Hidden Falls (69 page)

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Nicole said. “You see what you can dig up, but be careful. And call me—often.”

As much as Nicole hated to admit it, it would be easier for Ethan to move quickly through his inquiries and to be smart about any oddball responses he received if he didn’t also have to worry about Nicole’s inability to run if necessary. Quinn wouldn’t have been on the trails if he was trying to hide. Nothing about his posture in the photo alarmed Nicole. His head was up, his shoulders relaxed, his distance from the other man comfortable. All four of their hands were visible. Nothing looked sinister in the least.

“Do you need anything before I go?” Ethan stood and closed his laptop.

“Thanks, no.” Nicole didn’t want to hold up Ethan a minute longer than necessary. “My phone will be within reach every minute.”

“I’ll call.”

“Do you want me to talk to Sylvia and Cooper?”

“Give me a head start,” Ethan said. “I don’t want them to tell me not to do this.”

Nicole grinned. That was exactly the right answer.

He took his laptop and left. Nicole transferred herself into the recliner in the living room and used the remote control to turn on the television for some diversion, though she didn’t understand how anyone lived with the limitation of broadcast channels only. With a game show in the background, Nicole looked out the front window. Other than the annual Founders’ Day or the peak of summer weekend river tourism, Main Street was never crowded, especially at midmorning. Nicole saw a young woman with two small children come out of the park across the street, and she realized it was Raisa Gallagher. A week ago Nicole had avoided falling over the toddler only by stepping off a curb and breaking her ankle. Raisa was running after Kimmie now.

“That child must be a handful,” Nicole muttered to herself.

She looked down the street and saw a squad car parked. Two deputies got out and sauntered up the block as if they were on a casual morning patrol. One of them stopped in front of the department store, though, while the other continued farther down before pausing, lifting his chin, and nodding. A second squad car turned into view and pulled across three open parking spaces outside the department store. A third officer emerged.

Nicole shut off the game show. Events on the street below were far more interesting.

Three officers—but not Cooper. Where was he? At the hospital?

Nicole sighed, reached for her crutches, and pulled herself to her feet.

She would just go downstairs and see what it was all about.

11:11 a.m.

If nothing else, Liam would be well organized when he resumed working regular hours. He wadded up the paper towel he’d used to wipe dust from his shelves, dropped it in the trash can, and took a fresh pad of lined paper from a drawer. Would it seem more or less incriminating if someone from the corporate office of Midwest Answers entered the office and found supplies and files looking as if Liam was expecting not to work again?

He’d done nothing wrong. He would work again. He still had appointments on the books for next week, and since he wouldn’t be spending so many evenings with Jessica, he would have plenty of time to go through leads, as thin as they might be. For now, Liam wanted the productive sensation that would come from a list of action steps that implied he expected his life and career to move forward. He had several mailboxes around the county. This was as good a day as any to make the rounds and collect the response cards that might have accumulated since last week’s roundup, and he had a folder of unread materials from the corporate headquarters about new products consultants could offer to their clients. Out of habit, Liam turned to where his computer normally sat to check for new e-mails, but the space was empty. Cooper had taken Liam’s computer for the technology team at the sheriff’s office in Birch Bend to inspect and see if they could turn up any trails to explain the missing seventy-three thousand dollars. Liam had exposed himself, he knew. His eagerness to cooperate might be mistaken as a cover-up effort, but he hoped not. It had taken him so long to see that something was amiss with the accounts that he didn’t feel smart enough to have masterminded the thievery.

Liam made a list of tasks in small straight script, and to the left of each entry he drew a neat square that he would X out when the task was complete.

The office door was propped wide open. Liam wasn’t hiding anymore. When he heard footsteps in the hall, he cocked his head and held his pen still.

That was Cooper’s walk. Liam blew out a controlled long breath and waited for his brother to appear in the doorframe.

“Hey, Coop.”

“Hey, Liam.”

Liam waited. Whatever it was Cooper came to say would take form soon enough. Liam briefly glanced over Cooper’s shoulder to make sure there were no other officers, as there had been yesterday when Cooper arrested Bobby Doerr in the restaurant. Still, Liam couldn’t seem to fill his lungs.

