Hidden Falls (74 page)

And Nicole saw Quinn’s head tilted out of the shadowed window of a parked car across the quiet side street.

Her eyes flashed to the man, who whispered, “He doesn’t want a fuss yet. Don’t scream or call his name. Just get in the car, okay?”

Whether the stranger accurately reflected Quinn’s wishes, Nicole wasn’t about to dispute the conditions of a reunion with Quinn. She nodded agreement—she would have done nearly anything to get to Quinn—and the stranger released his hold before gesturing that she should feel free to walk in front of him.

He could have a gun,
Nicole thought at the time. But she didn’t care. Quinn was in that car. She scrambled into the backseat, and Quinn twisted to smile at her.

It was all right.

The stranger got behind the wheel and asked directions. Quinn described the first couple of turns, and Nicole knew they were headed for his house.

And now she sat in Quinn’s living room, beside the low-burning fire Quinn had tended in the hours approaching dawn. Safe. And he was safe—and had been safe all along.

In the kitchen, Quinn opened cabinets and drawers and the refrigerator. Nicole heard the plop of frozen concentrate dropping into a pitcher, the rush of water at the tap, and the rhythmic clunk of Quinn’s stirring motion. The smell of a fresh pot of coffee wafted through the house as sunlight wiggled between curtains that were not quite closed. All of it was so wondrously normal.

Nicole couldn’t stand not to be in the same room with Quinn. She let the booted foot down to the floor carefully and picked up her crutches. The carpet absorbed the sounds of her movement, and at the threshold to the kitchen, Nicole paused to watch Quinn in action. He’d pulled bread from the freezer and was now intent on separating frozen slices for the toaster. On the stove, sausage links sizzled in a frying pan.

He looked up. “I was going to bring you breakfast on a tray. I have a cloth napkin and everything.”

“I should be making
you
breakfast, to welcome you home.”

“Nonsense.”

“I feel positively naughty and absolutely lucky to have you to myself for the whole night.” Nicole’s phone was full of frantic messages from Ethan, but Quinn had pleaded for a few more hours before the inevitable blitz of attention. She wouldn’t deny him anything he asked, not under these circumstances after all this time.

“It’s been an unexpected treat, though I suppose it will come to an end soon.” Quinn pointed at the kitchen table with a wooden spoon. “You’d make me a lot less nervous if you’d sit down.”

Nicole obliged. “Quinn, thank you.”

“It’s just breakfast and not a very good one.”

Her throat thickened. Right now she would eat sand if Quinn put it in front of her. “I was so glad to see you at the banquet. Then when you disappeared—”

“I just went away for a while.”

“Right. When you went away—and no one knew where you were—I was afraid I would never get to tell you how grateful I am for the presence you were in my life growing up.” Words Nicole had kneaded smooth for a week tumbled together as they came out of her mouth. It wasn’t quite the speech she’d prepared, but this was the right moment. “A broken ankle suddenly gives a person a lot of time to think, and I kept thinking about how much you loved me, how often you were there when I needed someone, how no matter how confused I got, you straightened me out. Thank you.”

Quinn stirred the juice. “You’re welcome.”

“You saved me,” she said, her voice hushed. “After my mother died, my life could have gone badly a dozen different ways. You were the one who made me believe I could still have a good life.”

He looked at her, his eyes full of examination. “Are you happy?”

“Yes. Very.”

“And your father?”

“He’s well. I’m sure you know he moved away and started fresh, finally. We’re in touch often now.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I always hoped you would someday forgive him his grief.”

Nicole supposed that was exactly what happened. Quinn held her up when her own father couldn’t, buying them both time to find their way out of trauma and toward each other.

Footsteps thudded down the stairs. When the man from last night entered the room, freshly showered and his hair still wet, Nicole marveled again. She had watched one resemblance after another unfold in the late evening hours before Andrew—or was she supposed to call him Scott?—went to bed and left Nicole and Quinn to catch up on missing years. Their eyes were different colors but the same shape. Their noses sloped at the same angle. Their speech lilted with the same cadence. Even the way their shoulders and elbows were hinged was the same.

Brothers.

