by Janie Crouch
“Quinn Harrison–Pritchard?”
“Yes?” She took a slight step back.
“I’m Officer Mercer. Acting Sheriff Gavin Zimmerman needs to ask you a few questions about the break-in and vandalism of your house a few days ago.”
“Why? Did they catch the person responsible?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” the woman responded. “I’ve been asked to take you down to the station for questioning.”
“Right now?”
She nodded. “Some of the questions are time-sensitive.”
“Fine.”
Officer Mercer nodded. “You can follow me in your car.”
Quinn grabbed her stuff and walked out to her car. This wasn’t great timing, but she’d also like to find out who had vandalized her house if they knew. And at least she wasn’t riding in the back of the squad car. That was a good sign, right?
She wasn’t feeling the same way when Officer Mercer ushered her into a small office a few minutes later, and then perched herself along the windowsill.
“Ms. Harrison-Pritchard, thank you for coming in.” Gavin held out his hand and Quinn shook it a little tentatively.
“Please call me Quinn. And it didn’t seem like I had much option about coming in.” She sat down in the chair he gestured toward.
“We have a few follow-up questions regarding the vandalism at your house.”
“Did you figure out who did it?”
Gavin nodded. “We are making some progress. Have you had any other issues? Any trouble in town or anything you wanted to let us know about?”
“No, not really.” Normally she would ask him to explain what he meant, but all she wanted to do was get over to Baby’s.
She glanced at her phone to see what time was. Still early.
Just looking at her phone reminded her of the fact that Baby had called her dozens of times over the past few weeks. But rarely texted—and then, only pictures.
How had she not noticed that? She was sure it was true for everyone else in his life too. How had no one noticed that?
The only other significant written communication she’d received from him had been that email before she knew who he was. She remembered thinking that he hadn’t bothered checking for errors, but that hadn’t been the case at all. She wanted to look at that email again and see if it provided any pattern or gave any indication as to how he might be best helped.
No, help wouldn’t be as easy or simple as it had been for Ethan, but that didn’t mean Baby couldn’t develop reading and learning strategies that would allow him to be successful.
“Are we keeping you from something, Quinn?”
She jerked her thoughts back to this office, looked over at Gavin’s intent brown eyes. “I... Honestly, yes. Right now isn’t a particularly good time. I appreciate you keeping me in the loop, but I have something I need to do.”
Gavin nodded. “Something with Baby?”
“Actually, yes.”
Gavin nodded again. “Baby is a good guy. I’ve known him a long time.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Everybody in this entire town had known Baby a long time, and none of them had figured the huge issue right before their eyes. “Yes, I think he’s a good man, too.”
Gavin tilted his head to the side. “You care about him.” It wasn’t a question.
And she didn’t have time for this.
“Sheriff. Gavin.” She held her hands out front of her. “Do you have actual questions? If not, I need to go.”
“What is your relationship with Lexi Johnson?”
She was taken aback by the question. “I don’t understand. She’s my boss at the Eagle’s Nest. We don’t really have a relationship besides that.”
“Did you know her before you moved to Oak Creek?”
“No.”
“So she just happened to post a job at the same time you came into town, and hired you sight unseen?”
She shrugged. “Yes. And I appreciate her giving me a chance. I don’t understand why you’re asking me about her. Did she have something to do with the break-in at my house?”
Gavin leaned his arms on his desk. “We’re not sure yet how everything ties together. Just like I’m not sure exactly why you didn’t let your brother know you were in town as soon as you could.”
Quinn’s teeth locked together. “Riley had his hands full. And my life was in a sort of turmoil—”
“Turmoil.” Gavin cut her off. “That’s an interesting word. Turmoil because of similar things that occurred since you arrived in Oak Creek.”
“Are we back to that? Back to wondering if I vandalized my own house and office?”
“I believed you. I thought maybe it was sheer coincidence that someone had broken into your house, like what had happened back in Boston. Really shitty luck.” His eyes narrowed. “Then we found your fingerprints on the spray paint can that matched the color used in on your walls.”
“What paint can?”
“The one you threw in Mr. Wallace’s garbage can. I’m assuming you thought we wouldn’t look there.”
“Old Mr. Wallace, the neighbor who lives closest to me?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I haven’t touched a paint can. Hell, I’m not sure I’ve ever held a spray paint can in my life. So, whatever you think you have, it wasn’t from me.”
Gavin looked over Quinn’s shoulder at Officer Mercer. “Kate, can you give us a minute?”
“Sure, boss.”
“Leave the door open.” He nodded at the other woman. “Thanks.”
He turned back to Quinn. “Look, I’m not your enemy. I’m not trying to be the bad guy. But I don’t want to waste my time trying to find whoever vandalized your house if the truth is you did it yourself.”
Quinn slumped in her seat. This was exactly like back in Cambridge. “Why would I do that?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe an attempt to get Baby’s attention? If so, that’s not necessary. Baby is a stand-up guy. He doesn’t play games. He’s simple and honest. A good friend.”
