Hidden Falls (67 page)

“And you know this because …?”

“I just do.”

Simply because technically Trace had the keys didn’t mean he knew where they were. Another sixteen minutes passed before Dani returned to the hall outside Lauren’s apartment with a key that successfully admitted them.

Nicole hobbled to the recliner that had become her second home, dropped into it, and leaned over one side to the outlet. Her phone beeped when she plugged it in.

“Thank you, Dani.” Nicole looked up, cradling her phone in one hand. “You don’t have to hang around. You’ve given me enough of your day.”

Dani had one more stop in mind before heading home herself, but she was fairly certain Nicole would try to call her detective back, and Dani was curious.

Nicole pushed a button and raised her phone to an ear. After about twenty seconds, she left a brief message and dropped the phone into her lap. “Back to playing phone tag.”

“He really knows about the witness protection program?” Dani threw her long braid over her shoulder.

“A little, I’m pretty sure. He could find out more.”

This was nonsense. Nicole couldn’t think Quinn had anything to do with the witness protection program.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Nicole said, “but it could be true.”

“What?” Dani bristled at the notion anyone could know what she was thinking.

“Virtually no one in the program has met foul play unless they broke the rules and made contact with someone from their old life.”

“Are you talking about Bobby Doerr?”

“Maybe.” Nicole pushed back the recliner and propped up her feet. “But you’re thinking about Quinn.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Dani wasn’t going to confirm that Nicole had wormed her way into her thoughts.

“Is it? Is it so far-fetched to think Quinn’s life has been as self-contained as it has been for over thirty years because he had a reason to leave a former life behind?”

“You said yourself that most of the people in witness protection have some criminal past.” That couldn’t be Quinn.

“That’s right.”

They stared at each other. Dani refused to follow this trail.

“You said you didn’t need me.” Dani would leave it to Nicole and Sylvia to duke out where Nicole should spend the night. “I’m out of here.”

Dani pulled the apartment door closed behind her, took the stairs quickly, and drove her Jeep the few blocks to the Hidden Falls sheriff’s office. She wanted to see for herself that Bobby Doerr was in custody. Inside, Dani walked right up to the gate in the half wall separating the waiting area from where the deputies sat and pushed in.

Cooper looked up from his desk. “Dani, this isn’t a good idea. We have him, and we have enough to charge him.”

“Not with my boat, you don’t.”

“Give me a chance to get there.”

Dani strode past Cooper to the small holding cells at the rear of the building. She supposed they were occupied from time to time, but this was the first time she saw a prisoner stretched out on a narrow bed.

“Why?”

“Dani,” Cooper said, warning in his tone.

She ignored him and stood three feet outside the cell that held Robert Doerr. In no hurry, he swung his feet over the side of the bed and righted himself to meet her unflinching gaze. His dark eyes didn’t even blink.

Cooper pulled on her elbow. “Danielle, you cannot do this.”

“Don’t call me that.” Dani pushed off his touch. “Are you going to keep him here?”

Cooper stepped between Dani and Bobby and put his hands on her shoulders. “Mr. Doerr will remain in custody until the opportunity comes for him to exercise his rights before a judge. If you’re really interested in justice, you won’t jeopardize the process.”

They both turned their heads when they heard the door from the street slam shut.

Jack Parker entered. “Deputy, I’m here to see my client. We will require a confidential room to consult.”

“You’re kidding me,” Dani said.

Cooper nudged Dani away from the cell. “Mr. Doerr has the right to an attorney. You know that.”

“But
this
attorney?” Dani doubted Bobby Doerr had the resources for any attorney other than a public defender.

“This is the one he asked for.”

Dani gritted her teeth and lowered her voice. “Don’t you know a conflict of interest when you see one?” Liam had identified Jack as the one who tackled Bobby Doerr when he tried to steal a purse in Gavin’s café. Jack was a potential witness. He couldn’t be the defense attorney.

“The district attorney’s office has not agreed to press the purse-snatching charges—yet.” Cooper’s murmur was barely above a whisper. “For the moment, the law says we have to let this play out.”