Cooper repositioned a chair opposite Liam, sat down, and laid one ankle on the opposite knee.

Liam cleared his throat. “How’s Lauren today?” His brother’s face sported fewer Band-Aids than it had the last couple of days. Gratitude for Cooper’s safety flushed through Liam in a fresh wave, as it did several times a day since Saturday’s storm.

“I spoke to her,” Cooper said. “She sounded well. I hope to see her later this afternoon.”

“Good.” Liam had never noticed before how intimidating his brother’s uniform made him look. Cooper even had a gun hanging from his hip.

“Something is happening this morning,” Cooper said.

“That’s what we wanted, right?”

“I just want to make sure you’re ready.”

Liam’s breath caught again, but he gestured around the office. “It won’t be hard for anyone to find what they need.”

“No one’s coming here, Liam.” Cooper put both feet on the floor and leaned forward on his knees.

“What’s going on, Cooper?”

“I’m glad you’re here and not grabbing an early lunch.”

Liam wished Cooper would just say whatever it was.

“There are three officers on Main Street,” Cooper said. “In a few minutes, two of them will go into the department store.”

Liam’s stomach lurched. “Jessica.”

Cooper nodded. “I suppose she thought she was pretty clever.”

“She fooled me on my own computer, after all,” Liam said.

“I didn’t mean that.”

“I know.” Liam laid his pen down on the pad on the desk. “What did you mean?”

“It only took the white-collar crime guys one day.”

“And they’re sure?”

“They think they are. There are some irregularities about the way she navigated your company’s system that apparently are quite distinct from the way you normally do things.”

“But they’re sure it was Jessica?”

“Yes. The money is all in an account in Springfield.”

“She went to a training conference there a few months ago.” At least that’s what Jessica had told Liam.

“And the note?”

“We haven’t tied that to her. It might not be what you thought it was.”

“You saw it.” Liam pushed his chair back from the desk. What else could it be if it wasn’t a blackmail note?

“I can’t manufacture evidence, Liam.”

Liam spun his chair around and looked out the window at a day like any other. People on the sidewalks. Cars parked in the street. A canopy of blue sky. Did no one else feel the seismic shift under his feet?

“Liam?” Cooper said.

“If you’re ready to arrest her, what are you doing here?”

“I’ve been assigned to a different detail.”

“But you’re the senior deputy in Hidden Falls.”

“And I’m your brother.”

Liam twirled the chair to face Cooper again. “They can’t think you have a conflict—that you would compromise the case.”

“No,” Cooper said. “They’re worried about you.”

“Me?”

“The problem with living in the small town where you grew up,” Cooper said, “is that people remember what you were like when you were little.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just a precaution.”

Liam understood now. Cooper was there to make sure Liam didn’t do something impulsive to interfere with the arrest. And maybe it had been smart to send Cooper. Despite everything, Liam’s impulse was still to protect the woman to whom he had given a diamond ring. They were supposed to have a future.

“What about the ring?” Liam asked softly.

“You were right. It’s been tampered with. The stone that’s in the setting now is worth a fraction of what you paid for the original diamond.”

Of all the times in Liam’s life to be right.

Cooper rubbed a knuckle against his chin. “I hate to ask, but have you checked the balance on the account you shared with Jessica recently?”

“The wedding account?”

Cooper didn’t speak.

“No,” Liam said. It hadn’t occurred to him. He’d been so frenzied at the thought of facing criminal charges himself, and then with the agony of his own suspicions about Jessica, that he hadn’t done the one simple thing that was most obvious.

“We’ll need you to look,” Cooper said.

It was a joint account. Either one of them could have emptied it at any time. “I don’t want that money anyway.”

“It goes to her motivation.”

Liam stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and jiggled a knee. “If I promise to behave, will you let me go see what’s going on?”

“That’s a bad idea, Liam.”

“Maybe from your view. Not from mine.”

