“We’re looking forward to it.”
Susan enjoyed a full morning. Traffic slowed around mid-day, then picked up again until five. By the time she locked the doors at nine, her feet throbbed and she couldn’t wait to take a hot bath and go to bed.
Upstairs, she filled the tub with fragrant bubbles, grabbed her favorite mystery book, and turned the radio to a classical music station. She intended to stay in the bath until her skin wrinkled.
She actually dozed off. Something woke her.
She strained her ears. Was that a thump downstairs? It was. There was another, then muffled voices.
Someone was downstairs!
Reaching for a towel, Susan stepped carefully from the tub, wrapped the towel around her and tiptoed to her bedroom. After donning a pair of yoga pants and over-sized tee-shirt, she grabbed a wooden baseball bat she kept close to her bed, grabbed her cell phone, and slowly opened the door to her living quarters.
Footsteps pounded away from her. A harsh whisper.
Susan dialed 911.
“911 what is your emergency?”
“Someone has broken into Turn A Page.”
“Do not confront them. Authorities are on their way. Do not—”
Susan dialed Cade. “Someone is in my store.”
“Lock yourself in your apartment.” Click.
She didn’t really know why she’d called him, only that it seemed the right thing to do. Like he kept her feeling safe when he was near. Another dangerous path for her not to follow.
Her phone rang. “Hello?”
“Miss Turner, this is the 911 operator. Are you alright? We ask people not to hang up the phone.”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“The police are there. Your front door is open, and they are entering. You may now hang up the phone.”
“Thank you.” Susan hung up and crept down the stairs at the same time Cade rushed into the shop.
Two police officers whirled, guns drawn. “Hands up!”
Cade’s hands went up faster than a ball dropped down a steep set of stairs.
“He’s fine,” Susan said. “I called him.”
They lowered their weapons and turned to her. “We’ll need to search the building.”
“Go ahead.” Susan fell into a chair as she finally noticed the destruction of her shop.
Overturned bookcases and chairs, ripped pages from novels, was there nothing sacred to a thief? She put her hands over her eyes, not able to see anymore.
“Susan?”
Cade knelt in front of her and pulled her hands down. “You need to see if anything is missing.”
“I know.” With a sigh, she pushed to her feet and headed for the register. Tacked to the front was a note that read, “Tell Akin to tell us where it is.”
~
Susan stared at Cade. “Where what is? Are you the reason someone demolished my livelihood? Just when I was beginning to get ahead.”
“Let me see that.” Cade took the note from her. His heart dropped to his feet. The strangers were making good on their threat to involve Susan. “We need to talk.”
“Yes, we do.” She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “If you have something to do with this, I swear—”
“There is no one here, Miss Turner.” One of the officers handed her a business card. “Let us know if anything is missing. Do you feel like filing a report now or would you rather wait until the morning?”
“Now.” With a glare over her shoulder, Susan led the officer to a table in the café corner of her shop.
Cade peered through the blinds on the front window. He doubted the men took anything. Their visit here was nothing more than a warning.
What were they looking for? He didn’t have anything of his father’s that seemed remotely illegal.
One of the men who had spoken to him in the park stepped into the light of a streetlamp. He stared at the store, then gave a salute.
Cade let the blinds fall into place. He had to come clean with Susan. While that alone put her in danger, saying nothing raised the danger level.
The moment the police officers left and Susan closed the door after them, she turned to Cade. “Start talking.”
“You might want to fix some coffee first.” He studied the broken lock on the front door. “How did you not hear them break in?”
“I was taking a bath and listening to music.” She stormed toward the small kitchen area of the shop. “I’ll make the coffee, but you can’t stall anymore, Cade. After this…destruction, I deserve to know what part you play.”
Her hand shook as she plopped a K-cup into the Keurig. When Cade made a move to take over, she waved him away. “I’m fine, just exhausted.”
“Sit down. I’ll take care of this. Please.” He put his hands on her shoulders and steered her to a round table.
While he prepared the coffee, he struggled to get his thoughts together. What could he tell her? There was so little that he knew.
With a mug in each hand, he set them on the table, then took his place across from Susan. “So…this all goes back to the night I left Woodsbrook.”
She blew into her coffee. “Go on. I won’t interrupt unless there is something I don’t understand.”
There would be a lot. “When I got home that night, Mom and Dad had our suitcases packed. All they told me was that we weren’t safe in Woodsbrook and had to leave. We went to Florida and lived under different names. They didn’t tell me why, just that we had to.
“I even enrolled in college under my assumed name. Dad had connections somehow, so getting the needed records wasn’t a problem.” He stared into her eyes, his coffee growing cold in front of him.
Uncertainty flickered behind her glasses. “They never gave you a reason?”
He shook his head. “After they both…died, I resumed my real name and came back here, hoping to rekindle our…friendship.” No, he wanted to rekindle a whole lot more, but she’d been very clear where her thoughts lay on that matter. “But now that I’m here, some unscrupulous men seem to think I’ve hidden something my father has. Something illegal.
