She doesn’t need much supervision,” Scott replied coolly. “She’s an independent child, you know that.”

“Independent, sure. She also lost her mother three months ago. Have you talked to her?”

“What would you have me say to her?”

Holly gave a helpless shrug even though he wasn’t looking at her. “I don’t know. All I
do
know is that she adored Caroline—and I’ve never seen her grieve for her mother. Not the day it happened, not at Caroline’s funeral, not anytime since. Has she cried at all?”

Scott didn’t answer immediately, but finally said, “I don’t know.”

“Scott—”

“Holly, I can’t change my nature just because I’ve suddenly become a single parent. Regan was close to Caroline, but never to me. I’ll do everything I can for the child, but I can’t take Caroline’s place.”

She had known him for eight years, but looking at him now, Holly had no idea what—if anything—he was feeling. He had always been somewhat remote with his daughter, but hardly more so than he was with most other people; perhaps it
was
his nature.

“I know it’s none of my business, Scott, but I can’t help
being concerned. If you don’t reach out to Regan now and help her get past Caroline’s death, I think you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” She got up from the desk, adding briskly, “And that’s my meddling for the day. I’m going home.”

“Drive carefully.”

“Yes. I will.” She went as far as the door, then paused and looked back at him. “Good night, Scott.”

Still gazing out the window, Scott asked, “Does that arrogant artist of yours know how lucky he is?”

“I don’t know.”

He nodded slightly, as if her answer didn’t surprise him. “Good night, Holly.”