“Depression, even situational depression, could account for both the increased alcohol consumption and the decreased appetite,” I pointed out. As a doctor, Noah probably knew that better than I did, but when it’s your parent, sometimes it’s hard to have the emotional distance needed to make that kind of diagnosis.
“I need to spend more time with her.” The muscles in Noah’s jaw were clenched. “But truthfully, we have so little to say to each other . . .” He trailed off, then admitted, “And she drives me nuts.”
“It seemed as if she was getting better after you hired Janson.” I smoothed the crease between his brows with my finger. “Right?”
“Yes.” Noah scrubbed his face with a fist. “She started seeing her friends again and stopped having those ‘spells’ of hers.”
“So maybe the depression is related to Jett’s research. It could be that she’s afraid that whatever she’s hiding about your father’s great-great-great-grandfather will come out and ruin your family name.” I cleared my throat. “Nadine is nothing if not proud.”
“That could be it.” Noah nodded, then told me about Jett’s visit to Nadine, finishing with, “So I think he drugged her drink and photographed the documents.”
“Oh. My. God!”
“Yep, and I guess I’m about to find out what the big secret is.” Noah stared unseeingly over my shoulder. “Mom gave me the papers.”
“Even with the possibility that Jett saw them and made copies, I still never expected Nadine to hand those over without a fight,” I said warily. “How did you convince her to give them up?”
“Uh . . .” Noah hesitated, then muttered, “I said I wanted to fully understand my heritage so I could pass it along to my children.”
Children! I met his gaze, then quickly looked away. We had never discussed kids. No. That wasn’t true. When we’d dated in high school, we’d talked about having a boy and a girl. We’d even picked out names—Kyle for the boy and Danielle for the girl.
Breaking into my reminiscing, Noah said lightly, “Nothing like the promise of producing an heir to motivate Mom to cooperate.”
Chuckling, I asked, “Did Nadine demand to know the identity of your future kids’ mother?”
“Not exactly.” Noah’s cheeks turned red. He was silent until I raised a brow. Finally, he gritted his teeth and added, “But she did warn me not to count on you. Was it really necessary to bring Del Vecchio with you when you went to see her?”
“Sorry.” It hadn’t crossed my mind that Nadine would use that against Noah, but it should have. The woman didn’t care whom she hurt. “It was just that it was his uncle who overheard her warning to Jett.”
“I understand.” Noah rubbed a weary hand over his eyes and sighed.
“You’re tired.” I stepped away from him. “I should let you go.”
“Wait.” Noah grabbed both my hands and pulled me toward him.
“Why?” The smoldering heat I saw in his eyes startled me.
“Because . . .” He trailed off, dropping my fingers to cup my chin.
The feeling of his thumb caressing my jaw sent my pulse skittering. I had to draw in a breath of much-needed oxygen before I could ask, “Because why?”
“I am tired, but I know I’ll never be able to fall asleep.” Noah stared into my eyes, and I could see the electricity arcing between us. “So. I either could go home and lift weights or . . .”
“Or?” I knew I sounded ridiculous repeating his words, but the intense attraction between us was making it hard to concentrate.
“We could go back to my place and look over the Underwood family documents.”
“Oh.” I must have looked disappointed, because he gave me a rueful smile. “Actually, I’d like to take you home and . . .” He whispered a suggestion that made me blush. “But I know you’re determined to wait until you’ve made your choice, and I don’t want to rush you.”
“Thank you.” I was barely able to squeeze out those two words as the sensual images of what he’d just suggested we do to each other zoomed through my mind.
“Not that I wouldn’t love to hustle you into my bed.” Noah drew me back into his arms—and then, with his mouth inches from mine, he said huskily, “But I want to make sure when we finally get to that point, you know you love me and don’t have any regrets.”
His voice washed over me like honey, and my breath caught in my throat.
“Because”—his whisper was ragged as he stroked my cheek—“once we’re together like that, I’ll never be able to let you go.”
