Hidden Falls (10 page)

High heels stopped hindering Nicole long ago. She crossed the foyer swiftly and pushed out the front door. Cool air wakened the pores of her face. She was glad she’d tossed a coat in her car when she left the house. She would need it by the time the evening ended—and the way things were going, there was no predicting when that would be.

Nicole hadn’t thought beyond getting outside. Maybe there was a bench where she could sit to think. Maybe she would follow the sidewalk that circled the building.

What she hadn’t expected was to find Ethan Jordan, feet spread shoulder width apart, a hand pushing his suit jacket back from one hip, and a phone to his ear. In her instant of hesitation, he turned toward her, and Nicole didn’t look away quickly enough to pretend she hadn’t seen him.

Ethan put his phone away. “I heard about Quinn a couple of minutes ago. Did he turn up?”

Nicole shook her head and shivered. The temperature was cooling but still mild. It was Ethan who caused the tremble of her entire central nervous system. Even after they had been dating for several years, she used to stand behind him and watch his movements when he couldn’t see her. In those days, he fought hard for everything he wanted. With the transitory exception of not being valedictorian, Ethan Jordan got what he wanted. When he stopped fighting for her, Nicole didn’t have to ask questions to know what it meant.

Memories clanked through her mind. The two of them built a tree house at the back of her yard. She should have looked while she was home to see if it was still there and whether any neighborhood kids squatted in it these days. Ethan and Nicole traded piles of comic books back then. When Nicole got tired of frozen dinners and accepted the fact that her widowed father did not intend to learn to cook, she began collecting cookbooks. Ethan tasted innumerable failed recipes with a smile on his face. As they got older, they realized their friends assumed they were dating. That’s how they became a couple for three years of high school and two years of college.

The truth was, not a day went by that Nicole didn’t think of Ethan, but she wasn’t angry. Not anymore. She just hadn’t expected to see him.

“Do you think he’s all right?” Ethan asked now.

“I hope so. But I don’t know.”

“What happened? I’ve been out here on the phone. Work is a mess.”

Ethan gestured with one arm in that familiar way, as if he intended to be sweepingly dramatic and changed his mind midmotion. Nicole could remember Ethan moving that way when they were ten years old. Twenty years ago.

Going into quintessential reporter mode, Nicole gave an account of the facts as she saw them—already arranging them in order of interest and importance, as if she had to find the lead for a story in tomorrow’s paper and leave to the end of the article the lines an editor might cut. Ethan listened and nodded, his eyes intent on her. In the dark, it was hard to see the true color of his eyes, but she knew they were brown. She knew one eyebrow rose slightly higher than the other. She had spent years learning to read his moods by the look in his eye and finding her own security there.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Ethan said. “I spoke to him. He wanted to talk more, later tonight. And then you came along.”

“I assure you, I said nothing to frighten him away. I’m hoping to see him again myself before I go back to St. Louis.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know.” She exhaled. “Sorry.”

His shoulders had broadened when he found his full height, and the poor guy looked exhausted, but he was still Ethan. The tilt of his head, the way he plunged his hands in his pockets, his habit of scuffing the ground with one toe like he was nine years old—Nicole couldn’t watch these familiar gestures without remembering one moment after another that had bound her to Ethan. This moment, in the shadows outside the banquet hall rather than the sunlight outside the Main Street shops, evoked an intimacy that was hard for her to shirk off.

Go inside, Sandquist. Don’t get sucked into the past. That was a different Ethan.

His phone buzzed. Nicole turned to go, but Ethan held up one finger.

“Just give me a minute, please.” His thumbs already tapped the keyboard on his phone.

“Work?” she asked.

He nodded.

Work, not a relationship.
She looked away from him. What a ridiculous thought.

The phone buzzed again, and he tackled the message. “Brinkman thinks he can run my life.”

“Brinkman?”

“Another resident. What’s that line from the dowager of Downton Abbey? Something about giving the little people power and it goes to their heads.”

Nicole felt her own eyes widen. “You watch Downton Abbey?”

“Doesn’t everybody?” Ethan smiled. “We’ve come a long way from comic books and cookbooks.”

She flushed. He had always been able to read her mind.

“Have you seen Quinn’s car?” Ethan asked.

“I don’t know what he drives now.” Nicole collected herself.