“I’ve begun to suspect that his being involved in something outside the law was the reason we left.”
“Wow.” She set her mug back on the table. “That all sounds like something out of a thriller.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I didn’t say that.” She took a deep breath. “I guess we have to find out what it is these men are looking for.”
“You’ll help me?” Hope leaped in his heart.
“I don’t know how much good I’ll be, but considering these people came here, did this, then I’m now involved.” Tears shimmered in her eyes.
“I didn’t ask for this, Susan.” He reached across the table for her hand, only to have her pull it out of his reach.
“You asked for it the moment you returned to town.” She stood and gathered their mugs. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m very tired and have a lot to do tomorrow before I can open for business.”
“I’ll help you.”
She shook her head. “No, you’ve helped enough. Once you know how I can help you put an end to this, let me know.” She placed the mugs in the single basin sink and tromped upstairs.
Cade wasn’t sure she believed him, but having her close, helping him, would be safer than being separated. Not wanting her to have even a tiny bit of extra work when she woke, he washed the mugs and set them on a paper towel to dry. Then, he set knocked over bookcases in place, separated the torn books from those good enough to be sold, and put the ripped pages and destroyed books into a different pile. If he knew Susan as well as he thought he did, she’d tape the pages back in the books and donate them to charity.
By the time he finished easing her workload the best he could, the clock showed three a.m. He might be able to catch a couple of hours of sleep, if he were lucky. He left the shop and pulled the door closed behind him.
His footsteps echoed eerily along the deserted sid
ewalk. Dim lights shined from the recesses of the shops along Main Street. Even Books and More looked like something from another world.
He headed down the alley to retrieve his car. He’d been working on the accounting when Susan had called, not realizing how late the night had gotten. But, with no one waiting for him at home, work filled the long hours of his life.
Tomorrow, he’d find a way to get into his childhood home and start searching for…something.
6
Susan gasped when she went downstairs the next morning. With tear-filled eyes, she surveyed all the work Cade had done for her. She could actually unlock the door for business and reshelve books inbetween customers.
She grabbed a broom from the back room in order to sweep up small pieces of paper that Cade had missed. She bent and slid the broom head under the counter and pulled out an envelope with her name scrawled across the front.
Picking it up from the pile of dust bunnies and paper, she stared at it for several seconds. She didn’t remember seeing it in yesterday’s mail. Perhaps Lynette had set it on the counter and forgotten to tell her.
Using a pencil, she slid it under the flap and dumped out a single sheet of paper. She turned it over. A giant W. She smiled and lowered herself into a chair.
Oh, Cade. He knew the way to melt the wall of ice she’d built around herself. First cleaning up last night’s destruction, now this, a replay of the last romantic thing he’d done for her before leaving town.
She clasped the page to her chest. Before he’d shattered her heart by leaving without a word, she’d thought he might propose to her, ask her to wait for him as he headed away to college. Instead, she’d woken and headed to his house for church, only to see the lights off, the door locked, and no car in the driveway. She’d had to hear from a neighbor that they’d left town.
The story he’d told her the night before seemed so far-fetched as to be unbelievable. But, if true, he’d put her in danger by coming back to Woodsbrook.
Sighing, she folded the paper and locked it in a drawer. She’d help him, as promised, until his story proved false.
How sad that she suspected he wasn’t telling the truth. Once upon a time, she’d believed every word out of his mouth. Even when he’d said he loved her.
Sitting around reminiscing wasn’t going to get the books back on their shelves. Lynette had taken the day off, and Susan didn’t have the heart to call her in. So, she squared her shoulders, put the coffee and tea on, unlocked the front door, then tackled the piles of books.
“Good morning.”
She looked up from where she knelt on the floor and accepted her morning coffee from Cade, who wore jeans and navy tee-shirt rather than his usual shirt and slacks. “Good morning. Thank you for doing all…this.”
“You’re welcome.” He perched on the arm of a chair. “I do have a way you help me.”
She got to her feet. “How so?”
“I’m going to my childhood home to search for what my father supposedly hid. Two sets of eyes are better than one.”
She thought of thanking him for the letter, asking him not to do it again, but couldn’t say the words. The romanticism in the gesture did something to her heart she hadn’t experienced in a long time. Curiosity made her want to see how things played out. “I’ll be happy to help. Let me put a closed sign in the window.”
“Where’s Lynette?”
“Vacation.” Susan flipped the sign on the door and prayed the loss of one’s day income wouldn’t hurt the shop.
“I can send one of my employees over,” Cade said. “I don’t want you to close on my account.”
“It’s fine. I’ll open back up this afternoon.” She locked the cash register and grabbed her purse. “I’m ready.”
Cade studied her. “Let’s do this another time. It was stupid of me to ask you to this morning.”
“No, it will be good for me to walk away for half a day.” She spent too much time at the store and it was the least she could do after Cade stayed late and cleaned up. “Just bring me back by noon.”
He grinned. “It’s a deal.” With his hand at the small of her back, he steered her from the shop.