I could feel his heart thudding against my fingertips. There was such an incredible pull between us, but I knew I should leave now or we wouldn’t be able to stop. Noah was right. Until I made a decision, this wasn’t fair to either of us, or to Jake. But before I could force myself to move, I closed the gap between our lips.
His kiss felt like fire, and as I pressed closer to him, he licked into my mouth. When he wrapped his arms tighter around me, I admitted defeat.
I knew that with the murder and the situation with Jake, Noah and I shouldn’t be doing this, but I had longed to be in his embrace for so many years that I couldn’t stop myself from responding. When he pushed me back against my car, I could feel how much he wanted me. Then suddenly, a bright light blazed into my face, and I squinted in pain.
As I jerked my head in the direction of the street, it took me a long second to understand what had blinded me. When I did, I groaned. A car was backing into the driveway across the road, and Noah and I had just been caught by Boone’s neighbor necking like a couple of teenagers. I was sure Nadine would hear all about it in the morning.
A shudder traveled through me, and I forced myself to ease my hold on Noah and step away from him.
• • •
After the incident, as I liked to call it, there was no way I was going to sleep anytime soon, so I followed Noah to his house. He put on a pot of coffee, and we spread the contents of Nadine’s file across the kitchen table. A part of me nagged that, considering what had almost happened, it was silly to be alone with Noah. But the mood had been broken for both of us, and discovering who had killed my stepfather would get me that much closer to figuring whether it was Jake or Noah whom I loved.
As the coffee perked, Noah told me about Janice St. Onge’s part in stirring up Nadine regarding the alien invasion. Because I had a good relationship with Boone’s mom, I offered to call her the next day to find out whether her interest in ET and the professor’s arrival in town were linked.
With steaming mugs of motivation at our elbow, Noah and I sifted through the mountain of documents we had pulled out of the carton.
After a few minutes, I said, “It really is sweet of you to risk finding out something bad about your family in order to help me.”
“Not at all.” Noah shoved his fingers through his hair. “I’m sick of secrets. It’s about time whatever skeleton is hidden in the Underwood closet comes out and gets a decent burial.”
I made a noncommittal noise. I was a firm believer that denial was often the best option. Still, I was glad Noah hadn’t come to that conclusion, or I might never figure out who murdered Jett.
We spent the next hour sorting papers into three piles. Innocuous letters to family members. Boring military documents concerning supplies, lists of soldiers, as well as other everyday workings of the regiment. And half a dozen diaries. It seemed that Colonel Underwood had fancied himself quite the memoirist.
I arranged the journals chronologically, with Noah taking the last one and me starting with the first. I skimmed through the initial pages where Colonel Underwood described raising, organizing, and paying the meager salaries of Shadow Bend’s regiment.
Evidently, the customary infantry regiment was comprised of ten companies consisting of a hundred men each. The companies were led by a captain. Which explained where my relative fit in
to the hierarchy.
Shadow Bend’s regiment averaged only four hundred men, so there would have been only four captains. They would have answered to a major, who was Boone’s ancestor, and the major would have been controlled by Noah’s great-great-great-great-grandfather.
Now that I had the chain of command straight, I continued to scan Colonel Underwood’s first diary, but found nothing irregular. As I put it aside and reached for the next volume, I noticed Noah scowling at the journal he was reading. He was furiously flipping back and forth between the pages and muttering to himself.
Not wanting to interrupt him, I got up and poured another cup of coffee for us both. If my suspicions were correct, we were in for an all-nighter, and I reminded myself that I needed to be home in time for breakfast or Birdie would send out the National Guard to find me. And, as it was, we were already up to our necks in Civil War military and didn’t need any more troops muddying the water.
I was about three-quarters of the way through volume two, when Noah said, “I think I might have something here. Most of it seems to be in some sort of picture or symbol encryption, but from what I can tell, Colonel Underwood, Major Boone, and Captain Sinclair conspired to hide something extremely valuable.”
