Hidden Falls (72 page)

“So you like pork chops better than baked chicken,” he said.

Lauren laughed. “Let’s just say I’ve had their chicken. What happened to give you a low day?”

Before Cooper could answer, the nurse came in with Lauren’s chart and looked at the readouts on the monitor. She left without writing anything down but threw a smile at Cooper.

The hum in the hallway rose to a buzz.

“What’s going on out there?” From the bed, Lauren didn’t have a clear view of the door.

The food services person returned. “I forgot to ask if you wanted lemon cake or butterscotch pudding for dessert.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lauren said.

Cooper stood. “I notice there’s a an unusual amount of activity right outside the door.”

“Mealtimes are busy,” said the food services employee.

“I have an idea what’s going on out there,” Cooper said. “On your way out, maybe you can let everyone know I’m off duty and there will be no further drama today.”

The young woman blushed. “Sure.” She turned and left.

“Cooper, what is going on?”

“You really haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“I’m guessing Ethan laid down the law about hospital staff coming in here bothering you with news.”

Lauren put her hands flat on the mattress to push herself more upright. “And what news would that be? You said drama.”

“Well, yes.”

Lauren sucked in air. “Have you found Quinn?”

“No, I haven’t heard anything on that front.” Cooper resumed his seat. “Then what?”

“We made an arrest today.”

Lauren closed her eyes for a few seconds. She’d thought she was over being confused about the passing of time. “Oh. I thought that was yesterday.”

“It was. There was another one this morning.”

“Whoa.”

Lauren listened to Cooper’s brief account of his brother’s suspicions, now almost certainly proven true except for presenting the case to a jury.

“I never got to know Jessica,” she said. “Did you get along?”

“Well enough,” Cooper said. “If they’d married, there wouldn’t have been any fireworks in the family as long as Jessica stayed out of Dani’s way. Obviously that’s all down the tubes.”

Lauren’s head spun. Liam had always grated on her nerves for reasons she couldn’t specify, but now she saw him through Cooper’s eyes.

“Liam must be a mess,” she said.

“He is.”

“I’ll call Pastor Matt. He has a way of making people comfortable even if he doesn’t know them very well.”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

“But I—”

“I just meant I could do it,” Cooper said. “Your job is to get well. I’m pretty sure you’re on official leave from your duties as director of family ministries.”

“You promise you’ll call Matt?”

Cooper nodded. “I’m not sure Liam will agree to talk to him, but I’ll at least make sure Matt has the right facts about what happened.”

That would have to do. Someone rapped on the door.

“What now?” Lauren said.

“I see you have your cheerful disposition back.” Ethan came in and stood at the foot of the bed.

“Sorry,” Lauren said. “It’s been a parade in here the last few minutes.”

“And if you’re well enough to feel grumpy about that, I’d say it’s progress.” Ethan flipped a couple of sheets in the chart.

Lauren readied herself for the paces he would put her through checking various responses.

“Everything is looking good,” Ethan said. “I can’t find much to complain about.”

“You’re not going to chase Cooper out again, are you?”

Ethan glanced at Cooper. “I think he can stay as long as you’d like him to, if you promise to let him know when you’re tired.”

“I will.”

Lauren’s eyes focused on a smudge of dirt on Ethan’s forearm. Then she noticed the layer of dirt across the tops of his shoes.

“What have you been up to today?” she said. “You look woodsy.”

“I was out and about for a while today.”

“More photos?”

“Not today.” Ethan closed the chart and glanced at the wall clock. “I’m already late for a meeting with Dr. Glass, but, Cooper, I’d like to check in with you later about something. Will you be available?”

“Call me,” Cooper said.

“When are you going to spring me?” Lauren asked.

“We’ll talk about that tomorrow. I think we’ll take the drain out in the morning and see where we go from there.”

“You’re throwing me a bone, aren’t you?”

Ethan tucked the chart under his arm. “I’ll make sure all this gets into your electronic medical record so it can haunt you for the rest of your life.”

“Aren’t you sweet?” Lauren grinned.

“Later.” Ethan left.

“Is it my imagination,” Lauren said, “or is everyone acting weird today? I asked an innocent question about what he did today, and he didn’t want to answer it.”

