Hidden Falls (32 page)

“Did Celia from across the street come over with the groceries?” Sammie asked Emma.

“I’ll get fat on all that food,” Emma said.

“It’s just a few extra things we thought you might enjoy. No point having that stuff kicking around our pantries if you can use it.”

Guilt and gratitude mingled in Sylvia’s chest. Did her mother need more attention than Sylvia realized? Perhaps. But if she did, she was getting it from people who cared about her and knew her well.

Sammie folded the sweaters she’d left on the long table and then picked up the dishes and newspapers and carried them into the kitchen.

“Thank you,” Sylvia said. “Mom hasn’t mentioned that you come over like this.”

“It’s nothing.” Sammie set dishes in the sink and dropped the newspapers in the recycling bin. “Just being neighborly.”

“I’m touched.”

“I’m very fond of Emma,” Sammie said. “And you must have enough on your mind to make your head explode.”

“I see you’re keeping up with local news.”

“We all just want to help.” Sammie opened the refrigerator, sniffed the milk, and returned it to the shelf. “I’m sure you know Emma does pretty well with a routine.”

“She’s always been that way,” Sylvia said.

“I’ll just say good night and be on my way.” Sammie ran some water on the dishes in the sink. “She’s probably had her evening snooze, and now she’ll be ready to go to bed.”

Sammie touched Emma’s shoulder, leaned over, and said something that made the older woman laugh. Watching, Sylvia smiled. It was almost eight thirty, which had long been Emma’s cue to take a book and go to bed. Sammie wiggled the fingers of one hand as she went out the front door. She had been in and out of the house in less than ten minutes, but her presence lingered in Emma’s grin and Sylvia’s gratitude.

“Well, it’s time for me to go to bed.” Emma stood and picked up a book from the end table.

“I’ll stay long enough to get the laundry in the dryer,” Sylvia said.

“Don’t do that,” Emma said. “That old machine takes forever to wash a load. I’ll do it in the morning. But leave me a note on the kitchen table or I’m liable to forget.”

Emma spoke truth. The washer was old and inefficient. And—at the moment—Emma seemed aware of her limitations and had a strategy to compensate.

Anyone could forget to move a load of laundry. Sylvia did it all the time.

“You might as well go,” Emma said. “I’m headed for bed, anyway.”

“If you’re sure you don’t need anything.” Sylvia followed her mother down the hall.

“I’ve been going to bed all my life,” Emma said. “I’m pretty sure I know how to do it.”

Sylvia laughed. “Good night, Mom.”

“Lock up, please. I’ll call you in the morning.”

Emma shuffled into her bedroom, the room that had been Sylvia’s father’s den until he died and Emma decided she’d rather live entirely on the main floor. Sylvia leaned against a wall in the hallway and considered the array of photos documenting her family’s life—her grandparents, her parents’ wedding photo, childhood portraits of Sylvia and her sister and brother, favorite family vacation photos, Lauren and her cousins on Whisper Lake and in Christmas jammies. Sylvia was so used to the arrangement that she rarely saw individual images anymore.

It was a beautiful life. Emma Alexander loved well and was well loved.

We all just want to help,
Sammie had said, and so had the shop clerk in the alley.

Hidden Falls was that kind of town. The frustrations of the day—the constant queue of people hovering for Sylvia’s attention, the undercurrent of concern about the unusual events since Saturday, the determination of citizens to do something. They all just wanted to help. The town came together to look after their own, whether Ted Quinn or Emma Alexander or Dani Roose.

Life was exquisite. Sylvia relished every moment just as it was. People sometimes pitied her for never marrying, but love was wondrous in any form.

Now if they could just get Quinn home.

9:04 p.m.

Liam Elliott went out of his way to the gas station on the highway east of downtown. The price per gallon was not less than anywhere else. The pumps were not more modern, and access was not easier. It was the opposite direction out of town from where he lived.

But from this station, Liam could see the square brick building of eight apartments where Jessica lived on the third floor in the front unit.

They hadn’t spoken in twenty-four hours, not since he dropped Jessica off at her building the previous evening. She hadn’t called him, and Liam hadn’t reached out to her. He didn’t know what to say.