The moment they stepped through the door, Susan stepped away from him. His touch sent tingles through her skin. She didn’t need reminding of how his touch affected her.
Cade talked on the drive as if ten years hadn’t passed between them and they were, if not in love, good friends. Susan stifled a sigh and stared out the window. Could she be just friends with him?
Her heart said no. Her heart said it was too late for anything between them. She hoped her heart was a liar.
Cade drove up the driveway and parked in front of a house that hadn’t changed much in ten years. The aluminum siding on the ranch style house was still white, the trim still a barn red. The dead grass showed dirt in places, the oak tree badly in need of trimming. The house looked unloved and unlived in.
Susan eyed the For Sale sign in the yard which sported a Sold sticker. “Someone bought it. We’ll be trespassing.”
“I bought it.” Cade shoved open his door and loped to the passenger side reaching for Susan’s door.
She had it open before he could grasp the handle. After exiting the car, she stood and stared at the place that had once been as familiar to her as her own home.
The sight stirred up emotions she didn’t want to deal with. Exhaling heavily, she trudged toward the front porch. “Let’s get started.” She needed to get back to the shop in order to preserve her sanity.
Cade jogged ahead of her and inserted a key into the lock. After a couple of wiggles, the door opened. “It smells a little musty. The realtor said it’s been empty for a while.”
“A year. The old couple who bought it after you left moved to Florida.” Susan entered and sat her purse on the formica counter. “Where should we start?”
“Walls, floors, anything that looks like it might not be the way it should.”
“Wouldn’t the previous owners have found anything that didn’t belong? Fixed any loose floorboards?” She glanced at the hardwood floors under her feet.
“Let’s hope not. You check down here. I’ll climb up into the attic.”
Susan nodded and studied the paneled walls painted white sometime since she’d been there last. As Cade went down the hall, she ran her hands over the walls, feeling for anything out of place.
She moved through the small dining room, remembering the many suppers she’d shared with Cade’s family. She found it hard to believe that his father had been involved in anything illegal. The slightly overweight man had been full of smiles and corny jokes. He’d seemed to be a man who doted on his wife and cherished his son.
She glanced overhead where Cade’s footsteps sounded. How much like the father was the son?
~
Taking care to plant his feet only on the joists, Cade made his way to the far corner of the eave. If his father had hidden something, he wouldn’t have made it easy for anyone to get to.
When the ceiling dipped too low to stand, Cade crawled. The wood bit into his knees. Lord, don’t let me be wasting mine and Susan’s time.
The first corner revealed nothing. Cade scored in the second corner. Under the gray flecks of blown insulation peeked a white canister. He stuck it in his shirt, and crawled back to the pull down ladder.
“I found something,” he called, heading for the living room.
“So did I.” Susan stood in the kitchen next to a hole in the wall where a refrigerator had once stood. She held a leather-bound book. “I think it’s your mother’s journal.”
“I didn’t know she had one.” He took the journal and flipped it open. The sight of his mother’s elegant handwriting ripped at his heart. He missed her so much.
He pulled the canister from his shirt and pried off the lid. Inside was a thin ledger, rolled into a tube. Inside were numbers and names. “This looks like a bookie’s accounting book. See.” He pointed at Charity’s Bell and Midnight
Star. “These sound like race horse names.”
He bit his lower lip. He hadn’t known his father was a betting man, but he had worked at the tracks as a maintenance man. Could he have stumbled onto something illegal, rather than participating in it?
“Maybe if you find out more about the horses, you’ll know more about what this all means.” Susan leaned against the counter. “My guess is that there was some cheating going on.”
Cade nodded and flipped through the pages of his mother’s journal, stopping on an entry toward the back. “Listen.
“I’m afraid for my family’s life. My addiction has caused Henry to step into something he isn’t qualified for. When I seemed to consistently lose at the races, he stepped in and did some investigating and found out some unscrupulous men were fixing the bets. Oh, what have I done?”
Cade shook his head. “No. This can’t be true. My mother couldn’t have a gambling addiction.” He opened the front cover of the book, noting her name. Nothing in his life was what he’d grown up to believe. His legs threatened to give out and he leaned heavily against the counter.
“I’m sorry.” Susan placed a hand on his arm.
Without thinking, needing, craving, her touch, he pulled her into his arms. When she didn’t resist, he tightened his hold, resting his cheek on the top of her head. Holding her felt so right.
He tilted her face to his and placed his lips tenderly to hers. She exhaled softly, causing him to increase pressure. He wound his hands into her hair and deepened the kiss.
When she stepped back, he felt as if all that was wrong in the world landed on his shoulders. “Everything I’ve known was a lie,” he said, his voice cracking. “My parents disrupted my life because my mother had a gambling problem.”
“You couldn’t have known. It’s not exactly something a parent tells their child.” Her blue eyes looked on him with empathy.
“People thought my family was perfect.”
“Your mother had a problem and your father tried to protect her from the consequences. You got stuck in the middle. The question now is, what do we do with this ledger?”
Love Draws Near Page 27
