Hidden Falls (78 page)

Nurse Wacker came in. “How’s the patient?”

“Not very patient.” Cooper laughed at his own pun.

Lauren scowled at him.

“Your CNA seems to have gone AWOL,” Nurse Wacker said. “I’m just going to get some quick vitals since you’re off the monitor.”

“Is something happening out in the hall?” Lauren asked.

“Like what?” The nurse put fingers on Lauren’s wrist to feel for her pulse.

“Some kind of commotion. It seems noisy.”

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

Lauren held her retort. She wasn’t worried. She was curious. What was wrong with asking a simple question?

“Your pulse is a little fast,” the nurse said as she pushed up Lauren’s sleeve and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm. “Keep in mind that Dr. Jordan doesn’t want you to be stressed.”

“I feel fine.” Lauren offered a smile as proof and took a deep breath, determined that the nurse would not find her blood pressure elevated as well.

A minute later Nurse Wacker rubbed Lauren’s shoulder. “You look good. Just try to relax for a little while longer.”

Once again when the door opened, the hall sounds rose for a few seconds. Lauren heard muffled laughter this time.

Cooper’s phone emitted a sound Lauren had come to recognize as the signal that he had a text message. A smile spread across his face as he looked at his phone.

“Good news?” Lauren said.

“Yes, from my brother.”

“Have you seen him today?”

“No, but he seems to be having a good day.”

“I’m glad.”

Lauren waited for Cooper to say more, but he didn’t.

“I don’t understand why Ethan didn’t come to see me this morning,” she said. “I was hoping he would spring me by now. My aunt was in and out of here in such a hurry last night, and I haven’t heard a word from her all day, either.”

“Give Sylvia a break. She’s the mayor, runs a local business, and looks after her mother.”

Cooper looked at his phone again, still smiling. If he wasn’t going to tell her what he found so amusing, Lauren wouldn’t press the question. She was more interested in what was happening outside the room.

She stood up. “I don’t think there’s any reason I can’t take a short walk. I did it this morning.”

That silly grin was still stuck on Cooper’s face. It was starting to annoy Lauren.

“Do you want to come?” Lauren asked as she moved toward the door. With or without Cooper, she was going to find out what the commotion in the hall was about.

“Maybe you should take it easy,” Cooper said.

Lauren cinched her robe tighter. “I feel fine.” She walked at an unhurried but determined pace toward the door and pulled on the handle.

It gave too easily, and Lauren stumbled back a couple of steps. Ethan appeared, pushing on the other side of the door.

“Hello, Lauren.”

“Hello.” Lauren lifted herself to her toes to look over Ethan’s shoulder. How was it possible that the few square feet of the hall she could see were vacant at that moment? The buzz was still there, though, distinctly floating in one direction.

Ethan applied slight pressure to Lauren’s shoulder, turning her around. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“What’s going on out there, Ethan?”

He shrugged. “You can never tell in a hospital hall. Maybe somebody got good news.”

Lauren huffed, but she sat on the side of the bed. She was used to the paces Ethan would put her through, even though her responses had been normal ever since the procedure he’d done early Monday morning. She pushed against his hand, followed his finger in the path through the air, and winced when he drew his pen across the bottom of her foot.

“Has anything odd happened today?” Ethan said.

“You mean in addition to the funny stuff in the hall?”

He tilted his head and smiled. “Just wondering how you’re feeling. No trouble with words or memory?”

“I feel fine, Ethan. When can I go home?”

“I think we can get discharge under way. I’ll leave orders at the nurses’ station.”

“Good!” Lauren glanced at Cooper, wondering if he would want to take her home. First she’d have to ask Aunt Sylvia to bring her some clothes.

“Put your slippers back on,” Ethan said. “I’d like Cooper to take you for a short walk.”

“I told you it was okay.” Lauren threw Cooper a glance.

“Why don’t you go down to the waiting room?” Ethan said. “Get some new scenery.”

Cooper stood and offered an arm. Lauren slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. His arm was solid muscle. Lauren wasn’t sure why she’d expected anything else.

Ethan went first into the hall, letting Cooper hold the door for Lauren. She heard him murmur something to Nurse Wacker, who gave a sly smile. Lauren looked down the hall in both directions. Had the activity passed with such swiftness? It didn’t seem possible the medley of voices she’d heard could have dispersed so quickly. She blew out her breath.

