Hidden Falls

by Newport, Olivia

  “But this attorney?” Dani doubted Bobby Doerr had the resources for any attorney other than a public defender.

  “This is the one he asked for.”

  Dani gritted her teeth and lowered her voice. “Don’t you know a conflict of interest when you see one?” Liam had identified Jack as the one who tackled Bobby Doerr when he tried to steal a purse in Gavin’s café. Jack was a potential witness. He couldn’t be the defense attorney.

  “The district attorney’s office has not agreed to press the purse-snatching charges—yet.” Cooper’s murmur was barely above a whisper. “For the moment, the law says we have to let this play out.”

  “Is he going to get bail?”

  Cooper didn’t answer.

  “Cooper Elliott, if you lose him again, you have me to answer to.”

  Dani marched past Jack Parker out to the street.

  6:14 p.m.

  At the four-way stop sign outside the hospital, Ethan sat with his foot on the brake even though no other cars approached the intersection. If he turned right, he could go into town, where he knew Nicole would welcome his company.

  And pepper him with questions and speculation.

  If he proceeded straight ahead, he could get a short hike in before darkness arrived to close out the day and catch the departing light for a few photos. And he could return to the motel on the other side of the falls and see if they’d give him back the room he had vacated very early yesterday morning. He wasn’t sure there was any point in going back to Columbus, except to move out of his apartment, and there was no hurry about that.

  Ethan accelerated through the intersection. He’d be better company for Nicole if he sorted the decisions that spread themselves before him like so many patient charts, each one needing his attention. Ethan wanted to return to the hospital later for one last check on Lauren. First, though, he needed to breathe some outdoor air and clear his head. Following the old road that curved with the turns of the river gave Ethan panoramic views he had not yet seen during his unplanned week in Hidden Falls and took him past the irregular placements of riverside homes and cabins, past the turnoff to Quinn’s house and the neighborhood where Ethan grew up.

  After delivering the jarring news the day before of their connection to the revered Tabor family, Ethan hadn’t intended to see his parents again before leaving Hidden Falls, but his mother would be glad to have him back. Ethan had no doubt. His boyhood room might be untouched except to keep it clean. Maybe his brother’s family slept in there when they visited. Kay Jordan would find some way to make her son comfortable.

  Ethan wondered what his mother would think about Jack’s determination to construct some kind of case out of events that happened eighty years ago.

  I’ll have to let you know, Jack had said. What was there to think about? Several issues in Ethan’s life were muddled at the moment, but he didn’t want to disturb the lives of people who had no more to do with those long-ago decisions than he did. And he doubted his mother would be party to Jack’s efforts. If Ethan returned to Jack’s office to reiterate his position—and warn him off of approaching his mother—the action might backfire and egg Jack on. But if Ethan left Jack alone, he couldn’t be sure what he would do.

  He pulled into the small parking lot at the top of the falls and retrieved his camera from where he’d stowed it out of sight in the back of his car. Ethan wasn’t even sure he wanted this Lexus anymore. The purchase had been a moment of triumph—pride, really. He’d just performed an intricate surgery for the first time, a procedure that was sure to put him in an exclusive bracket of neurosurgeons one day when he’d done a few more and was in charge of his own OR instead of having Gonzalez looking over his shoulder.

  Gonzalez.

  The shock that Dr. Glass in a small hospital in Hidden Falls had spoken with Dr. Gonzalez in Columbus left Ethan rattled all day. Their conversation never would have happened if Ethan hadn’t turned around when he was halfway to Columbus on Sunday morning. It never would have happened if he hadn’t done a procedure on Lauren that he could do by touch in the dark if he had to. But it changed everything.

  He was going to have to tell Nicole what happened. Ethan had dodged her calls all day before promising he would see her in the evening. Guessing at her reaction was beyond him right then. Putting words on his own reaction was difficult enough.

