Finding You

by Carla Neggers

  Will’s eyes narrowed on her. “You should have told me. What exactly did they get?”

  “A log I’d kept of the calls.”

  “All of them?”

  She nodded.

  “They started this summer?”

  “In July. I’m not sure of the exact date. I know I was in New York. I can check.”

  “Do that. Anything else?”

  “A cassette from my answering machine recording one of the calls and a note I found on my Jeep Saturday night after the Vanackern dinner.”

  “You got anyone to corroborate any of this?”

  “I saw the note on her Jeep,” Daniel said quietly, “and I picked up one of the calls. They’re for real.”

  Cozie was incensed. “Of course they’re for real! Do you think I’d make up something like that?”

  Will held up a silencing hand. “My point is, were you ever threatened, was there any attempt at blackmail, anything like that?”

  She shook her head. “What could you do if there were?”

  “We have a few options. You should sit down and tell us everything, let us decide if they might be more than nuisance calls.”

  “I’ll consider it,” she said, feeling more and more out of control of what was going on around her.

  Will glared at her. “I’m reminding Meg what a pain in the butt you are so she won’t chew me out for not doing my job. You don’t know where Seth is?”

  “No, truthfully, I do not. Are you calling out the dogs and the men with guns and going after him?”

  “For God’s sake, Cozie, we just want to talk to him. We don’t even have a warrant for his arrest.”

  “Gee, what a relief.”

  Will spent five seconds staring at her in spitting fury, turning redder and redder. Then he exhaled, bit off a swear, and looked to Aunt Ethel. “I suppose you don’t know anything?”

  “Young man,” she said haughtily, “I know a great deal, but I’m afraid I can’t help you so far as my nephew is concerned. I haven’t seen him since Sunday morning when he brought me cider doughnuts.”

  “You Hawthornes,” Will muttered, as if that alone summed up his disgust. He scowled at her and turned back to Cozie. “If you hear from your brother, you know where to find me.”

  He headed out through the front hall.

  “Good luck finding the Vanackerns’ thief,” she called to his retreating back. “It’s not Seth.”

  When she was sure Will was gone, she ignored both Aunt Ethel and Daniel and marched through the back out to her Jeep. She was throwing it into reverse when Daniel pulled open the passenger door and climbed in. “Always count on a Hawthorne not to lock a door,” he said mildly and glanced over at her. “You look mighty pissed off, Ms. Cozie. Guess I’d better put on my seat belt.”

  “Guess you’d better.”

  “Taking a ride up to see the Vanackerns?”

  “You don’t have to come. I didn’t invite you.”

  “You’ll notice,” he said, locking his seat belt, “I didn’t wait for an invitation.”

  With one foot lightly on the brake, the other on the clutch, she regarded him with a steadiness she didn’t feel. “Did you tell Will you found detonator caps in the monk hut?”

  “I decided to wait.” Any amusement left his eyes. “I’m still gathering facts. When I’ve come to a definite conclusion, I’ll let you know.”

  “Good of you,” she said, and roared out of the driveway, around Woodstock common, onto the covered bridge over the Ottauquechee, and finally up onto Hawthorne Orchard Road.

  She picked up speed as she passed her house and the sawmill and veered sharply onto the dirt road that led to Seth’s and the Vanackern place. Daniel didn’t ask her to slow down. He seemed, in fact, perfectly calm. She wondered what scared him. The prospect of his partner losing a leg? Of facing a shattered reputation?

  When she rocketed past her brother’s house, Will Rubeno’s cruiser was already there. Her jaw clamped down tight. Was Seth behind a tree somewhere, watching?

  Two minutes later, she pulled the Jeep to a hard stop in front of the Vanackerns’ attractive colonial house. She had to pry her fingers loose from the steering wheel. She squinted over at Daniel. “You’re not going to try and stop me?”

  “Nope. I never get between a ticked-off woman and whatever she’s shooting at.”

  “That’s sexist.”

  “Same philosophy applies to a man. You going to sit here and gripe at me or get on with skewering the Vanackerns?”

  “Thad didn’t have to implicate Seth.”

