Finding You

by Carla Neggers

  Meg groaned, kicking a loose pebble. “I was afraid of something like this. Seth’s working for the Vanackerns has just been a disaster waiting to happen.”

  “You don’t think he’d steal from them, do you?”

  “No, of course not. Seth’s no thief. I think he’s got a thing for Julia and Daddy Vanackern doesn’t approve—Mommy, either—and would love to nail him for something. Not enough to put him in jail but enough to keep him from sniffing around.”

  “Then why did they hire him?”

  “Maybe he fell for Julia after he started working up there. Anyway, I’m not saying the Vanackerns are setting him up; I’m sure this money and stuff’s legitimately missing. I’m just saying I think they’ve got their own reasons for not minding if Seth turned out to be the culprit.”

  “You’ve never liked them,” Cozie said.

  “Nope. I never have.”

  “They say they only want to help. That’s why they haven’t been to the police.”

  “Bully for them,” Meg scoffed. “They’ve already decided he’s guilty. That’s the point, Cozie. And basically there’s not much either of us can do. Seth keeps pretending our lives haven’t changed since we were kids. They have. I’ve got kids of my own. You’ve got all this fame and fortune. Pop’s dead. Mother’s off in Australia.” Another pebble went skipping off into the parking area off the end of her shoe. “Things change. We all have to move on.”

  “I need to talk to him,” Cozie said.

  “Yeah. He’s always listened to you more than me. I’ll ask Tom if he knows where he went.” Meg peered at her younger sister. “What about you, Coze? You okay?”

  “Yeah, basically. Meg—look, there’s stuff you don’t know…that I haven’t…” Cozie ran a hand through her hair. “I know you’ve got to get back up the hill before your staff panics. But there’s more I need to tell you.”

  Her older sister regarded her with a mix of consternation and morbid satisfaction. “I kind of figured there was. I’ll come up to the house as soon as I can after work.”

  Meg walked her bicycle out to the road, and Cozie headed in through the back, down the narrow hall to the main office where Aunt Ethel was already on the telephone. She hung up when she saw Cozie. Her expression was grave. “You’d best take a look at your front door.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  But Cozie was in the front hall before Aunt Ethel had a chance to answer.

  The door was swinging loose on its hinges, its simple brass lock still attached to the molding. It looked as if it had been neatly and effectively smashed in with a crowbar or something.

  Behind her, Aunt Ethel said, “Someone must have broken in during the night or early this morning. I came in through the back myself and only just noticed it. I was just trying to phone you.”

  Cozie nodded without comment, staring at the splinters where the lock had been. Was this a new way for her caller to unnerve her? Or had Daniel Foxworth just moseyed on down after he’d searched Seth’s place and searched her office as well? If Seth’s door had had locks, Daniel might have resorted to smashing it in, too. And thinking him responsible seemed preferable to some unknown figure who’d been harassing her for weeks and just might be getting dangerous now.

  “Shall I call the police?” Aunt Ethel asked.

  “I think that would be a good idea. I’ll check my office for anything missing.”

  “Mine hasn’t been touched that I can see. I’ll check upstairs after I notify the police.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Ethel.”

  “Could be kids. I remember back in 1957 we caught a couple of rascals going through the place for money.” She cackled. “Fat lot of good it did them.”

  Taking deep breaths to calm herself, Cozie saw that her office door was shut, just as she’d left it, no sign of forced entry—not a surprise since it didn’t have a lock. She turned the knob. Her head was spinning, her heart pounding uncomfortably. Classic response to unpleasant stimuli. Anything could be in there. Maybe she should wait for the police.

  But, holding her breath, she pushed open the door.

  No body on the floor. Nothing scattered, trashed, or even, that she could see, taken. Her computer was on her desk. Her glass-fronted shelf of first-edition books was intact. Elijah Hawthorne still stared down from above the mantel, his slightly disapproving, puritanical expression unchanged.

  She looked around for a laser-printed note like the one she’d found on her windshield Saturday night. There was nothing. She turned on her computer, just in case her tormentor had left a message there. But, again, nothing.

