Hidden Falls (49 page)

“Not exactly.”

Dani waited.

“He tried to kiss me last week.”

“Tried?”

“I … ducked. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Then you’re not ready.”

“Melissa has a boyfriend. All the girls at our lunch table wish they did.”

At least Eva had a lunch table crowd. Dani was glad for that much on her behalf.

“So do they know about Zeke?”

Eva shook her head. “I hear how they talk. They would tell me stuff I should be doing with a boy, and I don’t want to do it.”

“Then don’t.”

“Why is everybody in such a hurry?” Eva’s voice cracked. “I want to go to college. I want to live on my own. I want to find a job I love. I want to do lots of things before I worry about having a boyfriend.”

Dani was starting to wish she’d left after she was sure Eva was safe.

“I just thought you would understand that,” Eva said.

“Well, I wasn’t cut out for college, and some people would say I don’t pay enough attention to my work.” Dani reached out and caught a leaf on its way down from the oak tree.

“But they still call you when they need something,” Eva said. “I bet you didn’t know that you fixed Melissa’s laptop after her dad was sure it was toast.”

Dani fixed a lot of laptops. Every time she did it, she promised herself she would never be so attached to something outside herself that she panicked if it stopped working. But Eva wasn’t really talking about deficient technology.

“You don’t have to be like everybody else to find your place,” Dani said. “You make the place where you want to live your life. Then if you’re happy there, you protect it.”

“What about love?” Eva whispered.

“Love comes in all shapes and sizes,” Dani said. Quinn. Liam and Cooper. Sylvia. Dani’s married sister and her new baby. Her parents. “Don’t pass it up thinking it has to look like Zeke and drive a red truck.”

Eva giggled, breaking the tension of the moment.

“Could we go hiking together sometime?” Eva asked. “I promise not to talk.”

Dani nodded. “Okay, kid, I’ll think about it.”

A BMW that could no longer be called new turned into the driveway

“There’s my dad and my sister, Brooke.” Eva hopped off the glider. “They’ve been to their first puppy training class.”

The back door of the vehicle opened, and a girl younger than Eva got out with her fist firmly wrapped around one end of a leash. A puppy romped out of the car and tugged on the leash.

Eva knelt in the grass, and the puppy strained toward her. Brooke gradually let the dog move toward the goal until Eva put her face straight down into the dog’s neck.

“Thank you,” Eva said when she looked up.

Dani shrugged and got off the glider.

Gianna appeared in the yard, and Jack walked over to kiss her cheek.

“How did it go?” Gianna asked.

Jack tilted his head toward the puppy. “The trainer said it wasn’t bad for a first session.”

“I have to have treats in my pocket all the time now,” Brooke said. “I have to reward her when she does the right thing.”

“Hello, Dani.” Jack looked puzzled and for good reason. A few hours ago, Dani would have been just as bewildered at the thought of finding herself in Jack Parker’s front yard.

“Dani’s going to take me hiking,” Eva said. “I hope that’s okay.”

Jack glanced at Gianna. “Sure. I guess.”

“Dinner’s ready.” Gianna turned toward the house. “I want to hear how you came out on your search through the old files.”

Dani paced to her Jeep, parked on the street. Jack wouldn’t find in his old files what she had already dug up.

7:02 p.m.

Sunset lowered darkness like a blind around Liam’s apartment building.

He hardly noticed the difference between the shadows and the brilliance of midday, though. Liam kept his drapes closed and his door bolted now. For the last twenty-four hours, he’d alternated between not sleeping in the bedroom and not sleeping in the living room. The more he thought about it, the more he was persuaded he might as well have shot himself in the foot yesterday when he went to see Jessica. Now she could report his words to anyone she chose.

His brother.

His boss.

The mayor.

The sheriff.

Free of context and body language between the two of them, his words would sound like an effort to cover up a crime. Technically, he supposed, they were. If Jessica had miraculously agreed to produce the needed funds, he would have figured out some way to put them back, to trace the trail backward and turn back time to before any of this started. Going forward he would have been vigilant about every transaction made on his accounts and hoped—prayed—that once they were married and Jessica didn’t have the wedding to obsess about, she would be happy with the life they shared.