“Yep, that would go under the scandal column, all right.” I pushed aside my empty coffee mug and held out my hand for the journal. “Especially since it’s my understanding that by the end of the war, the people around these parts were penniless and starving.”
As I opened the diary, a memory flickered through my mind and I said, “Grandpa used to tell me a bedtime story about the Treasure of Shadow Bend. Before Captain Sinclair was killed in that last battle, he told his wife that no matter how the war turned out, they would be okay financially. His optimism turned out to be unfounded, as the family had a real struggle to survive.”
“Colonel Underwood, Major Boone, and Captain Sinclair all died that day.” Noah raised his brows. “Although they may have hinted to family members about the loot, obviously they didn’t confide in anyone where it was concealed. Which meant that after their death, there was no one left to retrieve whatever they’d hidden.”
“Wouldn’t the colonel have confided in his wife?”
“I remember my father saying that his great-great-great-grandmother had a stroke when she heard her husband had been killed in battle and had difficulty communicating from then until her own death a few years later.”
“And Colonel Underwood’s journals were probably boxed up and never really examined until much later,” I said, thinking out loud.
“Knowing my family”—Noah wrinkled his brow—“when the diaries were finally read, my ancestors were more concerned with keeping the colonel’s less-than-honorable actions a secret than with finding any possible treasure.”
“Because your family regained its fortune pretty quickly after the war?” I asked. When he nodded, I said, “And without those papers, neither Major Boone’s nor Captain Sinclair’s kin had any clue to the location of the treasure.”
Shaking my head at all the past errors in judgment, I began reading. Noah had flagged the relevant sections of the diary with Post-its, and I paged between them. Colonel Underwood had written about a wounded Union soldier who had been captured and held somewhere secret for interrogation. The soldier revealed that a Union train would be passing nearby carrying treasure vital to the war efforts. The young man had passed away from his injuries before revealing what exactly was being transported.
After that entry, the rest of the references to the incident were crude drawings. Frowning, I grabbed a pen and one of the legal pads Noah had put on the table and painstakingly sketched each symbol and made a tally of how often they were used.
While I was doing that, Noah transcribed the whole segments. Then we both scanned the remaining journals for any other instances of the cipher. When we found none, we replaced all the diaries in the carton and put it aside. By the time we finished, it was nearly two a.m., and we were beat.
I yawned and stretched, then said, “My mind is fried. I can’t see a pattern.”
“We’d better call it a night.” Noah stood, pressed his palm against his back. “I’m on call at the clinic from eight until noon, but we can get together tomorrow night after you close the store and try to figure this code out.”
“We’re so close.” I got to my feet. “I know this has something to do with Jett and why he was in Shadow Bend.”
“Maybe Jett was writing a novel instead of a history book.” Noah moved closer. His silky voice filled my ear.
“More likely, if whatever is hidden is still valuable, he was after that.” Why was I having trouble breathing? I was too tired to be turned on. “I’m convinced there was something shady about my stepfather.”
“We’ll just have to decipher the code and find out.” Noah took my hand, his thumb caressing my palm, and I felt goose bumps form on my arms. “At least it looks as if our ancestors worked together on this. Maybe that’s why my mother is so anti-Sinclair. She thinks the captain was a bad influence on Colonel Underwood.”
“Uh?” I croaked, losing my train of thought as Noah moved his fingers upward, stroking my inner arms. “Oh. Right. No. Nadine had a thing for my father, and he dumped her. That’s why she hates us.”
Oops. I hadn’t meant to blurt that out. I really needed to leave before I said something even more foolish than that last bit.
Noah was silent, looking at me strangely, so I quickly added, “But Dad assures me they didn’t have an affair, so we aren’t related.”
“Good to know.” Noah grinned, then frowned. “When did you find that out?”