  It wasn’t like him—or her—not to leave some kind of calling card. To make sure Cozie knew her every move was being kept track of, that someone was out there, watching.

  Aunt Ethel appeared in the doorway. “I can’t find anything missing or damaged upstairs.”

  “Nothing in here, either.” Her voice shook.

  “It’s possible the miscreants didn’t get past the front door. Someone or something could have interrupted their festivities for the night. Cornelia, are you all right? It’s just a little break-in. No one was harmed.”

  Cozie nodded, distracted. “I know. I’m just a little jumpy, I guess. Will you deal with the police? I want to run up to the house for a minute. I need to check something and…” She looked at her elderly aunt, not wanting to explain further. “Would you mind?”

  Aunt Ethel pursed her lips. She knew dissembling when she heard it. “I won’t lie for you.”

  “Of course not. Just tell the police I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Cozie could tell she still didn’t like it. “Do you want me to call the Vanackerns?” her aunt asked. It was a rare acknowledgment that the Citizen was no longer in Hawthorne hands.

  “The Vanackerns? Good God, no.”

  Aunt Ethel grinned. On that subject, she and her niece were in total agreement. “Go. Hurry up. Do whatever skulking about you have to do and then get back here and talk to the police.”

  “You’re okay?”

  She simply scowled, and Cozie dashed through the back, hoping she was being overly dramatic and that the break-in was an isolated event in her already hectic return home. Yeah, her life could return to normal after her last road trip. Right. Maybe this was normal.

  Why did Seth have to take off for the mountains now?

  Because it was the easy way out or because he had something to hide?

  A hot shower in the sawmill’s loft bathroom loosened the muscles that had cramped up during his insane night in Cozie Hawthorne’s Jeep but did nothing to ease Daniel’s frustrations. With her, with her brother, with the Vanackerns. With himself and his mission in Vermont. He pulled on a pair of jeans and headed down to the kitchen, where he had a pot of coffee brewing. With the fire in the woodstove going strong, he was, for the first time in hours, finally warm. He could dare to walk around bare-chested without risking freezing to death. It was, he noted, all of eight-fifteen. Any sane man would be in bed making love—

  No. He had to stop that line of thinking.

  Then his front door banged open, and Cozie Hawthorne breezed in like an apparition, red-gold hair flying, eyes wide, face pale with a near-palpable mix of anger and fear that she was desperately trying to control. “I should have called the police last night when I had the chance,” she said.

  Daniel took a mug from an open shelf and set it on the almond-tiled counter. “Cozie, what happened?”

  She seemed not to hear him. “I don’t care if you’re a former air force major, I don’t care if Foxworths single-handedly defeated the Mexicans, the Communists, and the Nazis—I don’t care how rich you are or how many damned oil fires you’ve put out. I will not”—she had to stop to breathe—“allow you to invade my privacy just so you can prove you aren’t the reckless son of a bitch everyone thinks you are.”

  Removing the pot from the warming pad, Daniel filled his mug. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee seemed to have no calming effect on Cozie�
�nor, any longer, on him. Tension gripped him. He could feel it but refused to let it control him. He chose his words carefully before he spoke. “Cozie, if you think I searched your house last night while you were asleep—”

  “My office,” she said. “I’m talking about my office.”

  He tried his coffee, but it turned to acid even before it hit his stomach. “I haven’t been to your office since I saw you there on Friday.”

  She shut her eyes. He watched her silken throat as she swallowed. She was rigid and trying not to shake, and every part of him—and not just the nice parts—wanted to go over to her and take her into his arms. But a cold, hard voice kept telling him that his presence had indeed turned over a rock in Cozie Hawthorne’s life, and ugly things were squirming out into the sunlight. He needed to look at them. Maybe she did, too.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  Her eyes opened. They were clear and alert, their anger and fear abating if not gone. “It wasn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “I wish it had been,” she said without embarrassment.

  “Should I say thank you?”