  She climbed out of the Jeep, and Daniel said as she closed the door, “I’ll be here whenever you run out of steam.”

  Thad Vanackern was waiting on the front steps when she got there. He had on tennis clothes that revealed how fit he was for a man in his late sixties. He regarded her for just a moment before saying, “Cozie, I know you’re angry, but don’t make this any uglier than it already is.”

  “What are you going to do, fire me? Go ahead. I don’t need your money, and it’d save me from having to resign—”

  “It’s not my money, it’s corporation money, and it does no good for you or your brother for you to be so reactive. Think about what you’re saying. If Seth would come forward, perhaps we could work something out—perhaps he could convince us of his innocence.”

  “Guilty until proven innocent, huh?”

  He sighed, not a man comfortable with displays of any strong emotion, but especially anger. “Taking off this way leaves an impression of guilt, however unintended or wrong.”

  Cozie was not mollified just because she’d had the same thought. “Seth always takes off, he has since he was a little kid. It means he’s upset if it means anything at all.”

  “Cozie,” Thad said through his teeth, “I’m not required to explain my decisions to you. If you’re too stubborn to see that we care deeply about you and your family, that, I’m afraid, is your problem. We understand the pressures on your family the past few years. We know it wasn’t easy for you to sell the Citizen to us—that it was the lesser of two evils so far as you were concerned.”

  She didn’t back down. “This isn’t about the Citizen. You told the police you think Seth is guilty when you could have just let them investigate with an open mind.”

  “Don’t be disingenuous.” Thad seemed pained, anguished by what was going on. “You know this is about the Citizen; it’s about your father’s death, your success, your brother’s lack of direction. You’re making a great deal of money, Cozie. You’re well positioned to make considerably more. You were able to save your family’s property, allow your mother to fulfill her dreams. What could Seth do? Nothing. God only knows what effect all this has had on him. He hasn’t done a thing with his life….”

  Cozie bristled. “That shows how little you understand of him and my entire family. Having money or not having money doesn’t determine what we mean to each other or to ourselves. It’s not a measure of anything except our bank accounts. I knew that when I couldn’t scrape four quarters together for a milk shake and I know it now.”

  Frances Vanackern had come around the house, and before Thad could fire Cozie on the spot, his wife took her by the hand as if she were a four-year-old throwing a tantrum, so out of control she wasn’t really responsible for what she was saying. Frances wouldn’t understand that Cozie was simply furious. “I know this is a difficult day for you, Cozie,” she said soothingly, “but we just want to help. If Seth is innocent, no one will be happier than we are. We would like nothing better than to put this all behind us. But if he’s not innocent, all the more reason we needed to bring in the authorities now, before anything worse happens. You do understand?”

  “Yeah, I get it. I may be stubborn, but I’m not stupid.” She launched herself down the walk, wondering why in blazes she was already feeling guilty for not behaving herself. For not keeping the old stiff upper lip.

  When she got to her Jeep, Julia had the door open on the drive
r’s side and was talking to Daniel, about what, Cozie could only imagine. Did Seth have enough time to sneak detonator caps off Daniel’s helicopter when they were down in Texas? Little things like that.

  Julia, dressed in tennis whites, moved out of Cozie’s way. She was visibly upset. “This all makes me ill, Cozie. I want you to know that. And I don’t believe Seth is guilty of anything more than falling for the wrong woman. I wish there was something I could do.”

  Cozie softened. “Thanks. I wish there were, too.”

  “Father would never fire you,” she said quickly. “Having a Hawthorne at the Citizen gives it a continuity and a legitimacy it wouldn’t have if it were just another Vanackern property. He knows we don’t have your reputation for integrity.”

  “Fat lot of good it’s done us. Seth hasn’t been in touch with you?”

  Julia shook her head, her straight, silky hair pulled back with a sweatband. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I know things will work out somehow or another.”

  “I wish I shared your optimism,” Julia said weakly, and slipped off down the path toward the tennis court.

  Her anger deflated, Cozie climbed in behind the wheel and sighed heavily, refusing to look at Daniel.