Cooper shrugged. “He’s entitled to privacy.”

“After everything we’ve all been through? I thought we were past that.”

“He’s your doctor now. Professionalism and all that.”

“Maybe.” Lauren wasn’t convinced. “What do you suppose he wants to talk to you about?”

“I don’t know.” Cooper leaned back in his chair. “But it reminds me your aunt wanted to talk to me earlier, and I never got the chance to find out what was on her mind.”

“Off duty or not, it looks like your day is far from over.”

“It does seem that way.”

“You’ll call my aunt, won’t you?”

“I’ll do my best to track her down. Maybe I’ll buy her dinner and find out what’s going on.”

Cooper would be waiting for Ethan’s call now, as well, and there was no telling what his evening held when it came to Liam. Frustration washed over Lauren. It wasn’t like her to stay in bed. She wanted to be up and doing something. Problem solving was in her nature.

“Are you sure you haven’t heard anything about Quinn? Did you question Bobby Doerr?”

“He’s adamant that he didn’t see Quinn—that he doesn’t even know who Quinn is.”

“Don’t you find it odd anyone would want to steal a car as old as Quinn’s?”

“Doerr says his uncle used to have one just like it. He was feeling sentimental.” Cooper caught himself. “You can’t tell anyone I said that. It’s an active investigation.”

Lauren sighed. “I only wish he’d seen Quinn at some point.”

“No one’s giving up,” Cooper said.

“I’m going to nag Ethan to discharge me tomorrow.”

“You’re going to do what he tells you to do.”

“I don’t think Ethan can imagine living in a small town again,” Lauren said, “but I really want my quiet small-town life back.”

“I know what you mean.” Cooper stood up. “I should go check on things, but I have one question before I go.”

“What’s that?”

“Can I take you to dinner on Saturday night?”

Lauren flushed. “I would love that.”

5:41 p.m.

The problem was that half the town knew who Dani’s cousins were.

She had dodged the morning’s events as much as she could, but when one cousin was a popular sheriff’s deputy and another was engaged to marry a woman who exuded enough chic to make a hundred women jealous, suddenly everyone wanted to pick Dani’s brain.

What did Dani really think about Jessica McCarthy? Did she think Jessica was guilty? What about Liam? Had he embezzled as well? Was Cooper going to arrest his own brother next?

It would have been a great day for Dani to ignore her phones and go hiking, but before the arrest, she had committed herself to a minor plumbing repair, giving a quote on some painting work, and looking at a desktop computer on which the warranty had expired three weeks before the machine started freezing. That meant at least three lengthy conversations during which Dani said little while she concentrated on working but her clients speculated at length, plus a string of efforts to trap her by store clerks or people who happened to cross the street at the same time Dani did.

When were people going to learn?

The cumulative effect, though, was to make Dani wonder. She didn’t devote much mental energy to Cooper. He’d done what everyone depended on him to do and upheld the law. It was Liam who was on Dani’s mind. Despite overlapping hours at the hospital over the weekend and being together when Cooper arrested Robert Doerr, she hadn’t had a private conversation with Liam since the day she discovered Jessica had put him at risk and broken his heart. While Dani wouldn’t satisfy the misplaced inquisitiveness of people who didn’t know Liam well and would jump to their own conclusions anyway, she did wonder how Liam was doing.

So at the end of her day, Dani swung by Liam’s apartment hoping he was there alone.

He was.

Liam answered her knock within only a few seconds and admitted her without resistance. Dani surprised both of them by kissing his cheek.

“What was that?” Liam asked.

Now she slapped his shoulder. “It’ll never happen again.”

“Thanks for coming over.”

The television wasn’t on. No reading material lay open.

“Were you sleeping?” Dani asked.

“No.”

Dani couldn’t see that Liam had been doing anything else. “Just sitting?”

Liam nodded.

He looked relatively calm to Dani, considering that his world had disintegrated in the last few days. His briefcase was missing from its usual spot on the corner of his desk. Dani saw no sign of food or even an open can of pop.

“So I guess you heard.” Liam put his hands in his pockets and pressed his lips together.