  She almost smiled. “Probably not. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions and it was just rascals like Aunt Ethel said—”

  “Cozie. Tell me what happened.”

  She sighed, her shoulders sagging. The teal of her jacket and sweater brought out both the blue and the green in her eyes; she looked competent and polished, a woman to reckon with. Using both hands, she pushed her hair back behind her ears and seemed, just for a passing moment, ready to rip it out by the roots. But she dropped her hands to her sides, and said, the reporter in her taking over, “The Citizen was broken into last night. The front door was jimmied open, but nothing was taken.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “As sure as I can be from a brief look around the place.”

  “Anything damaged?”

  “No.”

  “Do you keep cash around—would it be missing?”

  “Believe me, nobody would break into the Citizen building looking for cash. The Vanackerns may own the paper, but a Hawthorne runs it.”

  “A Hawthorne,” Daniel pointed out, “with a book on the best-seller lists.”

  She grimaced. “I know who I am. There was no cash for anyone to take, all right?”

  Daniel took another sip of the hot coffee, his eyes never leaving Cozie Hawthorne. He kept his manner steady, but nothing about him was calm. A tight coil of anger was burning its way straight into his gut. She was suffering; someone was doing his or her level best to get under her skin, scare her, make her less the optimistic, confident survivor she was. Maybe it had nothing to do with his helicopter going down. Maybe it did.

  “What about information?” he asked. “Could whoever broke in have been after something in your files or on your computer?”

  “It’s possible, but I can’t imagine what.”

  He set his mug on the counter. “What about your caller?”

  Her mouth snapped shut, a fresh wave of color draining from her face. He hated to see her fear, but he didn’t withdraw his question. She said tightly, “That was my first thought, but…I don’t know. Look, I’ve got to go. I left Aunt Ethel alone to deal with the police. Enjoy your coffee. Sorry I disturbed you.”

  She was halfway to the door. “Cozie,” Daniel said, knowing he had to, “where’s your brother?”

  His question had the effect he’d anticipated. She whipped around at him, her jaw set hard and color rising in her pale cheeks. But she didn’t say a word.

  “Does he have a key to the Citizen building?” Daniel asked.

  “I know what you’re getting at, and you’re wrong.”

  The woman definitely had no problem standing up to him. “I could be. I hope I am. But right now all I’m doing is asking questions you refuse to ask.”

  She took a step toward him, her gaze as icy as the morning wind. “If you’re suggesting I refuse to consider my brother a would-be murderer, a man capable of harassing his own sister—then you’re right. I refuse to consider it.”

  “Cozie…”

  “I’m not so cynical I distrust everything and everyone around me.”

  The implication being, Daniel realized, that he was. He leaned back against the counter and quietly warned himself to gather up the last shreds of his objectivity and back off. Her red-blond hair was hanging in her face, making her look more vulnerable and out of control than he suspected she was. Underestimating Cozie Hawthorne could get a man in deep, dark trouble.

  “You’re right,” he said. “You’d better go.”

  She was already on her way. She tore open the door, slammed it shut, and was gone.

  Daniel finished his coffee and made a couple of pieces of toast from Baba-Louis anadama bread he’d picked up in town. After that he went up to the loft and pulled on a clean shirt, socks, and his boots, and grabbed his jacket and keys. Stick to your mission, he told himself. And his mission didn’t include falling for a green-eyed Yankee.

  Once again, Seth Hawthorne’s truck was not in his driveway. Daniel did a quick run through the house: nothing had changed since last night. He figured the kid had cleared out. Did Cozie know where he was? Would she tell him?

  “Like hell she would,” he muttered to himself as he climbed back into his truck.

  Two minutes later he pulled into a cobblestone driveway at the Vanackern country estate. He had no idea what they’d be up to on a brisk Monday morning—or even if they’d be up. But seeing how nothing else seemed to be working, he figured he might as well confront them with who he was and what he was doing in Vermont and see what happened. Maybe their reaction would tell him something.

