Hidden Falls (55 page)

So why did she feel so far from him right now?

“What else?” She needed to keep the conversation rolling before anyone interpreted the lag as completion.

“Maybe,” Lauren said, “it’s the friend who helped him get his teaching job here. Miles Devon said Quinn came highly recommended. He never even had a personal interview before he got hired. Isn’t that odd?”

“The cemetery business is curious,” Jack said. “Nicole is the one who got me into that.”

“Yes,” Sylvia said, “let’s go back to those old records for a moment. Did you figure out what he was looking for?”

“Not exactly,” Nicole said. “Does Quinn know Morse code?”

Sylvia had never heard him mention it. “Why would he need Morse code at the cemetery?”

“Dots and dashes make letters and words,” Nicole said. “Somebody has been making pencil marks in Old Dom’s records, and I think it was Quinn.”

“What kind of letters and words?”

“Clues. But they’re cryptic. I haven’t quite figured out what they mean, but I will.”

Sylvia believed her. Nicole was not the sort to give up.

“Do they have to do with the names you had me research?” Jack asked.

Sylvia had suspected she wasn’t getting a full picture from the bits and pieces of information that had come her way during the week, but the level of what she had missed astonished her.

“You and Jack are researching cemetery names?” Sylvia said.

“I have it narrowed down to three surnames,” Nicole said.

“Me, too,” Jack said.

“Maybe you’d better share the names.” Sylvia was tempted to shift her posture, but she didn’t want to appear nervous.

“I guess so,” Nicole said. “Tabor, Pease, and Fenton.”

“Yep, those are the ones,” Jack said, “though I’m pretty sure one of them is a red herring.”

Sylvia knew the names, all well revered in Hidden Falls history. “But why would Quinn be looking at those names?”

“Probably because of the picture,” Lauren said.

“What picture?”

“A photo, actually.” Between one fist and a crutch, Nicole still grasped the folder Sylvia had seen her with earlier. She opened it now and handed a photograph to Sylvia.

Sylvia’s eyes went back and forth between the photo and Ethan several times.

“I know, right?” Nicole said. “There has to be a connection.”

“Let me see that.” Jack reached for the photo, and Sylvia didn’t resist for fear of causing it harm. Immediately Jack saw what she’d seen. He looked at Nicole. “You didn’t tell me you had this when you came to my office on Thursday.”

“I wasn’t sure it was relevant. I still don’t know.”

“A photo in the cemetery. This is how you came up with your original list of names. You only wanted me to narrow them down.”

“It hasn’t gotten me anywhere,” Nicole said. “A few cryptic notes about babies are not much to go on.”

Sylvia’s heart rate jumped about twenty beats per minute. “What babies? When?”

“As far as I can tell, sometime during the 1930s,” Nicole said.

Jack scratched his chin. “Yes, that would be about right.”

“Lauren,” Sylvia said, “remember that story my mother wanted to tell us last Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“It was about babies in the Depression.”

Cooper cleared his throat. “Haven’t we wandered a long way from what took Quinn out of town? If this photo and the graves and Emma’s story have any connection to each other, that’s all right here in Hidden Falls. It doesn’t explain Quinn’s disappearance.”

“Keep in mind he reappeared in St. Louis, giving us every reason to believe he’s fine,” Dani said. “Are we about finished here? I left Eva Parker in charge of my grill, and considering she already set one fire today, that makes me a little nervous. No offense, Jack.”

“I talked to her about that. She’s sorry.”

“I know. But still.”

Sylvia met one last gaze, and Nicole took the cue.

“The reason the mayor called us together,” Nicole said, “was because of what I heard. Actually, Lauren has heard it, too.”

“But I had no clue what it was,” Lauren said.

Nicole explained the tune and whistled the opening notes.

“Somebody out there knows Quinn,” Nicole said. “But why would Quinn use
my
tune?”

Blank expression answered her inquiry.

Sylvia blew out her breath. “Okay. I realize we all have responsibilities this afternoon, but we haven’t put the pieces together yet. I’d like to meet again when the fair closes. How about at three thirty after the stragglers are gone and before we start breaking down the booths?”

“I won’t be able to stay long.” Ethan glanced at Nicole.

“I hope the weather holds up that long,” Dani said.

