Hidden Falls (66 page)

“I’m not at liberty to discuss active investigations.”

That was all Liam needed to hear. He was pretty sure there were no other active investigations into auto theft or burglary in Hidden Falls. If there were, the rumor mill would be buzzing.

“Wow,” Liam said. “You caught him.”

“It was the prints,” Dani said. “You caught him because of the prints you got because he took a swing at you—which only happened because I caught him first.”

“I am not at liberty to discuss active investigations,” Cooper repeated.

Liam saw the gleam in his brother’s eye.

“So now you believe me?” Dani said.

“All I ever said was that we didn’t have evidence,” Cooper said. “We still don’t.”

“What about the purse snatching?” Liam asked.

“In Gavin’s café?” Cooper said. “Already have a report on that.”

“What do you know about Robert Doerr?” Nicole asked. “Arrest records are public information. Save me some time.”

“True,” Cooper said, “but you’re not going to find anything under this name. Running the prints tells us he has a record, but the details are vague. Robert Doerr is probably an alias. We’re still looking for a real name.”

“I could ask around and find out in under thirty minutes how long he’s been in town.” Nicole looked up at Cooper hopefully.

“Less than a year.” Cooper looked out the front door. “I gotta go and make sure these junior deputies do things by the book.”

Liam watched his brother nod his head at a couple of people on his way out. The squad car was still waiting for him.

“Mmm.” Nicole picked up her spoon and tapped it against an open palm.

“Nicole,” Dani said, “spill.”

Nicole shrugged. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking about something my detective friend once told me. He was trying to prove charges against a man he discovered was in the witness protection program. It turns out that most witnesses have criminal pasts and often get into trouble again in their new communities.”

Liam leaned back in disbelief. “You think Robert Doerr is in the witness protection program just because he uses a false name?”

“I know,” Nicole said. “It’s silly. It was just the way Cooper said he had a record, but I wouldn’t find it. I’m pretty good at finding these things.”

The waitress arrived with the food Dani and Nicole had ordered. They settled in to eat.

Liam chewed slowly, thinking. Quinn wasn’t driving when he disappeared. He used his debit card in St. Louis while Robert Doerr was working at a hospital in Hidden Falls. Dani’s theory that Quinn left town because he wanted to was beginning to make the most sense. Liam would be relieved to learn—officially—that his brother had caught the person who stole Quinn’s car and smashed Sylvia’s shop. And it would be reasonable to at least look into the possibility that Robert Doerr had something to do with Dani’s boat going over the falls.

What Liam wanted most of all, though, was for his brother to solve Liam’s case before someone from the corporate offices of Midwest Answers swooped in to have him arrested.

2:13 p.m.

“Are you here for more blood?” Lauren didn’t open her eyes to see which category of hospital employee had just shuffled into her room.

“Are you having vampire dreams?”

Lauren’s eyelids flipped open. It was Cooper, in the blue-and-gray uniform that was his daily garb.

“I thought it was someone from the lab.” Lauren wished she had something more clever to say, but even on her best days, her wit was never what she wished it was.

“You look good!”

Lauren turned her face away from Cooper for a few seconds. She couldn’t possibly look good. He was either very sweet or a very good liar.

“How do you feel?” Cooper asked.

“A whole lot better than last night.”

“That’s what I want to hear.”

Cooper rearranged the chair at the side of the bed so he could face Lauren.
So this is not a pop-your-head-in visit,
Lauren thought.

“You gave me a fright last night,” Cooper said.

Gave me a fright?
Lauren wasn’t used to hearing such an antiquated phrase from anyone except her Nana. Or maybe Quinn, but that was probably because he was a history teacher and read a lot of old books.

A week ago, Lauren barely knew Cooper. Even three days ago she dreaded having to sit down and talk to him. She still barely knew him, but she had trusted him and put her hand in his while they raced against a storm. Oddly, that counted for something at the moment.

Cooper scooted the chair closer. “I wanted to make a few things clear.”

Uh-oh.
Cooper was using his cop voice. Considering that Lauren had been in the hospital for the last two days, what could she have done to deserve that?

“Yes?” she said.