“I’m guessing a 1989 green Oldsmobile.”

“Surely not. That old car?”

“He never goes anywhere but Birch Bend, or maybe the town beyond that,” Ethan said. “And he thinks nothing of walking five miles except in the worst of weather. I’ll bet he doesn’t have eighty thousand miles on that old car.”

“You don’t think he
walked
here tonight, do you? In a tux?”

“The only reason not to would be to avoid the mayor’s wrath.” Ethan turned toward the parking lot. “Let’s look for the car.”

“How long have you been out here?” Nicole followed Ethan, who walked toward the parking aisle farthest from the door. “Hasn’t anybody been out to check the lot yet?”

“Not that I saw,” Ethan said. “I came out to take a call before anything started.”

“And you haven’t seen anyone?”

“I didn’t say that. A few people were arriving late and seemed to be in a hurry to get inside. Ken Lauder came out.”

“Ken Lauder is here?”

“Yeah. Just my luck, eh?”

“He doesn’t matter, Ethan. Look at you. Look at what you’ve done with your life.” As bewildered as Nicole was by how their relationship had crumbled, she was proud of Ethan.

Her words bounced off him.

“Quinn’s car,” Ethan said. “The point is, I didn’t notice anyone coming out to look for Quinn’s car.”

Nicole pressed her lips closed. Eyewitnesses missed obvious details all the time. Ethan didn’t know who to notice anymore, who might have been significant. And what if Quinn had a new car? They could walk right past it and never know.

“Four out of every five cars out here have Illinois plates,” Nicole said. “Any one of them could be Quinn’s.”

“Strictly speaking, I don’t find that to be true.”

“Ethan, don’t get difficult.”

“Too late.” He flashed her a smile. “When we lived in Hidden Falls, Quinn drove an American-made sedan, and not a low-end model. We can eliminate all the minivans, and probably the SUVs.”

“And the Toyotas and Hondas and my Hyundai. Yeah, yeah. Fine. What are we going to do, break into every Oldsmobile we see to check the registration?”

“Oldsmobiles went out of production ten years ago,” Ethan said.

“I knew that,” Nicole snapped. “What if he bought one eleven years ago?”

“Unlikely. The old one would not yet have been old enough for him to let go of it.”

Nicole sighed. He had an answer for everything. “What are you getting at?”

“Quinn would have bought another General Motors car. That’s the only kind of car you can get in Birch Bend.”

“And we’re supposed to recognize his choice by stumbling upon it in a dark parking lot?” Nicole’s earlier sentiment rising out of gentle memories of Ethan was waning. “And, so what if we do? We still won’t be able to explain losing Quinn. I say we go inside and see what the mayor has come up with.”

Nicole reversed her direction and lengthened her stride toward the banquet hall. The black Lexus with Ohio plates caught her eye.

“This is yours, isn’t it?” Nicole waved a hand toward the car without slowing her pace.

“I share custody with the bank.” Ethan easily kept stride with her. “I get it three nights a week and every other weekend. Luckily this was my weekend.”

“Funny. Not.”

“Fine. We’ll go in. But somebody with the ability to identify Quinn’s car should be out here.”

“Who are you sitting with tonight?” Nicole had no idea if the evening would still include a meal.

“Hadn’t got that far,” Ethan said.

“There’s an empty seat at my table. It’s right up front where we can see everything the mayor is doing.”

8:22 p.m.

“I can’t have people see me running around like this.” Sylvia smiled blankly over the shoulder of Miles Devon into the dinner crowd. “We have to divide and conquer.”

“We’ve looked in every nook and cranny of this building.” Miles grinned at nothing in particular. “Quinn is not here.”

“We can’t have mass panic.” Sylvia waved a hand as if she were telling a casual story and purposely relaxed her shoulders. Whether she was fooling anyone, she didn’t know. “How did he seem when the prop cannon went off? Is that the last anyone saw him?”

Miles blanched.

“What is it, Miles?” She saw his Adam’s apple rise and fall and felt fresh adrenaline course through her.

“I don’t actually recall looking at him at that moment.”

“Surely he was there.”

“I ran toward the noise. It wasn’t anywhere near where he was standing.”

Heartburn flared in Sylvia’s chest. “So we don’t know if he was already gone.”

“Perhaps it’s time to involve the sheriff’s department.” Miles’s eyes narrowed.