  Ethan hung his camera around his neck with the long lens on it and walked slowly to the highest point of the bridge above the falls, a place where he knew he could safely lean over the railing and frame river water tumbling over boulders. The rapid shutter speed would capture droplets of spray reflecting the evening light. Certain he’d get some shots worth printing, Ethan took about forty photos. The image of Dani’s rowboat riding the water’s crest before dropping over these rocks invaded his mind, and he shook it off. Ethan had always loved this place, this spot. He didn’t want it spoiled by picturing what had happened to the boat—or what might have happened to Dani if she were not such a strong swimmer.

  When had she come to know Quinn as well as she did?

  Ethan walked along the bridge, taking idle shots—trees, ground vegetation creeping along the edge of the footpath, leaves fallen in abandonment, evidence of the presence of birds and squirrels and insects. Without an intentional plan, Ethan snapped whatever caught his eye. When he reached the end of the bridge, he turned around and took some wide shots of the river. Occasionally the distant timbre of a voice rising in the split-second vacancy between bursts of rushing water fell on his ears.

  Back at his car, Ethan held the camera at an angle to look at the screen and scroll through the images, looking for shots he would never use—badly framed, blurred, unsatisfactory light. He moved swiftly from one picture to another, deleting some and granting reprieve to others that he might later decide were not worthwhile. His finger paused over the DELETE button as he examined a photo he had taken at the far end of the bridge. Though he was vaguely aware that a few other people were around, Ethan hadn’t been interested in capturing the images of strangers.

  A breath away from deleting an unwanted picture of two men, Ethan jerked his finger back. His breath caught, and his heart pounded in sudden velocity.

  He knew one of these two men. The slope of those shoulders belonged to Quinn! The hairline—though thinner and grayer than ten years ago—

  was Quinn’s. Even from the back, Ethan was sure. This wasn’t a hidden shadow like the image Dani had been so sure was the man who destroyed her boat. Despite the distance, this was a clear shot, with the two men walking out of the frame on one side, their backs to the lens.

  And one of them was Quinn.

  Ethan gripped his camera and raced full speed across the bridge, past the place where he had stood with the camera and toward the spot where the men must have been standing—all the while trying to calculate how many minutes might have passed since his eye failed to notice them in the shot.

  Too many.

  His chest heaved as he spun in three widening circles and then let his feet slide down a gentle slope toward a narrow trail they might have taken out.

  “Quinn!” he yelled.

  Silence.

  12

  The Groundskeeper Remembered

  Tuesday

  7:17 a.m.

  Ethan’s level of sleep deprivation was starting to remind him of the early years of his long residency—which quite likely had come to an abrupt halt.

  He was exhausted.

  He was overwhelmed.

  He was bewildered.

  And he hadn’t slept. How could he sleep after capturing Quinn with his camera yet being unable to track him on a hiking trail? Ethan was twenty-five years younger than Quinn and in good condition. Nevertheless, despite running down the trail as far as he could follow it, backtracking to try another offshoot, and racing back to his car to drive around to the road where several trails merged on the other side of the lake, Ethan found no sign of Quinn or his companion.

  Ethan
hoped the other man was a companion and not an assailant. In the photo, the two men seemed to be strolling in an agreeable manner, but an image wouldn’t frame an unspoken threat.

  Weary, he gripped one shoe and tugged it onto his foot, and then the second one. Other than the suit he wore to Quinn’s banquet, Ethan had been dressing from an overnight bag for ten days. One trip to a Laundromat and one to the men’s section of the department store on Main Street kept Ethan limping along, and every day he thought he would be making the simple drive back to Columbus and his full wardrobe. After yesterday, though, a return to Columbus was less imminent. Ethan stood in the motel room in jeans that were beginning to feel like second skin and one of three shirts he rotated through.

  After pulling a comb through his damp hair, Ethan was as ready as he could be to confront the questions the day held. Last night, after seeing Nicole and checking on Lauren, Ethan drove past Quinn’s house. It was just as he, Nicole, and Lauren left it six days ago after they removed the mysterious photo of the man who looked like Ethan—dark and unoccupied. Ethan had even rung the doorbell and knocked heavily on the front door. Then he sat in his car in front of the house waiting for the swing of headlights that would come with a vehicle turning into Quinn’s driveway. Finally, Ethan gave up.