Sylvia raised her eyes to approaching darkness far too early in the afternoon. The greenish hue was disconcerting.

2:07 p.m.

Lauren watched Ethan’s attentiveness to Nicole. He reached for her hand, but it was occupied with the grip of a crutch. Instead, he carried the folder with her notes and the photo and matched the pace she could manage across the lawn. A couple of kids and their parents stood outside the area screened off for his examinations. Ethan had taken few breaks of any length. Somewhere in the back of Lauren’s brain, a note formed that next time the church organized a health fair, they should make sure they had several doctors.

Cooper had found so many excuses to be at her elbow all day that Lauren expected to find him there now, but he had left when the group dispersed. It was her aunt whose proximity she discerned.

“You didn’t say anything about Quinn’s box,” Lauren said. Hours of curiosity about what her aunt found last night had battered the day, but there was always something else Lauren needed to attend to.

“There will be time to tell the others later.” Sylvia put a hand in the middle of Lauren’s back. “I thought I would start with you and see what you think.”

“Okay.” Lauren looked around. The fair had just started its final hour, and everything seemed to be going well. No one would miss Lauren if she ducked out of sight for ten minutes. In fact, the crowd was the thinnest it had been all day, which brought some relief. A drastic weather shift seemed imminent. Lauren dreaded the thought of the canopies getting wet before the crew could get them down and stowed. The gusting wind of half an hour ago had died down, but Lauren had been a Midwesterner all her life. The sky did not promise a fine evening.

“Let’s just go into the back hall of the church,” Sylvia suggested.

But the thought was tardy. Cooper was on his way toward them.

“We have to shut down,” he said.

“It’s only a few more minutes,” Lauren countered.

“One of the other deputies called me.” Cooper waved his phone as if Lauren required proof. “The National Weather Service has declared a tornado warning. It’s coming up from Springfield and will be here soon.”

Lauren scanned the lawn. Even with a thin crowd, the visitors still strolling the grass and the volunteers at the booths were easily seventy people.

“They haven’t sounded the siren,” Sylvia said.

“It’s coming, believe me.” Cooper wiped a hand across his chin. “We have to get people out of here. Even if it just turns into a thunderstorm, we can’t have everyone out here under the trees.”

“The church basement, then,” Lauren said. “I’ve got keys.”

“People will want to go home,” Sylvia said. “They’ll want to know their families are all right.”

“I don’t advise it,” Cooper said, “but we can’t stop them.”

“We can try to persuade them,” Lauren said. Tornado sirens were nothing new in central Illinois. Most likely the tornado wouldn’t touch ground, or at least not in the tiny dot Hidden Falls made on a map. The same logic, though, would make people feel there was no urgency to take shelter.

Sylvia examined the sky. “If you have to, tell them the mayor is closing the fair, but get people off the lawn.”

“I’ll get the basement doors open.” Lauren fished in her pocket for her church keys. “Cooper, will you—”

“I’m on it. I’ll use the authority of the sheriff’s office, too.”

“I’m right behind you,” Sylvia said.

Lauren opened two sets of doors leading directly into the basement of Our Savior Community Church. When she returned to the lawn, she saw Sylvia and Cooper hustling between booths and clusters of people.

The siren still had not sounded. Lauren prayed that meant they had some time, but the sky was greener every time she glanced up. Lauren stopped at the balloon booth. Henry Healy was on duty.

“We’re closing up, Henry. Take shelter.”

Immediately he shut off the helium tank that had been filling balloons all day and began rolling it toward the church building. Lauren handed the final six balloons to the next child who walked by and encouraged the family to leave immediately.

Sylvia was at the auction tables now, where someone produced boxes and tubs from their hiding places and began tossing items inside them. Gavin Owens and a couple of other men were folding tables and chairs. Zeke Plainfield and a couple of his buddies were pulling tent poles out of the ground.

Lauren wished people would worry less about the booths. As much as her stomach turned at the thought of the dampness and damage that might result if items were left outside when the weather blew through, it wasn’t worth jeopardizing anyone’s safety. As she and Cooper and Sylvia made the rounds with news of the tornado, people tended to look up at the sky as if to evaluate the merit of the meteorologists’ prediction for themselves. Again and again, she encouraged people to take shelter in the church basement. Some did. Others meandered toward their parked cars or down the streets that would take them to nearby homes.