“Are you all right?” Cooper asked.

“I’m fine.” Why did everyone keep asking her how she was? The crisis was long past. As she turned toward the waiting room, Lauren glanced over one shoulder at Ethan making notes at the nurses’ station.

The farther down the hall they went, the more convinced Lauren became that the blanket of hushed noise she’d heard outside her room had transferred to the waiting room. She clutched Cooper’s arm, wondering what she was about to encounter.

The room was full—of people, of laughter, of hugs, of light, of grins.

Of sheer joy.

“There have to be at least forty people here,” Lauren said. She looked for a thread to connect the faces she saw, but the group was too varied. Some were from Our Savior Community Church, some from shops along Main Street, some from the hospital in their scrubs, some from neighborhoods all over town. Some she didn’t even know. Lauren could connect one person to another, and then the second to a third, but by the time she got to the fourth or fifth, the direct connection faltered.

She could think of only one thing that would unite this diversity.

Quinn.

He stepped out of a huddle in the middle of the room. Lauren felt Cooper’s grip on her elbow tighten as she gasped.

“You knew about this, didn’t you?” she said.

“Guilty as charged.”

Quinn moved toward her. Lauren was only briefly self-conscious about walking into a room full of people in her bathrobe and slippers.

“I hear you had a run-in with a sidewalk,” Quinn said as he embraced Lauren.

“Could have been worse. Could have been the tree.” Lauren remained in his arms. Quinn had never been one to hurry a hug.

“Congratulations on a wonderful job on the health fair,” Quinn said. “My sources tell me it was a rousing success.”

“I wish you’d been there.”

“Me, too.”

Lauren looked around at the crowded room, a medley of chattering voices and punctuating laughter.

“I have so many questions,” she said, “but I guess I can’t ask them right now.”

“All in due time.” Quinn waved at someone across the room.

“How about just one question?” Lauren said. “The calls to my phone—and the tune. I don’t understand.” This was one tiny piece of a giant puzzle that Lauren didn’t understand, but it was the piece that had rattled her past enough to unnerve her.

“You do deserve an explanation of that. Come with me. I’d like to introduce you to someone.” Quinn took Lauren’s hand and led her around the outskirts of the mingling mass of townspeople. Cooper followed.

A man looked up at them. He reminded Lauren of somebody in a vague way. Then the sensation snapped into place. The man reminded her of Quinn.

“This is my brother, Scott,” Quinn said. “This is Lauren, the young woman you pestered with your mysterious phone calls behind my back.”

Scott shook Lauren’s hand. “I suppose you’d like an explanation.”

“Well, yes, if you have a short version.” Lauren would press for the details later.

“Ted kept whistling the same simple tune—even picked it out on the tinny old piano at my house. One day I picked up his phone and noticed he’d called a certain number multiple times.”

“Mine,” Lauren said. Although Quinn did most of the organizing work for the health fair, he’d called Lauren with questions several times. Did she want him to make the announcements in church? Did she have a printer in mind for the flyer he had ready? Lauren had been at the fringe of the arrangements, but Quinn had called her more often than usual.

“My brother built a life here in Hidden Falls,” Scott said. “He told me enough about it that I knew people would be worried, but he refused to call anyone until he was certain the danger was past.”

What danger?
Lauren would have to ask later.

“I thought the tune might mean something, so I called and whistled it,” Scott said.

“Only the tune didn’t mean anything to me,” Lauren said. How was a stranger to know she’d been bullied with a phone when she was a teenager?

“It was a long shot,” Scott said. “I didn’t know what the tune meant or whose number I was calling. I just hoped it would somehow be a message that my brother was all right.”

“Scott tries hard,” Quinn said, “but he’s not very good at playing the spy.”

Quinn had played the spy himself lately, Lauren thought. A secret box in Sylvia’s attic, a curious photo in his file cabinet, Morse code in Old Dom’s books at the cemetery, a sudden disappearance.

Cooper nudged Lauren and put his phone in front of her. “Now you can see this.”

Quinn looked over her shoulder. “My goodness.”