There was no going forward now.

For the last week, Liam slept only when exhaustion overwhelmed fear and his body gave out. Then he would start to dream and wake with a jolt to realize it was all still true, and the cycle would begin again. The master of being cool, reassuring, and confident to close the deal was defeated. Belief that every circumstance contained an answer fled. Liam was past staring at his computer screen or printouts of the various reports. Inhaling the fragrance of Jessica’s blueberry scone yesterday was the closest he’d come to eating in two days. Now he sat on the couch chewing his thumbnails, uncertain how many hours he’d been in that same position. What did it matter? Without Jessica, his future was a formless void.

The only question now was how long it would take for someone to knock on his door with a search warrant.

And whether he would be there.

Liam put his head back and closed his eyes. The digits of the account numbers he’d stolen on the night of Quinn’s banquet burned against his eyelids, memorized. He doubted he would ever forget them. If he had used them, perhaps he wouldn’t have derailed his future with Jessica. Maybe he could have fixed this mess. But he hadn’t used them, and now there was no point in even trying.

The rap on the apartment door that woke him could have been a dream. His eyes popped open, but he didn’t move, instead listening for whether the sound would recur.

“Liam, are you in there? Don’t mess with me.”

Liam let his breath out. He got up, stumbled to the door, and took off both locks before falling back onto the couch.

The knob turned, and Dani entered. “What’s up with you? I had to knock three times.”

Liam glanced at the clock and saw that he had been asleep for twenty minutes.

“Sorry. I dozed off.” Liam got up and moved away from her stare. “I was just about to make coffee. Want some?”

“No offense, but I think you should back off the caffeine,” she said. “You look even worse than you did two days ago.”

“I just need to shower and shave.”

“I’ll say.” Dani waved a hand in front of her face.

Simultaneously, Liam was relieved to see his cousin and wished she would go away.

“I have some information for you.” Dani dumped herself into the recliner. The way she moved reminded Liam of Cooper, who did the same thing every time he came over.

Liam rubbed one eye. “I’m sorry. Information?”

“Dude, you need to wake up. Or sleep. Or something.”

Or something,
he thought. He bypassed the coffeepot and instead went to the sink to splash cold water on his face.

“That address you gave me,” Dani said. “It’s a private investigator’s off-the-record address.”

“I don’t understand.” Liam guzzled cold water straight from the faucet.

“And you say I’m socially inappropriate.” Dani swung her legs around and they hit the floor with a carpeted thud. “It’s a Doing Business As of a Doing Business As of a private detective outfit with three investigators.”

“Speak English, please.”

“It’s a subgroup of a subgroup of the real company. Somebody is trying to separate what people see from what the company really is.”

“Sounds clandestine.” And it sounded like someone Liam could really use. Too bad the firm was three states away.

“Quinn’s looking for something. Or somebody.”

“I’m glad to hear you use the present tense.” Liam took a glass from the cupboard and stuck it under the ice dispenser before filling it with water.

“Why wouldn’t I? He’s away, that’s all.”

“Okay, let’s not go there.” Liam willed his eyes to stay open. “So what’s he looking for?”

“You didn’t ask me to find that out.”

“Danielle Elaine.” Why did she have to be that way?

“Liam Maurice.”

“You must have a theory.”

She shrugged. “An adoption? Maybe he has a child he just found out about, or maybe he was adopted himself and just discovered it.”

Equally unlikely possibilities,
Liam thought. But maybe with some sleep, they would make sense.

“You can’t think of anything else people look for?”

“Relatives of some sort. Money they left in an old bank account. Some kind of inheritance.”

“Quinn doesn’t have any relatives, and he has plenty of money.” Liam didn’t know exactly how much, but Quinn had at least two accounts he wanted to roll over into a new investment. “And why use a UPS box in Birch Bend?”

“There’s this modern concept known as right to privacy. Lately people in this town act like there’s a ban on the idea.”

Sometimes Liam felt the childhood urge to punch Dani for being so aggravating. But she was younger and a girl, so when he tried that strategy as a boy he was always the one to get into trouble—no matter how much of a smart aleck Dani was.