Quinn had a brother. And Nicole had nearly met him months ago in St. Louis. She might have, if the story she worked on about a doctor who caused disfigurement with his treatments for port-wine birthmarks hadn’t settled out of court before her story hit the papers—and before she met the man who had been willing to see the doctor undercover if necessary to expose him. Instead, she had filed her story without a quote from Scott Wilson.

Or Andrew Kreske.

Nicole still couldn’t believe she was right about the witness protection program—almost. She still hadn’t pieced everything together. Quinn promised he would tell her everything, but last night he was much more interested in hearing about her life than explaining the reasons he entered the witness protection program just shy of his college graduation.

Scott Wilson was Andrew Kreske.

And Ted Quinn was Adam Kreske, Andrew’s older brother.

He would always be Quinn to Nicole, but if he wanted her to learn to call him by the name on an obliterated birth certificate, she would do it.

“Good morning,” Nicole said, when Scott—Andrew—peered at the coffeepot hopefully.

“Good morning. Did you two ever go to bed?”

Quinn and Nicole both laughed.

“Nope,” Nicole said.

“I had a feeling you wouldn’t.” Scott took a mug from the cupboard. “Imagine how I felt when he turned up on my doorstep.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“Immediately. I didn’t want to go to sleep for two days.”

“Make yourself useful,” Quinn said, “and set the table.”

Scott cocked his head at Nicole. “A bossy big brother is always a bossy big brother.”

She chuckled. “He does have a way of getting people to do what he wants them to do.”

Quinn removed two slices of bread from the toaster, dropped two more into the slots, and then took the sausage off the stove.

“Adam, what are you going to do today?” Scott took three plates from a shelf.

Quinn sighed. “I wish I could just slip back into my life, but I suppose now there will be even more fuss than the night I left.”

Nicole smiled. If Quinn thought the banquet was too much attention, no wonder he didn’t want to face the extreme commotion ahead of him now.

“Will you go back to your real names?” Nicole asked.

“I guess we could.” Scott glanced at his brother. “I admit it felt awfully good to hear someone call me Andrew.”

“Are you certain there’s no more reason to stay protected?” Nicole said.

“None whatsoever,” Quinn said. “But what is a ‘real name’? I’ve lived with the name Ted Quinn for more years than I was Adam Kreske. Even if I went through the legal hoops, can you imagine trying to get the people of Hidden Falls to call me by another name?”

“So you plan to stay in Hidden Falls?” Relief warmed Nicole.

“It’s my home.”

Nicole went soft at her core. Hidden Falls wasn’t just a hiding place for Quinn.

“Of course, I’ll feel free to leave the county now,” Quinn said. “And have my picture taken. So I’ll lose my charming quirkiness.”

Nicole chuckled. “Marv Stanford is going to have a field day with this story in next week’s
Dispatch
.”

“I may have to reel him in a bit,” Quinn said. “I just want things to get back to normal. If I don’t return to my classes soon, I’ll be off track for the rest of the school year. There’s no telling what the sub has been doing all this time without lesson plans.”

“How long will you stay in Hidden Falls, Scott—Andrew?” Nicole said.

“Scott’s fine. We’ll see. I’ve got plenty of vacation time in the bank, and Oklahoma isn’t going anywhere.”

In her back pocket, Nicole’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out. “It’s another text message from Ethan.” She scrolled through a long string of messages that had come through the night.

W
HAT HAPPENED?

W
HERE ARE
you?

I
’M WORRIED.
C
ALL ME.

I
’VE LOOKED EVERYWHERE FOR YOU.

A
RE YOU HURT?

W
HAT’S GOING ON?

W
HY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING?

N
ICOLE, YOU’RE SCARING ME.

“You should respond,” Scott said.

Nicole glanced at Quinn.

“Seriously,” Scott said. “Quinn, there’s no telling what Ethan will do if he doesn’t hear from Nicole soon. Hidden Falls has been frantic about you for ten days. Why add worry about Nicole to the list?”

Quinn set the platter of sausages and toast on the table. “Call Ethan. But only Ethan. I want to do this on my terms.”

8:03 a.m.