The image was so unexpected that Lauren had difficulty fitting it into a sense of reality.

In the picture on Cooper’s phone, Quinn was kissing her aunt—and not on the cheek.

Cooper pointed. “She’s over there.”

Sylvia waved at Lauren with her left hand. The diamond on her ring finger caught the light perfectly and sent a dazzling greeting.

4:47 p.m.

Ethan shook Quinn’s hand in the hospital hallway. There was still so much to talk about, so many questions about how Quinn had tracked down documents and connected the dots leading to the revelations of the last few days. For the moment, though, what mattered was getting Lauren out of the hospital. Ethan had done what he could to keep the administrative process moving.

Quinn tapped the cell phone in his shirt pocket. “I have your number now. I have a feeling there will be dinner plans that include you and Nicole. I’ll call you.”

“We all have to eat.” Ethan doubted anyone who had welcomed Quinn home so far would decline if offered the chance to have dinner with Quinn. Certainly Ethan wouldn’t.

“You’ll be back in Hidden Falls before the wedding, won’t you?” Quinn asked.

“Don’t worry,” Ethan said, “I’ll be at your wedding.” He hadn’t heard Quinn or Sylvia mention a date yet, but Ethan anticipated tying up loose ends in Columbus and moving back to Hidden Falls fairly soon. Without an obligation to Dr. Gonzalez, Ethan had nothing to hold him in Ohio for longer than it took to organize the details of a move. Most of his furniture wasn’t worth the expense of transporting it. He would divest himself easily enough and pull a small trailer to Hidden Falls.

Sylvia stepped toward them in the brisk, focused pace Ethan had come to expect from her. She moved physically in the same manner with which she discharged her varied responsibilities around town.

“She’s ready,” Sylvia said.

“Wheelchair?” Quinn said.

“In the room.”

“I want to push it,” Quinn said.

Ethan’s lips turned up in amusement. He imagined hospital policy would specify an employee had to handle the wheelchair. Then there was the reality Lauren wouldn’t want to ride in it at all. He would let them all sort it out.

When Quinn started for Lauren’s room, Sylvia hung back.

“Come to Our Savior,” she said.

Ethan tripped over the words, a tug toward his abandoned early faith pulling him out of the moment.
Come to our Savior,
he had heard.
Believe as you once did,
the voice continued, though Sylvia had paused. Ethan realized Sylvia meant the church, and the invitation he’d sensed came from deep within.

“Six o’clock,” Sylvia said. “We might not be on a schedule, but there’s a plan afoot.”

“What sort of plan?” Ethan asked.

“A plan to finish what we started ten days ago.” Sylvia radiated the pleasure of the day, her eyes shining, her features creased in a smile. “Make sure Nicole gets there.”

Ethan nodded. Nicole was moving toward him now, coming from Lauren’s room as a small mass of well-wishers nearly smothered Lauren. Quinn had his hands on the handles of the wheelchair, but the hospital transport employee had not given up the fight for control. Cooper walked alongside, holding her hand. At the rear—but closing in—were Sylvia and Quinn’s brother.

An urge to call his own brother shot through Ethan. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d spoken. They hadn’t had a falling out, just a fading away, each of them finding his own path away from their father’s disinterest in their lives. And whatever happened with his brother, Ethan would try harder to find something in common with his father. Richard might not be able to make an effort, but Ethan could, if for no other reason than the happiness it would bring his mother. All these years he’d thought only of himself, his own scars. Moving back to Hidden Falls might cut into the wounds again, but perhaps that’s what it would take to keep them from seeping for the rest of his life.

Ethan stepped toward Nicole, wishing again he could take her hand as they walked and instead making sure his feet stayed out of the way of her crutches with an artificial distance between them.

“What a day,” Nicole said.

Yes, what a day. What a week. They paused, and Ethan moved the hair off the left side of Nicole’s face, exposing the mole she always tried to hide. He kissed her cheek.

“Sylvia said I should bring you to the church later,” he said.

“She’s up to something.”

Ethan followed Nicole’s gaze as the gaggle around Lauren crammed into the elevator, no one willing to be left behind.

“I’m going to get my father to come to Quinn’s wedding,” Nicole said. “I want Quinn to see that Dad is doing well, that at last he has found a new life for himself.”