“So you’ll tell Sylvia, then?” Dani stood up with her hands in the pockets of her orange North Face vest.

“I guess so.” Sylvia was the one Liam first went to with the information. She was entitled to the results of Dani’s search.

“And Cooper.”

“Not Cooper. He’d come up with a statute that says my photographs were illegal.” Besides, learning that Quinn might be looking for somebody didn’t point to where he was right now.

“Nicole Sandquist, then,” Dani said. “She’ll know what to do with it. She’s staying with Lauren Nock in town.”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it and decide in the morning.”

Dani wandered across the apartment and sat on a stool at the breakfast bar. Too late, Liam saw what she reached for.

“Jessica’s engagement ring?” Dani held the ring up to the light between thumb and forefinger.

Liam set his glass down slightly too hard and scratched his head vigorously with both hands.

“She broke up with you, didn’t she?”

“Yes.” That much was certainly true. The reasons were another matter. “Do you know a jeweler in Birch Bend I can trust?”

“More intrigue.”

Liam took the moment for a long drink of cold water. He didn’t dare go to the only jeweler in Hidden Falls and suffer the embarrassment of everyone in town knowing this piece of truth.

Dani peered at the ring.

Liam lurched across the breakfast bar and snatched the ring from her hand. “Fine. She scammed me. I think she took out the diamond before she returned the ring. That’s how much a sucker she thinks I am. Is that what you want to hear?” It wasn’t the stone that gave it away, because honestly he couldn’t tell the difference between a diamond and cubic zirconia, but the setting now had a slight scratch that Jessica wouldn’t have tolerated if she’d planned to wear the ring. She hadn’t gone to the Hidden Falls jeweler, either. He wouldn’t have made that scratch.

Dani swiveled the stool back and forth. “Liam, as annoying as you are, you’re the closest thing I have to a brother. No, I don’t want to hear that Jessica scammed you. But only a jeweler can tell you for sure.”

“I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s been a rough few days.” He finished his water. “Are you willing to do me another favor?”

“I am not taking that ring to a jeweler.”

“No. Bigger than that.” He watched her impassive face while he told her about the accounts.

“You need Cooper,” she said.

“I need to be sure my suspicions are right.”

“It seems pretty clear Jessica threw you over for the money.”

“Maybe I can still fix everything somehow.”

“Why would you want to?”

Liam turned to the sink for more water. He was being stupid. But the thought of releasing Jessica once and for all cut into his heart too painfully to accept.

“It gets worse,” he said.

For once Dani didn’t shoot off a smart remark. Liam unfolded the blackmail note, which he now carried in his back pocket, and slid it across the table.

Dani read it without picking it up. “Okay, now you really need Cooper.”

“It’s too risky. I don’t have proof of anything.”

“You’re going to look guilty if someone finds all this.”

“I know. But before I draw fire, I want a defense strategy. You can hack into the accounts and find where the money went. You know how to do that, right?”

9:18 p.m.

Sylvia deserved a piece of pie.

A busy stint at Town Hall in the morning, a long afternoon putting final touches on the shop, and a session of straightening up and folding laundry at her mother’s house all added up to pie. Sylvia hoped Gavin Owens had baked blackberry today. She drove past the shop one last time, admiring the display Lizzie had created for the reopening, and pulled into a parking spot in front of the Fall Shadows Café.

Inside, she was surprised to see her niece at the counter, leaning over her clipboard with Gavin.

“I want to have all the details in my notes,” Lauren said, “in case somebody asks me a question I can’t remember the answer to.”

“Relax.” Gavin patted Lauren’s hand. “It will be what it will be.”

“But I’m responsible for whatever it will be.” Lauren smoothed out the ragged corner of a page.

“Food, fun, friends. I’m supplying the food. How can you go wrong?” Gavin looked up. “Here’s your aunt.”

Lauren turned.

“Gavin’s right,” Sylvia said. “It’s time to take your list home and get some rest before tomorrow.”

Lauren stuck the clipboard in her bag. “I guess so. Six thirty in the morning will come way too early.”

“The food won’t be far behind,” Gavin said.