She jumped to her feet and grabbed her field coat, ignoring the pain in her left shin and the residual stiffness of being pushed down a steep hill. She stopped in the front hall and poked her head into her aunt’s domain. “I’m going home.”
Her thick brows arched. “Cornelia. You promised Daniel you wouldn’t leave the building.”
“I did not ‘promise.’ I just didn’t argue with him when he gave the order. Aunt Ethel, if whoever’s behind all this mess wanted to hurt me, they’d have done it this morning at the monk hut.”
Her aunt scowled. “Seems to me they did.”
“A rock to the side of the head would have been a lot surer way to be rid of me than pushing me down a hill. I’ll be fine up at the house.”
“You got another call, didn’t you?”
Cozie sighed and, reluctantly, nodded.
“Shall I notify Will Rubeno?” her aunt asked.
“No, I’ll call him myself.”
“It wasn’t…” But Ethel Hawthorne was at a rare loss for words. “Seth couldn’t have—”
“I hope not. I need to find him, Aunt Ethel. I can’t stand sitting around here. I thought I’d go up and have a look around his place. The police have been up there, but they don’t know their way around as well as I do; I might see things they’ve missed. Look, I’ll be fine. If you don’t hear from me in an hour or so you can call in the cavalry.”
“You’re going to leave me to explain to your Texan?”
“You can handle him.”
“Oh, I know that,” she said without doubt.
Cozie joined the leaf-peeper traffic snaking up Hawthorne Orchard Road. She tried to be patient. She forced herself to absorb the nuances of color—the dozen shades of red—around her. It was warm enough that she could roll down the window and suck in deep lungfuls of the crisp air. Seth would do all right out in the countryside today.
A car with Georgia license plates was pulled to the side of the road above her sawmill, a middle-aged couple taking pictures. Cozie felt a surge of pride that her place, which she’d worked on for so long, could bring such pleasure to strangers. Her father had never quite understood tourists, at least ones who crawled up his road during foliage season.
She thought she did. The appeal wasn’t just the beautiful scenery, it was also the link they felt with the past, even a nonexistent, romanticized past—something that reminded them of hope and possibility, transported them from the complexities of their own lives. When he drove up Hawthorne Orchard Road, Duncan Hawthorne had seldom seen beyond the complexities of his own life. He would think about the taxes required to keep up the road, he would see the effects of disease and pollution in the trees, he would understand the work and grief and abandoned dreams that the places along the road had experienced. It was all so very real for him. He loved the land not because of any nostalgia—he knew what it was to do without water when a dead chipmunk had contaminated the well—but because it was a part of him, not just something his family had owned for generations, not just an investment.
By buying the land, Cozie wondered, had she been trying, in her own way, to keep her father alive?
She sighed, turning onto the unmarked dirt road up past the sawmill. When she parked in front of her brother’s house, Julia Vanackern surprised her, waving from the side yard.
“I was just out for a walk,” Julia said when Cozie joined her, “and ended up here. I guess I was hoping against hope Seth would be back.”
“No sign of him?”
She shook her head.
“Cozie, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.” Julia looked away, across the apple orchard, so picturesque in the autumn sun. “Mother and Dad really don’t care about the stuff that’s missing. They think by reporting the thefts to the police they’re ultimately helping Seth.”
“That’s a hell of a stretch.”
Julia’s mouth was a grim line. “I never should have let him believe there could have been anything serious between us. The timing was all wrong; I didn’t see what kind of stresses he was under.”
Cozie glanced at the garden. There were brussels sprouts that needed picking. They were always sweeter after a frost. She and Seth were the brussels sprout eaters of the family. “Did he ever give you any indication that he resented my success, resented my buying our place?”
“Cozie—”
“Did he, Julia?”
“No. Not explicitly. But this hasn’t been an easy year for him. I know you and Meg think he just doesn’t care about money and success and all that, but he does. His self-esteem is very low right now. I think he believes he failed you and Meg, your mother….” She paused, facing Cozie. “Your father. His memory. But I don’t know if that would translate into resentment.”
Cozie tried to listen to Julia’s assessment without arguing or getting defensive, to look at her brother through another person’s eyes.
Julia sighed. “This all must be especially painful for you. Everyone can see what’s happening between you and Daniel Foxworth.”
There was a sharpness to her voice that drew Cozie’s attention. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, please. Don’t pretend nothing’s going on.”
Cozie swallowed, remembering last night, feeling Daniel’s hands on her. “Julia, it’s not easy for me to talk about that sort of thing.”
“I know. Here you have a real romance going and your family could ruin it for you. If Seth did take down Daniel’s helicopter, the two of you—well, it would be impossible.”
“You were in Texas. Do you think it’s possible? Could Seth have sabotaged Daniel’s helicopter?”