I’m sorry I disappointed you. Again.

If you think we should get married in April, we’ll get married in April.

I think there’s something you’re not telling me.

I know there’s something I’m not telling you.

I don’t want to believe it, but I think I have to.

Give me a little more time, and we’ll have a great life together.

All day long, Liam had turned the options over in his mind. Some of them rang truer than others, but all of them asked for compromise. Or downright deceit.

Liam wasn’t opposed to compromise. One slippery millimeter at a time, compromise was what got him in this predicament in the first place. The world ran on compromise, it seemed to him. How would people, much less nations, ever get along without give-and-take? But in his current circumstances, Liam would have liked his options to be a little more clear-cut. His brother, Cooper, worked in law enforcement and believed in rules and boundaries. Their cousin, Dani, was a free spirit who didn’t care what people thought about how she lived. Liam was squished somewhere in between, like the third child sitting in the middle of the backseat in a car. No one ever chose to be in the middle. They just got stuck there.

Liam swung around the gas station lot so he could park with the nose of his blue sedan aimed at Jessica’s building. A light went on in the corner of the third floor. Jessica’s bedroom. She never went to bed this early. Liam could still call her, still drive across the street and take the elevator up to her floor. He could still be abject, still tell her what she wanted to hear. They could still set a date and move toward their wedding.

If only the stakes were not so high this time.

He got out of the car and pulled a credit card from his wallet. Forcing himself to look away from Jessica’s building, Liam slid the card into the pay-at-the-pump slot and picked up the nozzle for regular unleaded gasoline.

“Hello, Liam.”

His head snapped up and he stared into the eyes of Mayor Sylvia Alexander as she filled her tank next to his. “Good evening.”

“It’s not often I see both Elliott brothers in one evening,” Sylvia said.

“I hope Cooper’s behaving himself.” Liam opened his tank and inserted the nozzle. He smiled. Liam knew the mayor preferred Cooper, but he would play along with her friendliness if for no other reason than the meeting he had scheduled with her in a couple of weeks.

Of course, he could be on his way to prison by then. Cooper would probably be the one to come and arrest him. Liam squeezed the nozzle with one hand while he felt for Jack Parker’s business card with the other.

“Any word on Quinn?” Liam asked. Two days ago, Quinn seemed like Liam’s last hope, but that was before Liam found the missing pieces of his puzzle.

“No, but I remain optimistic,” Sylvia said. “We’ll find him and he’ll have an explanation.”

If Quinn had an explanation for what he’d done, he’d be ten steps ahead of Liam, whose only way out—possibly—was to point a finger in a direction that made his gut twist just thinking about it.

The mayor’s nozzle shut off, and she replaced it in its cradle on the pump. “I guess I’ll call it a night.”

Liam nodded. “Let’s hope for good news tomorrow.” He certainly needed some.

While his tank filled, rather than look at Jessica’s building, Liam watched the numbers on the digital display flip. Maybe tomorrow he would know what to say to her. He drove back through downtown and west to the complex of apartments where he lived. With the strap of his briefcase hanging off one shoulder, Liam turned the key in the lock. He had everything from his desk at the office in that bulging, soft-sided leather computer bag. He wasn’t letting the incriminating papers out of his sight. Someone in the corporate office might still trace the electronic trail, but Liam saw no point in making the job easier.

As Liam flipped on the light switch next to the door, his foot scuffed against something on the floor. He squatted to pick up a nine-by-twelve-inch manila envelope and turned it in every direction.

He found no mark. The flap was sealed. Supposing it to be a communication from the building owner to the tenants, Liam tore off the top edge and slid out the single page of contents.

Centered neatly on the sheet of ordinary white copy paper, the message was simple.

I know. For a price, I’ll help you.

Breakfast in Birch Bend at seven.

You know the place. Don’t be late.

Wednesday
7:42 a.m.

L
iam Elliott was first aware that his right elbow hurt. Then his neck abruptly announced its discomfort. He swam up toward consciousness as his back demanded repositioning. The yawn that followed, huge and devouring, reminded Liam of the chronic lack of sleep over the last few days and the persistent sensation of waking up without feeling refreshed. He rubbed his eyes, stunned that he had fallen asleep at all.

