Hidden Falls (77 page)

“My big brother still wanted to protect me,” Scott said.

“What about never leaving the county?” Liam asked. “Wasn’t Scott under the same restriction?”

“That was my personal rule,” Quinn said. “At first I was afraid and wanted a controlled existence. Then I was … well, happy.”

“But you couldn’t give up on your little brother,” Nicole said.

“That’s right. So I went to St. Louis.” Quinn stopped his pacing and pointed at Nicole. “That newspaper you work for is in complete disarray. It’s a wonder they get an edition out at all. It took me three days before I could even get someone to talk to me. A woman named Terry came up with the name of the lawyer you worked with. I had the feeling she was thumbing her nose on her way out the door.”

Nicole sighed. “That sounds right. She quit when the reorganization was announced.”

“I staged a sit-in at the attorney’s office.” Quinn’s eyes gleamed. “He’d found Scott through a multistate network of doctors he was working with and had been ecstatic Scott was willing to go to St. Louis.”

“I had business there from time to time anyway.” Scott positioned an ankle on the opposite knee. “A couple of meetings weren’t a big deal.”

“The attorney wasn’t very forthcoming, though,” Quinn said. “I finally drew a sketch of the birthmark. Since no photos of it had appeared in the paper—or even a description—that convinced him I did know the person with the birthmark.”

“Probably spooked him,” Nicole said.

“The lawyer called me,” Scott said. “It was sort of a heads-up. If I didn’t want to see the nutcase from Illinois, I didn’t have to, but I was duly warned he was on his way to Oklahoma. I looked at him through the peephole, and the rest is history.”

“But the danger,” Sylvia said. “How are you sure you’re safe?”

The brothers looked at each other.

“People get old,” Scott said. “We insisted the authorities tell us what they knew. The man the marshals were watching most carefully all these years died seven weeks ago from pancreatic cancer at age fifty-seven. The last known associate of the man who threatened Adam—Ted—or me is serving life in prison for an unrelated crime. He stabbed another inmate and now has no possibility of parole.”

Around the room, breath flowed out of lungs.

“If you’ll all excuse me for a moment,” Quinn said as he left the room.

“It was too much,” Sylvia said. “We should have kept our questions to ourselves.”

“He’s all right,” Scott said.

Dani cocked an ear and heard Quinn moving around in his den. She looked at Nicole. “Do you still have his computer?”

“Yes, but he knows the whole story.”

Quinn returned with a folded check in his hand and held it out to Liam. “This probably isn’t for nearly as much as you were hoping, but you’d do me a great service if you would invest it in the fund we talked about.”

Liam stared at the check, unmoving. Dani nudged his elbow, and he finally reached to take the thin paper from Quinn’s hand.

Dani rolled her eyes. If Liam was going to salvage his business, he would have to get over the notion that nobody wanted anything to do with him.

1:14 p.m.

When the phone on his desk rang, Jack kept his eyes on the real estate contract in front of him as he hit the speaker button and answered the call. “Jack Parker.”

“This is Liam Elliott.”

Jack pushed the contract away from the center of his desk and set a fresh legal pad in front of him. “How are you?”

“Better than you might think,” Liam said.

“How so?” Jack put the point of a pen down on the paper, ready to begin writing. Maybe Liam was calling on behalf of Jessica McCarthy—or perhaps he had been mixed up in the financial violations himself. Everybody deserved a strong defense.

“Do you think you could come down to the corner?” Liam asked.

Jack heard a snicker in the background and laid down his pen. He was not in a mood to be the butt of a prank.

“Where are you, Liam?” Jack stood up and tapped his desk.

“About two minutes away.”

“Why don’t you just come up to the office? I’ll be happy to speak to you.”

“Come on, Jack. Loosen up.”

Liam Elliott was telling Jack to loosen up? They weren’t pals. Until the last week or so, they’d barely said more than good morning to each other as they passed on the stairs. Had Liam been drinking in the middle of the day? Jack could think of no reason not to end the call.

“Stop in,” Jack said, his finger poised over the button that would cut off the call. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“Oh, I don’t need a lawyer,” Liam said. “Well, at least not today. Tomorrow could be a different story. Just come to the corner. We’ll be there in one minute.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“You’ll see.”