She rolled her eyes. She couldn’t help it. “Yeah, you all think you know him so well.”
Gavin raised an eyebrow. “What exactly does that mean?”
She bit her tongue. There was nothing more she wanted to do more than ask how everyone could claim to love and know Baby so well when none of them seemed to understand the most fundamental issue that surrounded his life.
“Nothing,” she finally said. “Forget it. Are you charging me, Sheriff?”
Gavin leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “No. This is technically Sheriff Nelson’s case. I’m sure he’s going to have questions for you when he discovers the fingerprints are yours. I wanted to see if we could possibly clear this up before he became involved.”
She stood and nodded at him. “You were trying to provide me with a way out. I appreciate it, although I’m sure it was more for Riley’s sake than mine.”
Gavin shrugged. “And Baby’s. He really is quite enthralled with you.”
“Then I guess you’re trying to be a good friend.” She shook her head. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t vandalize my house or my office back in Cambridge. If my fingerprints are on a spray can, then there is some other explanation. Maybe it was part of some junk I cleaned out when I first moved in. I don’t remember it, but it’s possible.”
Gavin studied her. “Okay. I’ll make sure that’s noted when we look deeper.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant deeper into her or deeper into other circumstances—probably both.
She turned toward the door but glanced at him over her shoulder. “Why were you so interested in whether I knew Lexi before I moved to town? What does she have to do with any of this?”
“I’ll tell you that if you tell me why you got upset when I started talking to you about knowing Baby well. Do I not know him as well as I thought?”
It wasn’t her secret to tell. �
�Have a good night, Sheriff Zimmerman.”
She headed out the door. Her questions about Lexi would have to wait for another day. She had more than enough questions about Baby.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Baby stood inside his garage under Kelly O’Michael’s minivan up on the lift. He rarely worked this late, but he knew being down here was better than being upset upstairs alone in his apartment.
The garage had always been a safe place. Pop Owens had made sure of that since Baby was fourteen years old and had wandered in from skipping school. Pop had put him to work, maybe recognizing a kindred spirit. Put him to work and taught him the basics, then turned him loose to figure stuff out on his own. It had been the best possible thing that could’ve happened to him.
Baby had never expected Pop to leave him the garage. The most Baby had hoped for was to still be able to work for whoever took over after Pop was gone. And he’d had no idea that Pop would be gone so soon, or that he would take Baby’s pipedream and try to force him to make it a reality.
To this day, he still didn’t know if Pop had known he couldn’t read. Pop had certainly known that he couldn’t hand Baby an instruction manual and expect anything to come of it. But then again, Pop hadn’t been a big reader, either.
Baby heard the door click open behind him. He almost turned, but when he heard heels tapping on the floor, he knew right away it was Quinn.
He’d known Quinn would come for him. He wasn’t sure exactly what they would say to each other, but he’d known the little professor wouldn’t be able to leave this alone.
“Blake.”
He smiled and put down the wrench he’d been holding, grabbed the cloth out of habit and wiped his hands even though he hadn’t done anything that would get them dirty. He’d basically just been wandering.
He turned and gave her a half smile. “I was in third grade before I truly understood that my real name wasn’t Baby. It was for a standardized test, and we had to bubble in our names, and I bubbled in Baby. Mrs. Forster had to explain to me that it was a nickname. Everyone had called me that since I was born, so I assumed it was my name.”
“You know they’ll call you Blake if you want them to.”
She looked so beautiful standing there studying him with her big brown eyes. She was worried. Unsure of what to say or how to make this better.
But she wanted to. She wanted to understand.
How had someone who’d known him such a short amount of time gotten to the truth when the people who’d known him for years had overlooked it?
“No. My name is Baby. It doesn’t bother me.”
“Fair enough.” She took a step closer. “I want to help you. There are a lot of people in this town who care about you. Love you. You’re right, maybe they pigeonholed you and see what they want to see. But that doesn’t mean that when they’re confronted with the truth that they won’t do whatever they can to help.”
He didn’t respond to her statement, just trailed his hand along the edge of the car. “I didn’t always want to be a mechanic. When I was growing up, I wanted to go into the military like Finn and Zac. Those guys were my heroes. But when I went to enlist, they turned me down because of my dyslexia.”
He kept his words matter of fact, but damned if that didn’t still hurt.
“Outright? You have such strengths. They couldn’t see that?”
He shrugged. “I knew my dyslexia was a liability going in, but I thought I would be able to bluff until I proved my worth, you know?”
“Like you did in high school. People already knew you, liked you, so they didn’t look too closely at your academics.”
“Pretty much. I had the paperwork filled out when I came in so it wouldn’t be an issue.”
God, he’d walked into that recruiting office so cocky and sure. Full of the knowledge that he’d be a damned good soldier.
Maybe he wasn’t into reading, but he could do the stuff that mattered. He was strong, smart, could follow orders. Most of all, he’d wanted to serve his country.