Lauren glanced toward the space Ethan had been using just in time to see him scoop Nicole out of her chair. Crutches dangled from Nicole’s grasp, but Ethan made steady progress across the lawn. Lauren allowed herself a breath of relief that at least Nicole could not be stubborn about this one thing.

Someone grabbed her elbow, and Lauren spun around.

“Are you going to open again after the storm blows through?” Mrs. Berrill, the weekly hypochondriac of the congregation, asked her ludicrous question with all sincerity.

“No, I don’t think so,” Lauren said. “Please take shelter.”

“You’re still out here.”

“I’m trying to get everyone to safety as quickly as possible.”

“But I just got here,” Mrs. Berrill said. “I wanted to pick up some brochures and recipes. Will they be available later?”

“Mrs. Berrill, why don’t you go in the church basement, and I’ll try to answer your questions once we know we’re safe.”

Mrs. Berrill huffed. “I think I’ll just go home if you’re going to be that way.”

“Please go inside.”

Lauren hoped Mrs. Berrill wouldn’t put herself in peril just to spite Lauren, but the outcome of the conversation was beyond Lauren’s control. A slender figure ran toward her.

“Molly, where’s Christopher?”

Sudden tears streaked Molly’s face. “I can’t find him. I turned my back for a few seconds, and he was gone. He’s probably playing hide-and-seek, but I can’t find him!”

“We’ll look together.”

The eerie sky swirled around them, the stillness of a few minutes ago lost in a howling wind.

The siren sounded, drowning out Molly’s screams for her son. The boy would never hear his name over the deafening screech of the warning. Lauren spun around trying to think where a five-year-old could hide. Beside her, Molly’s frantic gestures accelerated. Lauren grabbed Molly to keep her from running. She couldn’t look for them both.

Under the ear-splitting siren, people dropped whatever equipment they were trying to salvage and ran for the basement doors. Cooper rounded the lawn one last time, physically turning people around and pushing them toward the building. When the lawn was almost cleared, he raced toward Lauren and Molly.

“Come on!” he yelled. “It’s time.”

Lauren cupped her hands around her mouth. “We can’t find Christopher!”

“He’ll be so frightened by the noise,” Molly screamed. “I won’t leave him out here.”

The big oaks.
Lauren dashed toward the twin trees at the center of the church lawn. She climbed them when she was younger, and now nearly every Sunday in nice weather she shooed children out of their branches. The lowest branches were higher than Christopher’s height, but what if he’d had a boost from an older boy when he was hiding from his mother? Or what if he was skilled at shimmying up the trunk of a tree?

The roar really did sound like a freight train, just like everything Lauren ever read about tornados said. The storm was close. Too close. Lauren spotted Christopher gripping a tree trunk, his eyes frantic. With the camouflage of his brown pants and green-and-brown jacket, it was no wonder he was so hard to find.

Lauren stood below the boy and opened her arms, praying she could catch him. “Christopher! Let go!”

He shivered and shook his head.

“You have to!” Lauren shouted.

Christopher didn’t move.

Cooper shoved Lauren out of the way and braced one foot against a knot low on the tree’s trunk. With two swift swings, his wide arm span easily reached the branch where Christopher sat, but the boy still refused to unclench his grip. Cooper stabilized himself enough to pry the child’s fingers from the bark and handed Christopher down to Lauren. Molly immediately grabbed him. Christopher began to wail, whether in fear or relief, Lauren did not know.

“Go!” Lauren pushed Molly behind both shoulders. “Run!”

Cooper dropped out of the tree and landed with a thud behind Lauren. He snatched her hand and they began to run. Ahead of them, Molly raced with astonishing speed with her child molded against her form. When Molly reached the basement, a half-dozen arms pulled her in—and then the door slammed.

All the church doors automatically locked. Lauren had propped the doors open without taking time to reset the latches to open from the outside.

Cooper’s hand tightened on Lauren’s as she pointed. She groped her pocket as they ran, feeling for the lump that would be her keys, but the pocket didn’t have even the bulge of a wadded up tissue. The keys were lost. Lauren had unlocked two sets of doors into the basement, and now she tugged Cooper in the direction that would take them to the other doors—with no guarantee they would be open.