Cooper moved his head back and forth slowly several times. “See, now this is why they thought it was a good idea to send me over here.”

“I want to see for myself.” Everybody in town would assume Liam knew more than he did about the events that were about to transpire. How many of them would see the officers going into the store and up to the third floor? Probably they already had. Cell phones would come out of pockets and purses to spread the news. Store employees, shoppers, curious gawkers—it didn’t seem fair to Liam that they would witness a scene he was barred from. He was the wounded party, in more ways than one. Liam stared at his brother, unblinking.

“You need to let go,” Cooper said.

“You don’t know what I need,” Liam snapped around the desk. “I need to see what’s happening to Jessica.”

Cooper stood quickly. “All right, but if you interfere in any way with the actions of the officers making the arrest, I cannot be responsible for what it might mean for charges you’ll face.”

“I’m not going to do anything. I just want to see.”

They left the office. Liam flipped the lights off and pulled the door closed behind him. Their feet found a simultaneous rhythm on the stairs, around the corner, and down one block to Main Street.

“Stop here.” Cooper grabbed Liam’s arm.

Liam complied. He was just in time. Two officers flanked Jessica. Her wrists were cuffed behind her back, but she held her head high. Even now she had no shame.

Why had he never realized that about her before?

11:40 a.m.

Lizzie Stanford hustled into the store after her usual morning break and whispered to Sylvia behind the checkout counter, “You won’t
believe
what’s happening down the street.”

Sylvia handed a customer his two dollars and forty-six cents change and waited for him to leave the store.

“What are you talking about, Lizzie?”

Lizzie straightened her sweater over her hips. “
Three
deputies.”

The adrenaline that surged through Sylvia was becoming all too familiar lately.

“They arrested the accountant at the department store,” Lizzie said.

“Jessica McCarthy?”

“Yes! How did you know it was her and not one of the others?”

“Just a guess.” It didn’t take much for Sylvia to put two and two together. Liam had been a wreck for most of the last ten days. He must have seen this coming.

“Apparently two deputies walked through the store acting perfectly normal and then went up to the offices. When they came back down, they had her—handcuffed and everything.”

“Did you see this for yourself?”

“I didn’t see them in the store, but word gets around fast. Half the town is standing out there gawking right now.”

Sylvia widened her eyes. “They’re still out there?”

“Yep. Squad cars and everything.”

It was time for Sylvia to put on her mayor hat. “I’d better see what’s going on. You can handle things here, can’t you?”

“Of course.”

The only people in the store were Raisa Gallagher and her two little girls in the children’s book section, and she was likely to spend a long time looking and then purchase only a couple of coloring books. Sylvia pushed briskly out the door and hurried up the street, abandoning decorum along the way.

Lizzie was right. The front of the department store was mobbed with bystanders. Most likely everyone in the store at the time of the arrest now stood on the sidewalk, along with dozens more who had been in adjoining businesses when news of the excitement burst. One of the deputies was fully occupied insisting that onlookers remain a reasonable distance from where another officer hemmed in Jessica against a squad car. A third officer was in the vehicle using the radio.

Sylvia had assumed Cooper would be leading the arrest effort, but instead he was farther up the block, well away from the commotion. He stood with his body positioned slightly in front of his brother’s. Cooper didn’t block Liam’s view, but Sylvia suspected he didn’t trust Liam to stay out of official sheriff’s business.

Sylvia jostled through the crowd.

“Did you know about this, Mayor?” someone asked.

Sylvia gave a diplomatic answer. “It’s a matter for the sheriff’s department.”

“Yes, but did you know?”

She didn’t answer. “Stand back, please. There’s no need to loiter.” Sylvia pushed on through, keeping an eye on Liam. She’d known Liam for a long time—nearly all of his life. She hadn’t always liked him, but she tried to be cordial. He could be pushy and self-centered and just a little too suave for her liking, but Sylvia was not without sympathy. He and Jessica had been an item for years. Whatever had led to the morning’s dramatic events, Jessica’s arrest was sure to affect Liam in some way. He was as pale as Sylvia had ever seen him.