  A stone walk took him through a large landscaped area of rhododendrons, boxwood, quince, ferns, all on a blanket of thick, waxy-leafed myrtle. He mounted perfectly laid stone steps to a black-painted door with a grapevine wreath decorated with dried yarrow and autumn-colored straw flowers and sprigs of bittersweet—vegetation he could identify thanks to his mother.

  He rang the doorbell. He had no real plan. He’d just tell the Vanackerns the truth. Stir the pot a little.

  Julia Vanackern herself answered the door. She had on a cut-off sweatshirt over a black exercise unitard that outlined every curve of her slender body; her pale hair was pulled back in a neat French braid. Daniel saw no evidence of perspiration or strain and assumed he’d caught her before she’d started whatever routine she did.

  “Oh, hello,” she said, smiling broadly. “You’re out and about bright and early.”

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you. I was wondering if we could talk a minute.”

  “Of course. I was about to go for a run, but that can always wait. What happened to you yesterday? I hope our little hike didn’t bore you to death.”

  “Not at all.” He didn’t explain further. “Are your parents around?”

  “They just got in. We’re all up early in the country. Mum was off bird-watching, Dad fishing. They’re in the sunroom having coffee right now.” She moved back from the door. “Come in. I hope nothing’s wrong?”

  Daniel didn’t answer as he shut the door behind him and followed Julia into an elegant living room of antique furnishings and a Wyeth print over a massive brown marble fireplace. The house was relatively new but constructed and decorated to look old. It had none of the Hawthorne house’s worn homeyness, nor, undoubtedly, its problems.

  Julia perched on the arm of a slate-blue wingback chair. Daniel noticed she was wearing brand-new cross-trainers and thick exercise socks. He wondered what she did for a run. A couple miles? Whatever she felt like? Self-discipline, he would guess, was not one of Julia Vanackern’s character traits.

  He remained on his feet. “I’d like to ask you about what happened to you when you were in Texas last month.”

  She frowned. “In Texas? You know—”

  “I was there.”

  She twisted her small hands together in her lap, her frown deepenin
g as her sapphire eyes narrowed on him. Daniel couldn’t tell if her confusion was an act or not. He would hate to have to put money on an accurate read of what Julia Vanackern was thinking or what she’d do next. “But we didn’t meet you there.”

  “My name is Daniel Foxworth.”

  Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth with one hand as she made the connection. “Oh, my God—you’re not Daniel Forrest…. You’re the one…you were the pilot….”

  “That’s right.”

  “But what are you doing in Vermont? What do you want with me?”

  Daniel didn’t blame her for being upset, but she wasn’t the one who’d ended up in the hospital with multiple injuries and the possibility of losing a leg. She’d watched his copter go down. She hadn’t been on board.

  “Julia, I’m not here just to remind you of something you want to forget. I only—”

  “Does Cozie know who you are? Did you lie to her as well?”

  Why wouldn’t he? He decided to keep his answer simple, not to give Julia anything to work with. “Yes, I lied to her as well.”

  She tugged on the end of her braid, fidgeting. “I’m sorry.” She faked a laugh. “Here I am getting all hysterical and you were the one who crashed. Actually, I wondered when you said you were from Texas if you might be here because of what happened to me.”

  To her?

  She caught herself. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Daniel took her off the hook. “It’s okay.”

  “I just never expected that Daniel Foxworth—that you would be—I mean—” She stopped herself, flushing. She looked much younger than she was. Then she smiled, and the flustered girlishness disappeared. A practiced sultriness came into her eyes. “Well, you don’t look anything like your grandfather.”

  Daniel smiled. “One would hope.”

  But Thad and Frances Vanackern came into the room, dressed in casual country clothes that made them look surprisingly alike. Julia thrust an accusing hand in Daniel’s direction. “Mum, Dad, this is Austin Foxworth’s grandson.”

  “We heard,” Thad Vanackern said coldly. He fastened his gaze on Daniel as if Daniel had just been caught stealing the china. “By God, you’ve got gall.”