At first Ethan was unconcerned that Nicole wasn’t waiting for him outside the café on Tuesday evening. He took a little longer to get there than he’d estimated, and she could have run into somebody she knew or decided to duck into a nearby shop while she waited.

By the time he’d been up and down Main Street, though, he was worried. Even people who didn’t know Nicole should remember whether a woman matching her description had come into a store in the last few minutes. In his experience, something like a knee-high boot cast would catch people’s eyes, especially when the cast was combined with crutches. But he’d been in every shop up and down Main Street twice—first expecting to spot her in a store, and then when he didn’t, to ask if anyone had seen her. Gavin remembered what Nicole ordered for dinner, and that Cooper hadn’t looked happy when he left, but no one else seemed to have noticed what happened to Nicole once she stepped outside the café.

She couldn’t have gone running on a broken ankle. She couldn’t drive, either—and her car was parked at her empty family home where she’d left it on the day of her injury. Nicole couldn’t have just disappeared on her own.

Ethan had been up to Lauren’s apartment twice, banging hard enough on the door to attract the stares of neighbors sticking their heads out of their apartments, but Nicole wasn’t there, and no one had seen her since long before dinnertime.

Ethan worried.

Then he fumed. He sent her text after text and left her a string of voice mails. Why didn’t she at least let him know where she was?

When his phone finally rang on Tuesday night, Ethan grabbed it, but it was a slightly irritable Cooper insisting that they had to talk immediately. Ethan had taken Cooper a copy of the photograph of Quinn, apologized for not calling Cooper sooner, relayed everything he’d done all day, and then headed out to look for Nicole again.

In his room at the motel, he hadn’t slept. If Nicole didn’t contact him soon, Ethan intended to go back to Cooper’s office and report another missing person.

Ethan was almost at the hospital to check on Lauren and—he hoped—write her discharge orders if her drain was still clear and the latest scan showed nothing of concern.

When his phone rang and he saw it was Nicole’s number, Ethan swerved to the side of the road and braked hard.

“Nicole, are you all right?”

“Yes. Are you alone?”

“In my car. Where are you?”

“You sound angry.”

Ethan took a deep breath. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m all right. I’m sorry for not being where I was supposed to be last night.”

“I’ve lost count of how many times I called you.”

“Thirteen. And nineteen text messages. I think you’ll understand why I couldn’t answer them, though.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Positive. Can you come to Quinn’s house?”

“That’s where you are?”

“Please come,” Nicole said. “As soon as you can.”

“Who is with you? How did you get out there?” What would Ethan walk into?

“Just come.” Her voice cradled promise. “It’ll all make sense when you get here.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Ethan glanced at the time in the dash. He’d been seeing Lauren every morning since the surgery. If the Hidden Falls hospital was like every other hospital in the country, discharge could take hours after a doctor’s orders. The sooner he got the process going, the better, but it would have to wait. Ethan’s heart pounded with relief that Nicole was all right tangled with curiosity about what awaited him at Quinn’s.

It clicked.

Quinn
was at Quinn’s.

He dropped his phone into the passenger seat and mentally calculated the fastest route to his old neighborhood.

When Ethan approached Quinn’s house, he could see the difference immediately. Wispy smoke rose from the chimney. While the curtains were still drawn, he could see lights on inside. A sedan with Oklahoma license plates sat in the driveway.

Oklahoma. The phone number that kept calling Lauren came from Oklahoma, whistling or playing the tune Quinn had made up to reassure Nicole when she was a girl.

Ethan pulled in behind the sedan, got out, and let his driver’s door slam behind him. By the time he got to the door, Nicole had pulled it open and leaned on her crutches to greet him. When he kissed her, he tasted breakfast sausage.

Nicole reached one arm up around Ethan’s neck. “He’s here. He’s really here.”

“You scared the daylights out of me.” If Ethan had any lingering doubts how he felt about Nicole, the terror of the night and the relief of the morning resolved them. He squeezed her to him.

“I’m okay. He’s okay. Wait until you hear the whole story.”

Quinn stepped into the foyer. “I’m afraid it was my idea for Nicole not to call you last night, but I’m glad to see you so concerned. It’s just like the old days.”

Ethan let Nicole loose but held her hand. Yes, just like the old days—if she would have him again.