Liam’s voice dropped away, and Jack realized the call had ended. He took his suit jacket off the back of his office door and pushed his arms into the sleeves as he left the suite. By the time he reached the corner at the end of the block, three cars had parked and the doors flew open.

Ethan raced around his black Lexus to get to the passenger door before Nicole emerged unassisted.

Liam and his cousin got out of her muddied Jeep.

The third vehicle was the mayor’s red Ford Taurus. She got out of one side, and a man Jack didn’t recognize got out of the other.

And Ted Quinn unfolded himself from the backseat. What in the world?

Jack buttoned his suit jacket.

“I don’t remember if you’ve met Quinn.” Liam strode toward Jack.

“In passing a couple of times,” Jack said. Though he didn’t know Quinn beyond his reputation in Hidden Falls and the affection his daughters felt toward him, Jack felt as if he’d been racing Quinn toward the goal of unraveling the mystery of the Pease and Tabor babies—and Quinn had a considerable head start.

“He wants to talk to you.”

The sidewalk was uncharacteristically crowded, but then most afternoons did not herald the return of the town’s favorite personality. Quinn raised his head toward Jack and winked one eye, but at least a dozen people filled the space between them with others trailing behind Quinn’s steps. Quinn patiently accepted embraces and offered handshakes.

Sylvia stepped in and spoke with mayoral authority, asking people to step back and assuring them there would be plenty of time to greet Quinn. With outstretched arms, she cleared a path for Quinn to walk toward Jack.

“Hello, Jack.” Quinn extended a warm handshake. “I seem to be quite the celebrity today.”

“People have been very worried about you,” Jack said. “I know my girls have.”

“How are your girls?” Quinn raised his eyebrows and looked sincerely interested.

“They’re well—and they’ll be delighted to hear that you’re back.”

“I’m looking forward to reading Eva’s family history project,” Quinn said. “She’s the first Parker to come through my tenth-grade class, so it’ll be a fresh family history to dive into. We’ve had some good conversations about it.”

Jack looked around as more people came out of office buildings and around the corner from Main Street.

“I wanted to invite you for a cup of coffee,” Quinn said. “I suppose that’s not realistic now.”

“Not unless you want to have coffee in the school gymnasium,” Jack said. “I’m glad to see you are safe and sound.”

Quinn waved away the concern. “I have a feeling the next few days are going to be out of my control. Before the whirlwind starts, I wanted to express my thanks for your help.”

“My help?”

“With Nicole and Ethan. I understand you helped piece together some of the information about Ethan’s history. It’s a very different story than the one he wrote when he was in the tenth grade.”

Jack shrugged. “You were the one who started that line of inquiry.”

“Give yourself credit,” Quinn said. “You did some good sleuthing. Ethan tells me you declined to destroy the old will and the contract between Pease and Tabor.”

“That’s right,” Jack said. “They may yet come in useful.”

“I would very much like to see them.”

Jack’s gaze bounced around the growing crowd. Sylvia, Ethan, and Liam were all fully engaged in encouraging people to allow Quinn to have this conversation. Nicole sat in Ethan’s car with the door open watching the scene, and Dani leaned against her Jeep talking with the man Jack didn’t recognize.

“I think the mayor has this in hand,” Quinn said. “Let’s give them all the slip.”

Jack chuckled. “I believe you already tried that trick.”

Quinn grinned. “And I was quite successful!”

Jack caught Liam’s eye before leading Quinn into the office building and up the stairs. They were halfway to the second story when Jack’s cell phone pinged, and out of reflex he looked at it.

“A text message from my daughter,” he said.

“Which one?”

“Brooke. She says, ‘Is it true that Quinn came home?’”

“Well, news gets around quickly in Hidden Falls,” Quinn said, “but I didn’t expect it to hit the schools quite yet. Tell her I look forward to seeing her at church on Sunday.”

Jack typed while they walked. By the time he hit S
END,
they had reached Jack’s suite.

“I suppose you’ve got a few files on me,” Quinn said. “The younger Mr. Morris handled my interests when I bought my home thirty years ago.”

“Then the papers are here somewhere,” Jack said. “Morris and Morris did not seem to believe in throwing anything away.”