“First, I want to be clear that when I said I wanted to spend some time with you, this is not the venue I had in mind.”

Lauren’s chest released.

Cooper leaned one arm on the bed. “It wouldn’t be fair for you to hold these last two days against me when I ask you out for a proper date.”

Lauren sucked in both lips to control the smile trying to break across her face. “I’ll try not to.”

“Because even I know that almost getting crushed by a cracked tree is a really bad first date.”

The smile escaped. Lauren was glad he had come, even if she was uncertain about whether she should let him know. She had never been confident around men of the attentive and available variety.

Lauren recognized the knocking pattern on her open room door. The nurse was right on time for asking questions about headaches and nausea and what day it was. It seemed to Lauren that Ethan had gone overboard in his instructions for people checking on her, but she had no experience with which to compare this one.

“Well, if it isn’t the hero of Hidden Falls,” Nurse Wacker said.

“Just doing my job,” Cooper said.

“It seems you have done it particularly well today.”

Lauren looked at the blurred faces of Cooper and the nurse. If she had a headache, it was because she’d been straining to see.

“Cooper, what is she talking about?” Lauren said.

“I made an arrest this morning. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again, I’m sure.”

Nurse Wacker looked at the monitor tracking Lauren’s pulse, respiration, and blood pressure and made a few notes. “Sheriff’s Deputy Cooper Elliott is being humble. It’s all over town that he arrested someone for stealing Quinn’s car and breaking into the mayor’s store.”

Lauren felt her eyes widen, even if their focus did not improve. “When were you going to tell me this?”

“All in a day’s work.”

“Someone will be in to draw blood,” the nurse said on her way out. “Cooper Elliott,” Lauren said.

“That’s my name.”

“You caught the guy? It was the same guy in both crimes?”

“Fingerprints don’t lie. If you’re going to hot-wire a car or break into a cash register, you should be careful what you touch. Theoretically speaking, of course.”

“Does my aunt know?”

“Certainly. I promised to keep her in the loop, didn’t I?”

If Lauren weren’t nervous about the drain in the side of her head, she would have swung out of bed to hug Cooper. This arrest was going to make a lot of people feel better about life in Hidden Falls.

“I had a couple of good breaks,” Cooper said. “The pieces came together just like they should, and we have a strong case in both charges. The legal system works if people give it half a chance.”

He’d been so calm and patient in the face of rising panic around town. Even Lauren had been annoyed by Cooper’s understated thoroughness when he seemed like he ought to
do
something, go out and
catch
somebody.

And now that he had, he didn’t gloat or boast. Was “congratulations” the right thing to say?

“On behalf of my aunt, Quinn, and all of Hidden Falls, I thank you,” Lauren said. “Marv Stanford will think it’s awesome it happened today. It’ll make the headline for tomorrow’s
Dispatch
.”

“Okay, I’m done with that topic.” Cooper reached into a shirt pocket. “I brought you something.”

Cooper’s humility was endearing. Lauren took the solid oblong case he offered and opened it. Inside, against a blue felt lining, lay a pair of glasses identical to the two pair that had been wrecked in the last few days. She unfolded them and slid them onto her face. The room came into focus. The clock. The whiteboard telling her the name of her nurse and CNA. The sign reminding patients to be careful about falls. The menu sheet for the next day. It was all utterly ordinary and in that moment stunningly beautiful.

“Cooper! Thank you! How did you do this?” The prescription in the lenses was perfect.

“One of the advantages of wearing a badge and living in a small town is that it doesn’t take much to discover where you might have gotten your glasses. The optometrist at the one-hour place in Birch Bend was eager to cooperate.”

Lauren laughed. “I’m so relieved to be able to see.”

Now that Cooper was in focus, self-consciousness tangled itself around Lauren. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had tried to comb her hair—certainly she hadn’t—and the hospital gown with its blue and beige stripes and the opening in the back was the most hideous, shapeless thing she’d ever worn. She didn’t even know what disgusting substance might be dripping through the tube coming out of the space under her skull, or what was going into the tube from the pole into her hand. Her aunt had remarked earlier about the colorful phases of the bruises on Lauren’s face. She was only sitting up with the assistance of a button that raised the head of the bed.

