Hidden Falls (28 page)

“I’m sure it would.” Quinn had been gone three nights and two days. No one wanted to know what happened to him more than Sylvia did.

“Then I’ll get on it as soon as I get back to my office.”

The smugness of his tone grated against Sylvia’s polite smile, but what could it hurt to let him try?

10:22 a.m.

“I just want to get my run in.” With a foot up on a kitchen chair, Nicole Sandquist leaned forward to tie her laces and spoke toward the cell phone set on speaker and laid on the table.

“So maybe noonish?” Ethan said.

“That sounds about right, but you’d better wait for me to call you.” Nicole liked to run at least five miles and often ran seven or eight. She could run toward town, loop around downtown, catch some of the river trail on the way back, and still have time to shower.

“I thought you’d be in more of a hurry to get to Birch Bend.”

Nicole stretched her hamstrings. “I think better if I run.”

By dinnertime, Quinn would have been missing for seventy-two hours. Nicole didn’t have time for muddled thinking. Hours on the Internet and at the local newspaper archives the day before had turned up nothing about Quinn’s past before he moved to Hidden Falls. Everybody had a past and people who knew them before. The vacant column under Quinn’s name niggled at Nicole more persistently with each hour that ticked by.

After jogging for a few minutes to warm up, Nicole ran hard. As soon as she was out of the stately subdivision where she grew up in the block behind Quinn’s house, she was off the harsh sidewalks and lengthening her stride on the softer shoulder of the road into town. A gap of three-quarters of a mile had somehow escaped the developers in the history of Hidden Falls’s gradual expansion like concentric rings around the shops on Main Street. Nicole had first started running along here when she was about twelve. She ran with a backpack in those days, getting off the school bus long before her assigned stop to discharge the anxiety that built up over seven hours in the classroom. Nicole hated being the only girl without a mother, agonizing over how to become a grown-up woman with no mother to show her or being jealous of all the girls who complained about their unreasonable mothers. At least they had mothers.

Nicole got over being anxious and jealous, but she never let go of running.

Quinn found her one day right along this stretch of road when she had run herself breathless and stood with her hands on her knees, trying to fill her lungs. He said he was on his way to get an ice cream cone and figured she would want one. Many years passed before she realized he was driving the wrong direction for an ice cream cone. More likely he was headed toward the lake to walk or fish on his own. He’d given up his afternoon to make a lonely child smile.

Nicole’s feet thudded against the ground in unvarying rhythm. Her running shoes were worth every penny of the exorbitant price she paid for them at regular intervals. She catered to few indulgences, but new running shoes in the budget every three months was not negotiable.

Her eyes soaked up the view. Reds and golds and browns rustled against one another in autumn breezes that swirled them, one by one, to the ground. In another couple of weeks, nearly bare tree branches would herald the unstoppable turn of the seasons. The sun would provide more light than warmth in the middle of the day, and one morning not long after that, snow would startle the county—and like all good Midwesterners, the residents of Hidden Falls would hunker down.

Quinn would be assessing whether his firewood supply would see him through a winter of the roaring blazes he relished. He never had them growing up, he’d said once. His family never had a fireplace.

Nicole stumbled with the memory and uncharacteristically halted her run. She stood with hands on hips, breathing hard.

The lack of a fireplace hardly narrowed the possibilities of where Quinn might have lived, but the fact that she knew this bit of his past bolstered Nicole’s conviction that a clue would emerge if she only dug for it hard enough and deep enough. And if she could find where Quinn came from, she might also find where he had gone to.

She could almost feel him there on the side of the road. Quinn had seen this same view three days ago, the same riotous swaths of competing color, the same midmorning brilliance of the sun. Perhaps he had stood in this spot.

Had he known then whatever it was that made him leave?

Nicole resumed running, suddenly feeling the urge to see if that old ice cream parlor was still in business. Instead of skirting around downtown, she would run right through it. She could go by Our Savior Community Church. If she remembered right, the frozen treats of her childhood were four blocks west of the church. Her path sloped gently now, and Nicole saw the steeples of several churches amid the patchwork of rooflines ranging from forty to one hundred years in age. Hidden Falls was a picture-postcard small town. Nicole had grown up here, but Quinn chose this town and liked it so well he never wandered more than fifteen miles to the west or south. On the other side, the county line ran just north of the river and just east of the falls. Still, the county covered over three hundred square miles.