“Gran told me a few months ago.” I had decided not to tell Noah about this, but it had slipped out. “When my father was about to be released from prison, Gran was afraid your mom might do something to mess up his parole. I asked why Nadine would care enough to interfere, and she told me about my dad dating your mom back before he met Yvette.”
“Interesting. And for sure not something my mother would have ever mentioned to me.” Noah shrugged, then asked, “So tomorrow night? Do you want to come back here?”
“No. I mean yes, I want to meet you, but I can be here in the afternoon at twelve thirty instead of waiting until later,” I explained. “The store doesn’t have any craft groups scheduled, so I can ask Dad to adjust his hours, and he can handle the place without me.”
“That’s great. I’m glad you’ve got him to take some of the load off your shoulders.” Noah followed me out of the kitchen. “That will give us more time to figure everything out.”
When I got to the front door, I said, “I’ll bring lunch, and would you mind if I asked Boone, Poppy, and Jake if they are available to join us? It sounds as if Boone has a stake in this, too. And Poppy is really good at puzzles.”
“And Del Vecchio?” Noah’s jaw was clenched. “What’s he good at?”
Ignoring Noah’s displeasure, I answered calmly, “I’d like to have Jake with us because he’s getting the info on my stepfather’s finances.”
“Can’t he just hand them over and leave?” Noah muttered.
Apparently, at that point my lack of sleep overcame my good sense, because I kissed Noah lightly on the lips, then said, “And FYI, Jake is good at everything.”
CHAPTER 22
Friday morning as I waited on customers, my mind replayed last night. Why in the hell had I told Noah that Jake was good at everything? Up until that moronic moment when I’d opened my big mouth and taunted Noah about Jake’s awesomeness, I’d been doing everything I could to discourage any rivalry between the two men. After all, Noah was equally amazing, so what had gotten into me?
I chalked it up to the stress of worrying that Dad might end up returning to prison and vowed never to say anything like that again to either guy. The thought of my father back behind bars, but this time with my mother and me in the n
ext cell, sent a shiver down my spine. I needed to figure out who killed Jett before the cops discovered that we had tampered with evidence. I did not want to be on the wrong side of Eldridge Kincaid.
When Dad showed up at the store at eleven forty-five, I brought him up to speed on the deliveries I was expecting that afternoon, then told him to call me if he had any problems. After combing my hair and putting on some lip gloss, I headed to Little’s Tea Room to collect the box lunches I had ordered earlier.
I was in luck and nabbed a coveted parking spot in front of the restaurant. Before going inside, I checked my cell. I had texted Poppy, Boone, and Jake as soon as I woke up that morning, asking them if they could meet me at Noah’s house at twelve thirty to help decipher the encrypted passages of Colonel Underwood’s journal.
My two BFFs had immediately replied that they’d be there, but Jake hadn’t answered until now. He said that he’d been doing chores and hadn’t seen my message. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make it to Noah’s, as he was getting together with his contact regarding Jett’s finances. The forensic accountant didn’t trust the Internet and would only give him the documents in person. Once Jake was free, he would come over and share the information.
After picking up the food, I checked my watch. I still had a few minutes, so I sat in my car and phoned Janice St. Onge. She answered on the first ring, and we chatted about Shadow Bend’s upcoming Apple Festival. Janice was the chairwoman, and I had agreed to host some of the events in my store’s newly renovated second floor.
When Janice ran out of festival news, I said, “Nadine Underwood mentioned that you were one of the first people around here to see the suspicious lights hovering above the town.”
“Actually, I was the very first one. I saw them in early July, during the Cupcake Weekend.” Janice’s voice rose in excitement. “I’ve always been extremely interested in the idea of UFOs. I’ve watched the night skies religiously for years.”
“Really?” I knew Boone’s mother was more than a little eccentric, but I’d had no idea about her hobby. Did her son know? “Nadine also shared that you believe aliens are taking over the bodies of the town’s teenagers.”
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