“Is he going to get bail?”

Cooper didn’t answer.

“Cooper Elliott, if you lose him again, you have me to answer to.”

Dani marched past Jack Parker out to the street.

6:14 p.m.

At the four-way stop sign outside the hospital, Ethan sat with his foot on the brake even though no other cars approached the intersection. If he turned right, he could go into town, where he knew Nicole would welcome his company.

And pepper him with questions and speculation.

If he proceeded straight ahead, he could get a short hike in before darkness arrived to close out the day and catch the departing light for a few photos. And he could return to the motel on the other side of the falls and see if they’d give him back the room he had vacated very early yesterday morning. He wasn’t sure there was any point in going back to Columbus, except to move out of his apartment, and there was no hurry about that.

Ethan accelerated through the intersection. He’d be better company for Nicole if he sorted the decisions that spread themselves before him like so many patient charts, each one needing his attention. Ethan wanted to return to the hospital later for one last check on Lauren. First, though, he needed to breathe some outdoor air and clear his head. Following the old road that curved with the turns of the river gave Ethan panoramic views he had not yet seen during his unplanned week in Hidden Falls and took him past the irregular placements of riverside homes and cabins, past the turnoff to Quinn’s house and the neighborhood where Ethan grew up.

After delivering the jarring news the day before of their connection to the revered Tabor family, Ethan hadn’t intended to see his parents again before leaving Hidden Falls, but his mother would be glad to have him back. Ethan had no doubt. His boyhood room might be untouched except to keep it clean. Maybe his brother’s family slept in there when they visited. Kay Jordan would find some way to make her son comfortable.

Ethan wondered what his mother would think about Jack’s determination to construct some kind of case out of events that happened eighty years ago.

I’ll have to let you know,
Jack had said. What was there to think about? Several issues in Ethan’s life were muddled at the moment, but he didn’t want to disturb the lives of people who had no more to do with those long-ago decisions than he did. And he doubted his mother would be party to Jack’s efforts. If Ethan returned to Jack’s office to reiterate his position—and warn him off of approaching his mother—the action might backfire and egg Jack on. But if Ethan left Jack alone, he couldn’t be sure what he would do.

He pulled into the small parking lot at the top of the falls and retrieved his camera from where he’d stowed it out of sight in the back of his car. Ethan wasn’t even sure he wanted this Lexus anymore. The purchase had been a moment of triumph—pride, really. He’d just performed an intricate surgery for the first time, a procedure that was sure to put him in an exclusive bracket of neurosurgeons one day when he’d done a few more and was in charge of his own OR instead of having Gonzalez looking over his shoulder.

Gonzalez.

The shock that Dr. Glass in a small hospital in Hidden Falls had spoken with Dr. Gonzalez in Columbus left Ethan rattled all day. Their conversation never would have happened if Ethan hadn’t turned around when he was halfway to Columbus on Sunday morning. It never would have happened if he hadn’t done a procedure on Lauren that he could do by touch in the dark if he had to. But it changed everything.

He was going to have to tell Nicole what happened. Ethan had dodged her calls all day before promising he would see her in the evening. Guessing at her reaction was beyond him right then. Putting words on his own reaction was difficult enough.

Ethan hung his camera around his neck with the long lens on it and walked slowly to the highest point of the bridge above the falls, a place where he knew he could safely lean over the railing and frame river water tumbling over boulders. The rapid shutter speed would capture droplets of spray reflecting the evening light. Certain he’d get some shots worth printing, Ethan took about forty photos. The image of Dani’s rowboat riding the water’s crest before dropping over these rocks invaded his mind, and he shook it off. Ethan had always loved this place, this spot. He didn’t want it spoiled by picturing what had happened to the boat—or what might have happened to Dani if she were not such a strong swimmer.

When had she come to know Quinn as well as she did?

Ethan walked along the bridge, taking idle shots—trees, ground vegetation creeping along the edge of the footpath, leaves fallen in abandonment, evidence of the presence of birds and squirrels and insects. Without an intentional plan, Ethan snapped whatever caught his eye. When he reached the end of the bridge, he turned around and took some wide shots of the river. Occasionally the distant timbre of a voice rising in the split-second vacancy between bursts of rushing water fell on his ears.