  “Lonely lady,” he said.

  “Julia? That’s just what she wants you to believe.” A thought struck her. “When you two were in Texas together, did you get the idea that she—I don’t know exactly how to put this—that she was attracted to you?”

  “I told you: I never even saw her.”

  “But she could have seen you, heard about you, seen a picture, known you’re rich, macho, unmarried.”

  Daniel’s mouth twitched. “Macho?”

  “Well, yeah. Geez, you fight oil fires and fly jets, you wear boots….”

  “Boots are macho?”

  “Yours are.”

  He laughed. “This from a woman who used to live in a sawmill with no heat.”

  “You know what I mean.” She stuck the key in the ignition and turned it, coaxing her Jeep to a start. “Anyway, my point is, a Foxworth would be a better catch for a Vanackern than a Hawthorne.” She glared at him as he sputtered into laughter. “What?”

  He continued to laugh. It was a deep, rich sound that vibrated in all her vitals, reminding her of how easily, willingly, she had responded to him just a short time ago.

  “Are you trying to embarrass me?” she asked, pulling a U-turn on the dead-end dirt road and heading back out toward Hawthorne Orchard Road.

  “You should be embarrassed,” he said. “Your reasoning is highly flawed, Ms. Cozie, if you think Julia and I would think ourselves a good ‘match’ because she’s a Vanackern and I’m a Foxworth. I don’t think that way. Never have.”

  “She might.”

  “Takes two,” he pointed out, very sure of himself.

  She kept her eyes on the road. “I’m not saying it’s just your name that could have attracted her.”

  “I’m also macho and unmarried.”

  “Okay, never mind. You’re being deliberately obtuse and sarcastic and I’m not going to explain it. Just answer this question: do you or do you not, for whatever reason, think Julia could have dumped Seth to go after you?”

  He frowned, considering it. “So Seth sabotaged my helicopter to get rid of me, not to get back at Julia?”

  “No!”

  “Then what difference does it make if Julia is or was attracted to me?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. I’m just trying to make sense of this whole mess. Maybe your helicopter wasn’t sabotaged. Maybe that’s just a coincidence.”

  “The calls, the thefts, the break-ins, Seth’s taking off—they’re all unrelated coincidences?”

  Cozie ignored his sarcasm. “Maybe.”

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do.” He leaned back in his seat, one knee up, his seat belt off. Apparently her driving had passed muster. “If Seth did sabotage my helicopter, it’s possible he wasn’t trying to kill Julia but wanted her to witness the crash, to know she should have been aboard. He wanted to rattle her, let her know the kind of power he has over her.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  But she could feel his eyes on her. Her throat was tight, her fingers once again white as she gripped the wheel. They came to the end of the dirt road, and Cozie continued on into town, dropping Daniel off at his truck, parked, she now saw, up on the west end of the common.

  “Will you be spying on me all day?” she asked.

  He gave her a frank, sexy, utterly masculine grin. “And all night.”

  Chapter

  16

  “All right,” Meg said when Daniel and Cozie arrived in Aunt Ethel’s office, “what’s going on? The little ones are having a snack. I’ve got a permissive staff. If I’m not back soon, all the little boys will be playing firefighter on the bathroom wall.” She eyed Daniel. “You do that when you were a kid?”

  Aunt Ethel gave her older niece a stern look. “Are you going to tell them what you told me?”

  “In a minute.” Meg’s mood had suddenly darkened as she studied her younger sister. “First I want to know what bobcat Cozie had hold of this morning. You look like hell. What happened?”

  Cozie grimaced. “I snuck out to see Seth at the monk hut, but he wasn’t there and someone shoved me down the hill. I got stuck under a tree.”

  “I had to rescue her,” Daniel put in.

  “How mortifying,” Meg said. “So. Seth’s flown the coop?”

  “So it would seem,” Cozie acknowledged.