  If Quinn was in Hidden Falls—and he was—why hadn’t he come home to his house?

  Ethan pulled out of the motel lot, drove across the bridge over the falls, followed the edge of the lake, and headed into his old neighborhood. Quinn might have come home a few minutes or a few hours after Ethan abandoned his vigil. He could be there now.

  Taking his black vehicle through the brightening morning light, Ethan didn’t care who saw him. He pulled into Quinn’s driveway and as close to the house as he could get before taking out his phone and dialing the landline number Ethan had memorized twenty years ago. It didn’t surprise him at all to realize he still knew it. The longer he stayed in Hidden Falls, the more details of his years there came to the front of his mind.

  Quinn didn’t answer, though. An automated voice came on and informed Ethan that the voice mailbox he was trying to reach was full. Ethan smiled at the thought that Quinn must have finally given up his antiquated answering machine and learned to use the message feature that came with his phone service. Pacing briskly to the front door, Ethan raised the brass knocker and pushed it heavily against the door. He rang the doorbell. He knocked again. Then he circled the house, examining every window, every curtain, for any sign of occupancy or disturbance.

  Nothing was different. No one was home. No one had been there.

  Ethan hated to admit it, but he needed Dani.

  Back in his car, he drove to her house. At least this time, he wasn’t asking for anything but a single piece of information.

  Was the man in the photo the same man who came to see Quinn every year out on the lake?

  Ethan’s stomach sank when he didn’t see Dani’s Jeep in her driveway, but he didn’t want to make a wrong assumption. He got out and rapped on her door. Hearing no sounds from inside the house, he knocked again, this time less vigorously.

  He’d missed her already. Ethan leaned against the hood of his car and ran his hands through his hair, frustrated. Nicole would be waiting for him, and he needed to go see Lauren. It would be up to him to decide whether to discharge her or not, and he wanted to be certain. But Dani was the only person who could answer the question on his mind right now.

  An engine cut off, and Ethan realized someone had parked a car in front of Dani’s house. Cooper got out of a sheriff’s department squad car. “Morning,” Ethan said.

  “Morning. Let me guess. She’s not here.”

  Ethan shrugged. “I guess we’re both too slow today.”

  Cooper scratched his chin. “I was really hoping to make sure she got hold of herself last night. She was pretty upset the last time I saw her.”

  “I heard you arrested the guy she thinks wrecked her boat.”

  “Yes, but not for that. She’s steamed we don’t have enough to charge him, when she practically delivered him to our door.”

  “I can see her point.”

  “The law is the law.” Cooper glanced toward the house.

  Ethan slid one hand into a pocket and jingled his keys in the other. He could tell Cooper about the image he caught last night. They’d been through enough the last few days that he trusted Cooper to do the right thing. So far his by-the-book personality had paid off. He had in custody the man who stole Quinn’s car, smashed Sylvia’s shop, and probably drilled a hole in Dani’s boat.

  “I guess I’ll be dropping by to see your father today,” Cooper said.

  “Oh?” Ethan hadn’t expected that.

  “Maybe you know your father was attacked in the park a few days ago.”

  Ethan did know. He saw the incident from the window in Lauren’s apartment. So did Nicole.

  “The green shoes,” Cooper said. “That’s what Dani said tipped her off. And that’s the one thing your dad remembers about the guy who tried to grab his wallet. I just wish I could find a witness.”

  Ethan’s gut heated. But he hadn’t seen the man clearly either. He hadn’t even noticed the green shoes.

  Cooper tossed his keys up a few inches and caught them again. “Guess I’d better get to work and make sure Bobby Doerr didn’t break out overnight. Maybe I’ll see you later at the hospital.”

  Cooper walked to his car without looking back. The impulse to call him back strangled in Ethan’s throat as he got in his own car. He wouldn’t hold out on Cooper—or the mayor—all day. Just a little longer. Just until he found out what he wanted to know from Dani.