Back at his car, Ethan held the camera at an angle to look at the screen and scroll through the images, looking for shots he would never use—badly framed, blurred, unsatisfactory light. He moved swiftly from one picture to another, deleting some and granting reprieve to others that he might later decide were not worthwhile. His finger paused over the D
ELETE
button as he examined a photo he had taken at the far end of the bridge. Though he was vaguely aware that a few other people were around, Ethan hadn’t been interested in capturing the images of strangers.

A breath away from deleting an unwanted picture of two men, Ethan jerked his finger back. His breath caught, and his heart pounded in sudden velocity.

He knew one of these two men. The slope of those shoulders belonged to Quinn! The hairline—though thinner and grayer than ten years ago—

was Quinn’s. Even from the back, Ethan was sure. This wasn’t a hidden shadow like the image Dani had been so sure was the man who destroyed her boat. Despite the distance, this was a clear shot, with the two men walking out of the frame on one side, their backs to the lens.

And one of them was Quinn.

Ethan gripped his camera and raced full speed across the bridge, past the place where he had stood with the camera and toward the spot where the men must have been standing—all the while trying to calculate how many minutes might have passed since his eye failed to notice them in the shot.

Too many.

His chest heaved as he spun in three widening circles and then let his feet slide down a gentle slope toward a narrow trail they might have taken out.

“Quinn!” he yelled.

Silence.

Tuesday
7:17 a.m.

E
than’s level of sleep deprivation was starting to remind him of the early years of his long residency—which quite likely had come to an abrupt halt.

He was exhausted.

He was overwhelmed.

He was bewildered.

And he hadn’t slept. How could he sleep after capturing Quinn with his camera yet being unable to track him on a hiking trail? Ethan was twenty-five years younger than Quinn and in good condition. Nevertheless, despite running down the trail as far as he could follow it, backtracking to try another offshoot, and racing back to his car to drive around to the road where several trails merged on the other side of the lake, Ethan found no sign of Quinn or his companion.

Ethan hoped the other man
was
a companion and not an assailant. In the photo, the two men seemed to be strolling in an agreeable manner, but an image wouldn’t frame an unspoken threat.

Weary, he gripped one shoe and tugged it onto his foot, and then the second one. Other than the suit he wore to Quinn’s banquet, Ethan had been dressing from an overnight bag for ten days. One trip to a Laundromat and one to the men’s section of the department store on Main Street kept Ethan limping along, and every day he thought he would be making the simple drive back to Columbus and his full wardrobe. After yesterday, though, a return to Columbus was less imminent. Ethan stood in the motel room in jeans that were beginning to feel like second skin and one of three shirts he rotated through.

After pulling a comb through his damp hair, Ethan was as ready as he could be to confront the questions the day held. Last night, after seeing Nicole and checking on Lauren, Ethan drove past Quinn’s house. It was just as he, Nicole, and Lauren left it six days ago after they removed the mysterious photo of the man who looked like Ethan—dark and unoccupied. Ethan had even rung the doorbell and knocked heavily on the front door. Then he sat in his car in front of the house waiting for the swing of headlights that would come with a vehicle turning into Quinn’s driveway. Finally, Ethan gave up.

If Quinn was in Hidden Falls—and he was—why hadn’t he come home to his house?

Ethan pulled out of the motel lot, drove across the bridge over the falls, followed the edge of the lake, and headed into his old neighborhood. Quinn might have come home a few minutes or a few hours after Ethan abandoned his vigil. He could be there now.

Taking his black vehicle through the brightening morning light, Ethan didn’t care who saw him. He pulled into Quinn’s driveway and as close to the house as he could get before taking out his phone and dialing the landline number Ethan had memorized twenty years ago. It didn’t surprise him at all to realize he still knew it. The longer he stayed in Hidden Falls, the more details of his years there came to the front of his mind.