“It’s a good thing this is not a date.” Lauren raised a hand to tame her hair. “I promise I can do better at putting myself together.”

Now that she could see Cooper’s face, Lauren found herself dodging his eyes.

Cooper wanted nothing to do with her evasion and leaned his head toward her. “I’m going to be here, you know.”

She swallowed the thickness in her throat.

“You don’t know me well, and I don’t know you well,” Cooper said, “but I would like to.”

What did he see in her that he should be so eager? No doubt his patience in following procedure and gathering facts had laid the foundation for the strong case he felt he had now against the person he’d arrested today. Lauren had expressed only annoyance at the thoroughness of his questions when Quinn disappeared and Sylvia’s shop was burgled. For the most part, she’d brushed him off when he turned up at her apartment with Sylvia on the night Nicole broke her ankle. Lauren had resisted having to meet with him in person to plan for the health fair.

And Cooper persevered. He was here. He was the one who was willing to throw himself between her and a falling tree. He had prayed for her and sat through her surgery. He thought to have her glasses made and to bring them to her. Lauren didn’t know what she’d done to deserve his attention.

“I mean it,” Cooper said. “We’ll have a proper first date, and I’ll try not to bungle it. If I do, I hope you’ll give me a second chance, anyway.”

A peculiar happiness streamed through Lauren, warming her from the inside out. Perhaps it was the drugs the nurse administered according to Ethan’s specific schedule, but Lauren hoped not. She wanted to remember this moment when she was on her feet again or sitting across from Cooper at a restaurant. A nice restaurant with candles and soft music.

Lauren closed her eyes, not entirely voluntarily. Sleep overtook her, and when she opened her eyes again, Cooper was gone.

4:42 p.m.

Dani held the door open for Nicole as they left the hospital after checking on Lauren. If anyone had suggested to Dani that she’d spend as much time with Nicole as she had the last few days, Dani would have scoffed. They had almost nothing in common.

Except Quinn. Dani knew him well, and Nicole liked to think she did just because she used to. They had one thing in common.

“Can you take me back to Lauren’s apartment?” Nicole asked. “You can just drop me off.”

“Sylvia said you’re supposed to go to her house.”

“I’m not going to do that. I have everything I need at Lauren’s.”

Except someone to look after you.
Dani wasn’t going to argue with Nicole, though. Instead, she conceded that the second thing she had in common with Nicole was a stubborn streak. They were outside the hospital now. Nicole had already made clear that she could get to the car on two crutches and one good leg. There was no need for Dani to provide curbside service. Dani wouldn’t have wanted the fuss, either.

Nicole’s phone rang, and she leaned against a car to stop and answer it. “My detective friend. I’ve been playing phone tag with him all day. I need to take this.”

“No problem.” Dani put her hands into the pockets of her vest. She’d left her own phone turned off all day. Being at anyone’s beck and call never interested Dani. As much as she tried not to hear Nicole’s side of the conversation, it was hard not to.

“Do you know anything about what’s happening at the paper? … If you hear anything, please let me know…. I have some questions about the witness protection program…. That’s right, witness protection…. I thought you worked on a case once…. Hello? … Are you there?”

Dani could see that the screen of Nicole’s phone had gone dark.

“Nuts.” Nicole exhaled heavily. “I’ve been nursing the battery along all day.”

“Let me guess. Your charger is not in your purse.”

“I didn’t think I was going to need it when I left for the health fair on Saturday. I haven’t juiced up since yesterday when Ethan loaned me the charger he keeps in his car.”

Nicole stared at the screen. Did she think the phone would magically turn back on?

Dani pointed toward her vehicle. “Get in the Jeep. You’ll be at Lauren’s in ten minutes.”

It took seventeen minutes to get to the Jeep, drive down to Main Street, find a place to park in reasonable proximity to the barbershop under Lauren’s apartment, and push the elevator button.

“Tell me you have a key,” Dani said as they stepped off onto the second floor of the building.

Nicole’s face paled.

“Stay here,” Dani said. “The landlord leaves emergency keys with Trace Hulett in the barbershop.”