“A fortunate habit for us, or you would never have found that contract between Mr. Tabor and Mr. Pease, and we might have all sorts of notions about why Ethan Jordan looks so much like Harold Tabor.”

Jack turned the key in the lock and opened the door. As he did so, his phone rang.

“Sorry,” he said. “This time it’s Eva calling.”

“She should be in her sixth-period English class,” Quinn said. “Let’s hope Principal Devon doesn’t discover she’s been using her phone during class.”

Jack debated about ignoring the call.

Quinn turned up one corner of his mouth. “May I answer your phone?”

“Help yourself.” Jack turned on the phone’s speaker and slapped it into Quinn’s open palm.

“Good afternoon, Miss Parker,” Quinn said.

Jack heard his daughter’s gasp.

“Mr. Quinn?” she said.

“Yes, it’s me.”

The girl squealed. “Everybody, it’s true. He’s back.”

“I’m delighted by your enthusiasm,” Quinn said, “but your teacher may have other ideas.”

Eva laughed. “She’s the one who suggested we find out if the rumor was true.”

“And what exactly was the rumor?”

“Zeke Plainfield’s mom sent him a text message and said she saw you on the street and it’s a mob scene.”

“The street is rather abuzz.”

“When are you coming back to school?”

“Soon. So when you see your history classmates, tell them to get those projects in shipshape.”

Eva giggled. “What are you doing with my dad’s phone?”

“I’m at his office. I couldn’t resist.”

“Tell my dad to call me later, please.”

“Will do.” Quinn handed the phone back to Jack. “You heard the lady. Now about those documents.”

“I’ll be right back.” Jack went into the file room, where he had created a new file folder with Ethan’s name on it and placed it among his current files in a locked cabinet. When he sealed the envelope containing the originals of the relevant documents just a few hours ago, Jack hadn’t expected he would break the seal so soon. He had intended only that he would be able to produce the files if Ethan wanted them at some point in the future. Now he laid the papers in a straight row on his desk and stepped aside so Quinn could inspect them.

Jack looked down on the scene in the street while Quinn read the tattered, yellowed papers.

After a few minutes, Quinn sighed. “It looks like we got to the same destination by separate routes, but I admit I’m glad to have this confirmation.”

“From a legal standpoint, it’s still largely speculation,” Jack said. The contract didn’t specify that the families were exchanging children, after all.

“Of course,” Quinn said, “and if Ethan hadn’t inherited the particular set of genes he did, we wouldn’t even have had reason to speculate. Or if that crate of old Tabor belongings hadn’t made its way to the historical society, we would never have known there was anything to speculate about.”

“I suppose not,” Jack murmured.

“A moment can change your whole life. Maybe someday I’ll tell you about the one that changed mine.”

Jack didn’t know if he would have another private opportunity with Quinn. If he wanted to ask, he had to do it now. “About the grave?”

Quinn nodded as he stacked the documents and slid them back into the envelope. “I haven’t quite got that part figured out, either. I finally decided I had to tell Ethan what I knew so far, even if not all the questions were answered.”

Jack took the envelope from him and set it aside. Later he would again seal the past against the future. “Are you giving up on the final question, then?”

Quinn stepped away from the desk. “We should probably go back down to the others.”

“You’ve come this far,” Jack pressed. “Don’t you want to know?” Between the two of them, perhaps they could still figure out the mystery of who was buried in the infant grave only a few feet from the Pease markers without causing distress to the Jordan family.

“It’s hard to know what to do when you’re staring into the dark.” Quinn tilted his head. “Sometimes you only go as far as you can see and then wait for the light again.”

2:28 p.m.

“What’s going on out there?” Lauren was sitting up in a chair in her hospital room and now leaned toward the closed door. Cooper sat in another chair borrowed from an empty room. He’d only come in about six minutes ago. “Did you see any ruckus when you came in?”

Cooper shook his head. “Just the usual frenzy of overworked hospital staff.”

Lauren cocked her head. Something was definitely happening out there. She’d been in the hospital long enough to know what sounds were normal at mealtimes and shift changes and peak visiting hours. What she heard now wasn’t normal. The door opened, and footsteps and voices rose, but Lauren couldn’t make out any words.