“Then they gave me a written aptitude test. It hadn’t been part of the initial recruitment process when Finn had joined, so I wasn’t expecting it.”
“You couldn’t take it?”
He’d tried. To this day, he remembered sitting at that desk, staring at those words, promising God just about anything if words could somehow make sense this one time. But in the end, Baby had been forced to return the test to the officer incomplete and let him know about his dyslexia.
The man had been sympathetic, a mix of pity and acceptance in his eyes.
God, Baby would never forget that look. The you’re obviously a good guy, sorry you’re fundamentally broken like this look.
“No, I couldn’t complete it. The recruitment officer said he would make sure that my other strengths were noted in my file, but that was all he could do. I got the rejection letter a week later.”
That had damned near broken him. Eighteen years old and the life he’d planned out for himself had been ripped out from under him.
She flinched but took a step closer. “That was their loss. Because you’ve obviously figured out ways to learn that don’t involve reading.”
He shrugged. He’d never told anyone about the military rejecting him. Pop Owens had probably figured it out given how Baby had always told him working at the garage was only short-term until he joined up. Then one day, that option had disappeared, and Baby stopped talking about it completely. Pop had never brought it up.
“A lot of information I can get on audiobooks. But not everything.”
Understanding dawned in her eyes. “That’s how you’d made it so far through college.”
“Mostly. But it doesn’t work for everything. Like the literature, English, and composition classes I’ve been trying to pass for eighteen months and haven’t been successful.”
“I still don’t understand why you want to take them at all.”
He swept his arm out around him. “For this place. Albert Owens, who owned it, we called him Pop, left it to me in his will with the caveat that I complete a bachelor’s degree in seven years. My seven years is up this May.”
“What? Why? Did he know about...”
“I’m not sure. He was a pretty insightful old coot. So honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.”
“He believed in you.”
“Believing in me or not doesn’t really matter. Unless I’m willing to cheat, there’s no way I’m going to pass these three classes by May. And if I’m not done by May, the garage goes up for sale, and there’s a national conglomerate ready to buy it first thing.”
She walked closer. “Then it’s time for you to get help. Finishing these classes is completely doable if you have the right support network.”
“It’s not that easy. It’ll change everything. Everyone around here has always known that school wasn’t my jam, but they never really looked closer than that. I don’t want to see the pity in everyone’s eyes.”
“I don’t think it will be that way.”
He ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t want to be the guy who can’t read. That’s how everyone is going to look at me. It’ll be the first thing that comes to their minds.”
“You need to stop selling your family short. If the roles were reversed, you would want to help. You wouldn’t assume that one thing was all that mattered.”
True. But it was more than that–and it was incredibly hard to explain. He wasn’t sure he understood it completely.
He turned back toward the car, trying to find the words. “Every decision I’ve made for more than ten years has been because of this weakness and to keep this secret. It has defined me.”
She paused, considering that. “Maybe it has defined you, but not necessarily in all bad ways. Your people skills... Where do you think those come from? Those are partially developed because you’ve always needed to depend on them to make up for your reading issues, so it defining you isn’t necessarily a terrible thing.�
�
He could hear her getting closer but couldn’t turn around. He wasn’t sure how to argue this out, especially not in light of her logic.
He wasn’t sure how to get out of this at all, or if he even wanted to.
She didn’t stop until she was right behind him. He felt her gentle fingers trail across his shoulders.
“Change is hard. Forced change, change we don’t decide on for ourselves or really want, is even harder. Trust me, I never thought I’d be waiting tables right before I turned forty.”
Now he turned to look at her, to reassure her. But she covered his lips with a finger before he could speak.
“Oak Creek isn’t where I thought I would be at this point in my life, but it isn’t necessarily wrong for me. Pop Owens forced change on you. Maybe he knew that you would stay here in this garage and happily work your whole life, but he could have wanted you to see that you were capable of more than you thought you were.”
He kissed the finger covering his lips. “It’s possible.”
“You said Pop was an insightful guy. He might have known about your dyslexia, and this was his way of forcing you to confront your secrets. He could have thought you were going to have to ask for help from the very beginning.” She smiled. “But you did the amazing—damned near finished a college degree without the reading skills that everyone takes for granted.”
“It’s possible,” he said again. He honestly wasn’t sure.
“I don’t know what Pop was thinking with this risky little game he decided to play, but I do know you have the tools around you to succeed if you just reach out and grab them. A sister-in-law who specializes in learning disabilities. A college professor in your bed who can help tutor you. Those weren’t here when Pop set this into motion, but they’re here now. All you have to do is take the chance.”
She stretched up on her toes and kissed him. “The secrets we keep control us. If you want to take back control, then get rid of the secret.”
This woman.
Her quiet logic was more potent than any emotional appeal could’ve been. Her wisdom—which, yes, was partially gained from age, but more from the fact that she had such a desire to truly understand things—was almost staggering.