Nicole’s mental calculations had carried her into downtown. Rounding the corner at the church, she saw the woman with the baby and toddler a fraction of a second too late. She stumbled for the second time that morning, this time stepping off the curb before she judged its depth.

Her ankle crumpled beneath her. Pain shot through her lower leg. Lying between two parked cars, Nicole tried not to shriek.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” The woman scrambled off the sidewalk. “I didn’t see you. I was looking at the baby.”

The infant bawled now.

Rolling to one shoulder, Nicole breathed rapidly in and out. Her foot screamed. “I didn’t see you either. Accidents happen.”

“Are you all right?”

Nicole maneuvered to all fours, holding the injured ankle off the ground, and concentrated on not biting her tongue.

“I’ll find help.” The woman took the toddler’s hand. “Come on, Kimmie. We’ll go in the church.”

Nicole gripped the grill of the nearest car and pulled herself upright, amazed at the way pain superseded the instinct to breathe. She leaned on the hood of the car and tentatively tested her weight on the ankle—and immediately shifted to the other foot. As a runner, Nicole had her share of sprains. This was no sprain.

The side door of Our Savior swung open and Lauren hustled toward Nicole.

“Raisa Gallagher told me what happened.” Lauren ducked under Nicole’s arm to brace her weight. “What are you doing trying to stand up?”

“It seemed like a better idea than lying in the street.” Nicole grimaced. “I think it’s broken.”

“Lean on me.”

With her foot off the ground, Nicole’s ankle dangled at a precarious angle. “Didn’t there used to be a little urgent care place around here?”

“It’s part of the hospital now. We have to get you up there.”

“This would be a really good time to tell me you have a car nearby.”

“I don’t drive, remember?” Lauren tightened her grip around Nicole’s waist. “I think you’re leaning on Jack Parker’s car. Oh, there he is now. Jack!”

Across the street, Jack’s head turned.

Nicole didn’t know Jack Parker, but if he had a car and knew where the urgent care center was, then he was about to be her new best friend.

1:42 p.m.

“How am I going to find Quinn when I’m doped up on painkillers, with my leg in a boot cast?”

In the urgent care exam room, Lauren offered a sympathetic shrug in response to Nicole’s question. “You have to take care of yourself. Other people are looking for Quinn.”

“Are they? What has that Cooper Elliott of yours turned up?”

“He’s not
my
Cooper Elliott.” Refusing to blush, Lauren settled into a side chair to await the physician’s assistant who would return with final discharge instructions. “I hardly know him.”

While Lauren was sorry to hear about Dani’s boat being smashed, she was also relieved that the latest incident had not taken her once again to the sheriff’s office for another round of questions with Cooper Elliott. At least—as far as Lauren knew—there had been no gruesome discovery of what became of Dani herself.

“I
cannot
do this,” Nicole said. “I
cannot
be laid up like this. Not right now. There’s too much to do.”

“One thing at a time.” Lauren examined the boot cast carefully wrapped around Nicole’s swollen ankle. The ankle was indeed broken. For now, the boot would immobilize it. Whether Nicole would need surgery was undetermined.

“I know, I know. It’s just so frustrating. I don’t even care about my foot. We have to find out what happened to Quinn.”

Maybe, Lauren thought, she would suggest that her aunt Sylvia call a special town meeting. Cooper could run it. The other officers could help with interviews. There had to be a faster way to find out who was the last person to see Quinn—and when and where.

Lauren quickly dismissed the idea. Sylvia’s shop was in shambles. Asking her to take on a town meeting was out of the question.

Nicole’s phone buzzed for the fifth time from its secure place in the sport band wrapped around her bicep.

“Maybe you should answer that,” Lauren said.

“It will either be my editor—and I don’t know what to tell him—or it’s Ethan wondering why I haven’t called. We were supposed to go to Birch Bend.”

“Either way,” Lauren said, “somebody’s probably worried.”