“Cooper Elliott is here tonight,” Sylvia said. “That will be less suspicious than having another officer blare a siren on the way over here.”

“Excellent. You think of everything.”

“Find a quiet spot and send him a text asking him to meet you.”

“Brilliant, Your Honor.”

“Now I’m going to smile at you and rattle off Cooper Elliott’s cell phone number. Don’t write it down. Ready?”

Miles tilted his head in a playful way. “I’m listening.”

“You do know how to send a text, don’t you?”

“I’ve learned a thing or two from hanging around teenagers the last forty-five years.”

“Here goes.” Sylvia gave the number and then gave Miles a friendly pat on the back. She said nothing more, lest even a few words blot out the numbers. Miles shook a few unavoidable hands but didn’t stop to talk to anyone before slipping into the hallway.

Sylvia took three calming breaths before turning toward the nearest table. The bread basket was empty. Glancing around, she saw that people at many of the tables had nibbled their way through Russian rye, whole wheat, and sourdough rolls. What else were they supposed to do until the evening came off the pause button? Sylvia touched the back of one of the checkers from the grocery store.

“Glad you could make it, Jean.”

Sylvia moved on quickly to another table, her churning stomach lodged in her throat but a smile pasted across her face.

“Henry, nice to see you.”

Quinn, where are you?

And another.

“Bart Hendricks! I thought I saw your name on the RSVP list. Welcome back to Hidden Falls.”

Please, God, let Quinn be okay. Wherever he is, be there with him. I know You are, but please make sure he knows.

Sylvia worked her way past one table after another, smiling and calling people by name whenever she could but never slowing down enough for anyone to initiate conversation. When she picked up a shadow, she ignored it and moved between two tables especially close together.

The shadow pushed through as well. “Mayor Alexander, I wonder if I might have a word.”

Sylvia exhaled slowly and turned around. “Why, of course. You’re Quinn’s friend from this morning, aren’t you?” She extended a hand.

“Cabe Mueller.”

She held her grip on his hand and gently guided him around so that she stood between Cabe and the nearest table. “I could see this morning how much it meant to Quinn that you came. We’ve long since lost track of addresses for most of his first year’s students.”

“Mayor, are you quite sure everything is all right?”

Sylvia smiled. “Unfortunately, our grand opening didn’t go quite the way we rehearsed, but we’ll be under way shortly.”

“It’s been quite some time—”

“As you can see, I’m making my way back to the front. Principal Devon will want me to give some further instructions.”

Sylvia patted Cabe’s arm and moved past him, stopping just often enough to appear congenial but not letting her eyes rest too long in one place. She could sound pleasant. She could appear reassuring. What she couldn’t do was get bogged down in inquiries and speculation about how she could misplace Quinn on this night of all nights. Apart from her mother, Quinn was the dearest person to her in Hidden Falls, but she was the mayor and responsible to keep this event under control.

The evening bag that hung from Sylvia’s shoulder was just large enough to hold her cell phone and a small wallet. With abrupt realization, she remembered she had silenced the phone hours ago. Now she fumbled in her bag, extracted the phone, and resisted the urge to rub her eyes while it came to life.

A text message.

From Quinn.

The assistant principal of the high school touched her elbow. Sylvia looked up, eyes unfocused.

“Miles said you wanted to show the PowerPoint now instead of over dessert,” he said. “It’s ready to go.”

“Perfect.” Sylvia gripped her phone, but her hand trembled. “Since it’s mostly about Quinn’s work at the school, maybe you’d like to introduce it.”

He nodded and turned to ascend the stairs to the stage. As the lights went down, Sylvia pulled up the text message again.

I
KNOW
I’
VE WHINED, BUT
I
COULDN’T ASK FOR A BETTER NIGHT.
T
HANK YOU.

Her heart knocked against her ribs. When the time stamp came into focus, she realized Quinn had thumbed this message even before she put him on his X.

Quinn, where are you?

On the fourth PowerPoint slide, a picture of the first debate team Quinn had coached—none of the pictures included Quinn—the image smeared and disappeared. The music cut off abruptly. Sylvia felt like her heart had been pounding for hours. The assistant principal looked at her, flustered. Sylvia marched down the side of the hall, past the remnants of the video booth, and to the audiovisual platform at the rear of the dining area.