  Her sister exhaled. “I figured as much. Hell. His truck’s on the farm. Tom found it about twenty minutes ago. I don’t know how long it’s been there.” She let loose with a string of curses not many would expect from so revered a child-care provider. Then she grinned sheepishly. “Excuse my English and don’t tell my little kiddies, far too many of whom know the meaning of every word I just said.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I know it’s okay.” She turned to Daniel once more. “Bet you were tempted to drown her in the bathtub when you realized she’d snuck out on you, huh? She never has been clear-eyed where men are concerned. Cozie,” she went on, back to her preschool teacher persona, “the man is not putting you in a position of dependency. You need help. So. Call me with any developments. We’ll comb the woods for that fool brother of ours, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just trying to throw us off the scent—or if his stupid truck’s been there all along. If this is his idea of heroics…” She made a face. “Shit.”

  Aunt Ethel was stone-faced behind her library-table desk. “Think I’ll go home and oil my shotgun on my lunch break. If you ask me, someone’s trying to pin a whole lot of things on Seth that he’d never do.”

  Cozie nodded. “I quite agree.”

  Daniel, she noticed, was silent.

  “You think Seth’s being framed?” Meg had paled slightly, clearly not liking even the idea of her younger brother as the target of a nasty setup, rather than just an innocent—and coincidental—suspect. “But who would do such a thing? Why?”

  “I haven’t figured out that part yet,” Cozie said. “But I will.”

  “Well, when you do, let me know, because I sure can’t imagine…” She breathed out, leaving it at that. “I’ve got to get back. Daniel, are you making sure my sister doesn’t get into trouble or do I need to cart her back to the farm with me?”

  “Meg!”

  He smiled. “I see you do know your sister. I’d be happy not to let her out of my sight. But if she’ll promise to stay put and get her paper out, I’d like to go back to your farm with you and see if I can help find your brother.”

  Cozie folded her arms over her chest. “Why don’t I go, too?”

  But Aunt Ethel provided the answer. “Because you have a staff that awaits your direction and several dozen calls to return. I’m afraid word’s getting out fast that Seth’s on the run and you’ve been receiving anonymous threats.
This is what happens,” she added pointedly, “when you become the subject of headlines instead of the writer of them.”

  “All right, fine,” Cozie said, not pleased. “I can see I’m outnumbered.” She turned to Daniel and her sister. “Go ahead, you two. But if you find him—”

  “I’ll call you here at the paper,” Meg promised.

  Daniel was less forthcoming. “Do not,” he told Cozie, “leave the building until I get back.”

  The lecture on not ordering her around, she decided, would have to wait. “Just get back soon.”

  When they’d gone, Cozie warned Aunt Ethel not to say a word and went across the hall to her own office. She suddenly felt every one of her scrapes and bruises. Her head pounded. She took a couple of aspirin and ventured upstairs, where she got updates, checked assignments, discussed articles, decided between several photographs. Routine stuff. Work helped her feel more normal, but she was beginning to wonder if her life ever would return to something familiar, something she recognized as hers.

  Back down in her office, her private line was ringing. She pounced on it, hoping Meg or Daniel had news of her brother.

  “Hello, Cozie Cornelia…”

  Every muscle in her body went rigid. She stared out her tall window at Woodstock common. It was a beautiful autumn morning in Vermont. “I’d hoped you’d given up.”

  “Never. Everything’s going my way. I wouldn’t give up now. You’re scared, aren’t you?”

  Cozie heard the note of relish in the caller’s disembodied voice. She hesitated, but the person on the other end was obviously waiting for an answer. “I’m afraid for you. I think you must be a very sad, desperate person.” She bit down on her lower lip, her gaze focused on the statue of her ancestor, Alonzo Hawthorne. He’d faced cannons and bayonets. “I’d like to help you.”

  It was the wrong answer.

  The caller inhaled sharply—pained, taken aback, angry, Cozie couldn’t tell what—and slammed down the phone.

  Cozie cradled the receiver and flopped back in her chair, annoyed and frustrated and just so damned tired. Her windows, she observed, needed washing before winter. With the clear weather and the approaching weekend, leaf-peeper traffic had again picked up. She watched a toddler kick through freshly fallen leaves on the common, a senior citizen van unload its smiling, eager passengers.