And they were going to need a ride. Jack Parker had safely transported Nicole and Lauren to the hospital, but he hadn’t even come inside. He muttered something about an important phone call and left them as soon as Lauren scrounged up a transit wheelchair for Nicole from inside the clinic. Lauren didn’t want to call her aunt, who had a pile of her own problems right now.

“Ethan would come and get us, wouldn’t he?” Lauren said.

“Probably.” Nicole rubbed her forehead. “I would have thought they’d offer me something stronger than ibuprofen by now.”

“Your stomach is too empty for narcotics.” Lauren stood up and took Nicole’s phone from the strap on her arm, surprised Nicole didn’t protest. “Call Ethan.”

The exam room door opened just then, and the physician’s assistant entered with papers in his hands.

“Okay, we’ll have you out of here in a jiffy,” he said. “We just need a few John Hancocks. First, I need to know where you plan to go from here.”

“To my house, I suppose.”

“Alone?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Do you have a ground floor bedroom and bath?”

Nicole sighed. “No.”

“Then I don’t recommend you go home. No stairs.”

Lauren shifted her bag to the other shoulder. “She can come home with me. There’s an elevator in my building.”

“I’m not imposing myself on you,” Nicole said. “Thank you, but I’ll manage.”

“Perhaps I wasn’t clear,” the PA said. “No weight on your foot. None at all. You have to be extremely careful until you see the orthopedist and get a determination about surgery. I want you in a comfortable chair with your foot elevated, icing every three or four hours for the next three days.”

“She’s coming home with me.” Lauren had a chair in her spare room that would fold out to a twin bed. The apartment was small enough that Nicole wouldn’t have to hobble too far for anything, and since it was right downtown on Main Street, checking in and making sure Nicole had everything she needed would be easy.

“Good.” The PA checked some boxes on a form. “She shouldn’t be on her own until after she sees the surgeon.”

“What about medication?”

“I’ll give you the prescription. She shouldn’t take more painkiller than she needs, but she shouldn’t skimp either.”

“
She
is right here,” Nicole said, “and not nearly as unconscious as you might think.”

“Sorry,” Lauren muttered.

The PA flipped over a page. “I see you live in St. Louis.”

“That’s right.” Nicole tried to readjust her position and winced.

“I’d like you to stay in Hidden Falls for at least a week. I can understand that you may prefer to have surgery in St. Louis, but you’ll need someone to help you get there. And you’ll have to hang up your car keys for a couple of months.”

A protest formed on Nicole’s lips, but Lauren was relieved she had the good sense not to voice it. “You can stay with me as long as you need to,” she said.

“I’m not being given much choice, am I?” Nicole reached for the pen the PA held. “What do you want me to sign?”

“Right here.” He handed her the form. “And here’s your prescription for pain meds. They should hold you till you can see the surgeon.”

Nicole scribbled her signature.

“I’ll send someone in to help you get outside and make sure you have your X-rays on a CD.” He looked at Lauren. “You can pull your car around anytime.”

The door closed behind him. Lauren looked at Nicole. “You have to call Ethan.”

“I guess.” Nicole looked at her phone. “Four calls and five texts from him.”

“He’s worried.”

“Or at least curious.” Nicole scrolled to find Ethan’s number in her list of recent calls and tapped it.

Lauren looked around the exam room to make sure they wouldn’t leave anything behind. The shoe and sock taken from Nicole’s injured foot were in a plastic bag with the sweatshirt she’d worn tied around her waist. Lauren picked up the bag and her own purse, trying not to eavesdrop on Nicole’s conversation with Ethan.

Something was going on with the two of them. Lauren slapped down a twinge of envy and decided to look in the hall to see if anyone was coming to help them out. She and Nicole would have to wait for Ethan in the waiting room or on a bench outside the urgent care doors. The clinic would want to free up the exam room.

She nearly didn’t hear her own cell phone ring. Lauren dug in her bag and extracted the phone between the third and fourth rings. The number was unfamiliar, and Lauren couldn’t immediately place the area code her screen displayed. She didn’t get a lot of phone calls from other cities. She tapped the A
NSWER
button and raised the phone to her ear.