He hadn’t dared go to bed.

Liam had laid the note on the breakfast bar and stared at it for two hours. Before its arrival, in the last few days Liam had imagined the shame of being confronted by a corporate executive about seventy-three thousand dollars missing from the client accounts Liam managed. He had imagined the embarrassment of being arrested, of having his hands locked together behind his back. He had sickened over the possibility of losing Jessica. He had known the dismay of a suspicion he could not yet prove.

But he had not imagined a blackmail note.

By midnight Liam was playing snippets of old movies in his head. A clever detective noticed a swirl in the handwriting or the texture of paper that gave away the blackmailer. For Liam, there were no handwriting clues.

By 2:00 a.m. Liam was thinking about the old typewriters, where no
e
was like any other, so finding the blackmailer was a matter of locating the typewriter and following the trail from there. The note Liam found under his door was printed in a common default font on ordinary printer paper that anyone could buy in an office supply store or a big-box store. How many computers were there in Hidden Falls? How many printers?

At 3:00 a.m. his brain was empty of possibilities for who might have slipped that note under his door.

I know,
the note said.

Who could know? Liam had only discovered the missing funds a few days ago, and he had spoken to no one about it. He carried his papers and his laptop everywhere he went. The screen on his office desk was only a monitor. Without the hard drive of Liam’s laptop, the screen could give away nothing.

Who could possibly know?

At 3:30 a.m. Liam jammed his swollen briefcase in a backpack in the rear of his closet and buried it among the camping gear he never intended to use again, hoping it would be safe there for a few hours.

At 4:00 a.m. Liam made coffee and resolved to shower and put on a business suit before driving to Birch Bend. He wouldn’t go to this meeting looking disheveled and frightened and vulnerable.

At 5:00 a.m., dressed, he sat at the breakfast bar staring at the note again and wondering about fingerprints.

At 5:30 a.m. he folded his arms on the breakfast bar and laid his head in their nest just for a minute.

Now Liam shot off the stool, the red lights of the digital wall clock in his kitchen finally registering in his weary brain. 7:43! His heart pounded and his eyes refused to stop blinking. He gasped at irregular intervals.

Breakfast in Birch Bend at seven,
the note said.

Liam had no idea who left the note, so he had no idea whether the person would wait. He slid the note into its envelope, snatched his keys off the breakfast bar, and ran out of the apartment.

You know the place,
the note said.

Liam wasn’t certain. Birch Bend was larger than Hidden Falls, and Liam had a couple of favorite places to go for breakfast. Was the note writer someone who knew his haunts? In the twenty minutes it took to drive to Birch Bend, he would have to decide which was the right place.

Liam imagined it was sacrilegious for a supposed embezzler to pray about a meeting with a probable blackmailer, but he didn’t know what else to call the sensation of trying to conjure hope. He had no hope within him. It had to come from somewhere else.

One restaurant edged out the other in his head, and he drove there, arriving at 8:10—more than an hour after the appointed time. A waitress in a green apron put a menu in front of Liam and offered coffee. He raised the menu to read it, but the words blurred. Blood pulsed through his temples as he looked around the restaurant for anyone he recognized. He had clients in Birch Bend. He had clients all over the county, but his files were confidential. Midwest Answers had one security system layered on another. Hacking in would have taken serious expertise, and a second person discovering the missing money—if it was a second person—screamed against the odds.

Yet Liam sat in a restaurant, suspicious of every face that looked vaguely familiar. He ordered a tall glass of orange juice and a muffin. Food in front of him, whether or not he consumed it, gave him a reason to remain in his booth and watch people. Liam didn’t know who he was looking for, but if the author of the note was still in the main dining area, he or she would see Liam.

When it arrived, Liam sipped the orange juice.

His eyes met the gaze of a fiftyish man six tables away, his stomach burning at the realization that he knew this man. Burt. Bart. Something like that. Henderson or Hendricks. They stared at each other. Liam sipped his juice again without moving his eyes.