  Which meant he had to find Dani. Ethan didn’t have any idea who she might be working for today, but maybe it didn’t matter. She preferred to be up at the lake whenever she could. If Cooper was right about how upset Dani was last night, Ethan suspected he knew where to find her.

  Ethan started his car.

  When he pulled up to the cabin, he saw Dani on the pier. She wasn’t fishing, to his surprise, just standing at the end of the short platform jutting into the lake and cradling a large mug between both hands. If she heard the approach of his car, she didn’t let on. Ethan lifted his laptop off the passenger seat and closed his door as unobtrusively as he could before walking slowly toward the pier. He stood, wordless, beside Dani.

  Dani sipped her coffee. “We have to quit having these early-morning meetings.”

  “This shouldn’t take long,” Ethan said.

  “I’m having a pretty good morning so far. Please don’t ruin it.”

  “I think I took Quinn’s picture last night,” Ethan said.

  Dani turned her head, expectantly.

  “No,” Ethan said, “I did take Quinn’s picture—by accident. But there’s someone else in the frame, and I want to know if he’s the person who comes to see Quinn every year. You’re the only one who can tell me.”

  She flicked her eyes down at the laptop he held in one hand like it was a book. “Show me.”

  Ethan opened the computer, tapped the space bar to wake it up, and watched as the photo filled the screen before turning it toward Dani.

  “I know right where that is,” she said. “And yes, it’s Quinn.”

  “By the time I realized what I’d caught, he was gone,” Ethan said. “What about the other man?”

  “Too short,” Dani said. “It’s hard to tell someone’s age from the back, but the guy I’ve seen is taller than Quinn.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “You asked a question, and I answered it.” Dani turned her eyes back to the view of the lake. “I kept telling you that when Quinn was ready, he would come home.”

  Ethan closed the laptop. “Thanks for taking a look.”

  “Talk to Cooper,” Dani said.

  “Enjoy your morning.” Ethan didn’t commit himself.

  He returned to his car and decided his next stop would be the hospital. Once he satisfied himself tha
t Lauren was progressing well, he would go to her apartment and see Nicole. Last night she’d been eager to hear about his visit with his parents. It was a long and complicated conversation, and Ethan didn’t want to incite wild ideas by telling Nicole about his photo of Quinn. But she would be the next person he told.

  He went in through the main entrance and passed the gift shop on his way to the elevators. On the second floor, he stopped at the nurses’ station to pick up Lauren’s chart, which showed nothing noteworthy. Her vitals were within normal ranges, she was eating well, she’d slept well, her pain was well managed and decreasing. Most important, the amount of fluid collecting in the drain was notably less.

  Nurse Wacker swiveled in her chair to face him and removed her reading glasses. She seemed to work long shifts, and Ethan had come to expect to see her there at any time of day.

  “Good morning, Dr. Jordan.”

  “Good morning.”

  “Dr. Glass was looking for you a few minutes ago.”

  Ethan looked up from the chart. “Do you know where he is now?”

  “He has office hours this morning, but he asked me to tell you he’d like to see you in the staff lounge at about five this afternoon.”

  “Thank you.” Ethan closed the chart and suppressed his urge to exhale heavily. “I guess I’ll go make my rounds now.”

  “Funny.” She turned back to her paperwork.

  Ethan knew what Dr. Glass wanted to ask him. He just didn’t know what his answer would be.

  9:40 a.m.

  Nicole slept late. Two nights in the hospital waiting room and a late evening with Ethan had caught up with her, and even pulsing pain in her ankle didn’t keep her awake. She woke grateful for a solid night’s sleep in a real bed.

  A week earlier Nicole was charged up to find Quinn—as soon as she took a run that turned her week inside out. She hadn’t found Quinn, and now she hobbled around in a cast on crutches and was staying in Lauren’s apartment instead of her childhood home. Waking up without Lauren in the apartment felt odd. Even though she knew Lauren was in the hospital, subconsciously Nicole expected to hear the shower start or the clink of dishes in the kitchen or one of the network morning TV shows. Instead, only an occasional street sound permeated the closed second-floor windows while Nicole got herself dressed and managed to pour herself a bowl of cereal and brew some coffee.