“Cooper has got to stop arresting people on Main Street,” Dani said. “It gets people riled up.”

“Right. Not at all like taking a guy out at the knees in a hospital hallway.”

“That was different.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it, Dani.”

“Neither do I.” That was the truth. “You hungry?”

“Nope.”

“How about some TV?” Dani picked up the remote control from a side table and noticed Liam’s cell phone was lying beside it, turned off. “Not in the mood,” he said.

Cheering people up was not one of Dani’s areas of expertise. But then, cheering up was not what Liam needed. There was no point in pretending the day’s events hadn’t happened.

“Let’s go to the lake,” Dani said.

He grimaced. “That’s more your thing than mine.”

“It’s a lake,” she said. “Maybe you remember we have some property there.”

“I haven’t been to the cabin in years.”

“I know.”

“Too rustic for my tastes.”

“Then lucky for you, I’m not inviting you in. But you can’t sit here and stare at four walls.”

“Yes I can.”

“But you shouldn’t. You’ve seen a whole lot of ugly the last few days. Your soul needs something beautiful.”

“If I have a soul, it’s toast.”

Theology was also not one of Dani’s areas of expertise, at least not the arguing variety, but leaving Liam alone right now seemed like the worst idea in the world. She also was certain she couldn’t make herself sit still in his apartment no matter how hard she tried. She opened the closet beside the apartment door, pulled a leather jacket off a hanger, and tossed it at Liam.

He caught the jacket reflexively.

“Come on. I’ll drive.” She opened the door and stood, waiting, until Liam relented and put his arms into the sleeves and straightened the jacket over his shoulders.

Dani drove, without speaking, to her cabin on the edge of Whisper Lake and turned off the ignition. Darkness had not yet overtaken the sky. Dani estimated they had another thirty minutes before sunset, plenty of time to savor the oozing orange hues fading into the horizon. She had no more need of words than Liam. To stand on the pier, where Ethan had interrupted her morning with news of his sighting of Quinn, was all Dani wanted.

Liam followed her lead and got out of the Jeep. Dani could see him looking around, as if scraping for memories of outings with their grandfather or identifying vague recognitions of what seemed different. Dani offered no explanations. That could come another day if Liam was ever genuinely interested. For now she led him along the path to the short pier and positioned herself at its farthest edge, listening for Liam’s footsteps behind her. Silent and motionless, Dani gave herself over to the sensations.

The water lapping against the slender pilings of the pier.

The slight breeze rustling what was left of the leaves on the trees.

The almost imperceptible drop in temperature as evening eased its way in.

The disc of light dissolving into dusk and shadow.

They stood in full darkness when Liam finally spoke.

“I’m not sure how I can fit in here now. Maybe I should leave Hidden Falls.”

Dani felt a pebble caught between planks of the pier under her feet and bent to dislodge it.

“I’d miss you,” she said.

“You and Cooper,” he said. “That would be it.”

“There may be one or two others. Quinn, for instance.”

“Quinn likes everybody. That’s hardly a recommendation for popularity.”

Dani threw the pebble out into the lake, listening for its
plink.
“As you know, I’m not an expert in popularity. But moving away is not going to change things.”

“I’d get a fresh start.”

“A fresh start to do what, Liam?”

“Make something of myself, obviously. If I stay here, I’ll just be the laughingstock of Hidden Falls. Nobody will ever trust me with their money again, either.”

He had a point. Liam’s career might never be the same. Maybe his company wouldn’t even want to keep him on if they thought he had anything to do with how the accounts were compromised.

“You did the right thing, Liam.”

“Yeah, well, I’m relieved it’s all over, but I still feel kicked in the gut.”

“And a new town and a new job is going to change that?”

Liam had no response.

“Your soul is not toast,” Dani said. “That’s not what we learned in Sunday school.”

“You think about Sunday school?” Liam said.

“Don’t sound so shocked.”

“Sorry.”

“You know, Cooper would have helped me find whoever put a hole in my boat if I’d given him half a chance.”

“Are we changing topics of conversation?”

Dani sighed. “No. Tackling Bobby Doerr wasn’t one of my finest moments, and I was wrong to get angry at Cooper for doing his job. At least you did the right thing.”