“You mean did he have ‘motive and opportunity’?” Julia pondered the question a moment. “He definitely had opportunity: Daniel Foxworth wouldn’t be here if he didn’t. As for motive…” She shrugged, the sunlight glistening on the palest highlights of her hair. “He was terribly upset when I broke off our relationship. I told you that. It was a clean, irrevocable break; I don’t believe in stringing people along. Then no sooner did we arrive in Houston and meet Austin Foxworth, Daniel’s grandfather, than the rumors start about Daniel and me.”
Cozie couldn’t keep the surprise from her face.
“Oh, I see Daniel hasn’t mentioned that little tidbit to you,” Julia said coolly. “Well, I’m just giving you the facts. Believe me, all they were were rumors. There’s never been a thing between us.”
Possibly, Cozie thought. But was that what Julia wanted?
“Daniel and I had never even met,” she went on. “I suppose it’s possible Seth heard the talk and lashed out at Daniel on impulse.”
“How would he have heard Texas rumors in Vermont?”
Julia’s smile was close to condescending. “Some people here do keep track of me and my family. Seth works for us, so he would be tapped into that network.”
“He said he went to Houston because you wouldn’t come to Vermont and he wanted to know where he stood with you. I understand you think you’d been clear with him about your relationship, but apparently he didn’t get it.”
Julia made a face. “He was just being thickheaded. I couldn’t have been more plain.”
Cozie didn’t argue with her.
“Well, it’s all so silly. I’m inclined to believe the helicopter crash was just an unfortunate accident that has nothing to do with the rest of what’s been going on. Look, I should be going. If there’s anything you need—”
“There isn’t right now, but thanks for the offer.”
Julia started back up the dirt road, and Cozie went into Seth’s garden, no longer sure of her purpose in coming here. She broke off a few small brussels sprouts, but they were stubborn little things and she’d need a knife to get a meal’s worth.
Where could Seth have gone?
Halfway back to her Jeep, she noticed the passenger door on Seth’s skeletal Land Rover was ajar. It hadn’t been that way yesterday. She was sure of it. She rushed up to the Rover, a project her brother had been working
on for over a year, and peered into the passenger window.
A moth-eaten wool army blanket was pulled over what appeared to be two wooden apple crates, one on the battered backseat, one on the floor. With a shaking hand, Cozie pulled open the stiff door and drew back the blanket.
“No.”
The crates were filled with jewelry, sterling silver flatware and serving pieces, antique Delft, an antique clock, a few odds and ends in gold. There were a couple of wads of cash.
Cozie’s head pounded. She tried to stiffen her muscles to help stop her shaking. Her throat was so tight with tension she could barely swallow. He wouldn’t be this stupid.
Daniel’s truck pulled in behind her Jeep, and he walked up the short dirt driveway, grim-faced in his military-style sunglasses. She fought an urge to slam the door and pretend she hadn’t seen a thing.
“Find anything?” she asked with false brightness.
“No. Thad Vanackern called. He talked to your aunt, said he’d just called the police. He saw Seth up here within the past hour.”
“But Julia was just here.”
“It must have been before she got here. Thad said she was out walking and he was worried about her should she run into Seth.”
“Well, he doesn’t have to worry,” Cozie snapped. “She’s on her way back now. She didn’t see him.”
Daniel had a bad angle on the apple crates. “What are you trying to hide?”
“I’m not—”
“There’s something disarming,” he said without humor, “about a woman who’s as lousy at lying as you are.”
She knew she had no choice. He touched her shoulder, forcing her to move aside, but his expression didn’t change when he saw the apple crates.
“This stuff could have been planted here to make Seth look guilty,” she said.
“By whom? When? Do you have any witnesses?”
Cozie’s jaw clenched. “That’s for the police to figure out.”
His gaze, impenetrable behind the dark glasses, turned on her. “That’s right: it’s for the police. Your cop friend’s on his way. He’s going to get the Vanackerns to identify these things. When they do, he’ll have no choice except to get a warrant for Seth’s arrest.”
She didn’t back down. “When you start looking at this thing more objectively and rationally and less as your opportunity to nail your saboteur, you’ll see that someone is trying to hand my brother to the police on a silver platter for crimes he has not committed. He’s being framed, Daniel.”
But Will Rubeno had already pulled up in his cruiser, and he joined them at the Land Rover. “Well, well,” he said, seeing the apple crates.
“Before you jump to any conclusions,” Cozie said, “I suggest you have a thorough conversation with Thad Vanackern.”
Will stared at her. “You accusing him?”
“I’m not accusing anyone.”
“Makes a hell of a lot of sense. You tell me why Thad Vanackern would make those calls to you. Hell, Cozie, you tell me why he’d sabotage the helicopter his own daughter was supposed to have been riding on.”
“I never said I had all the answers.”
He scoffed. “Wish I had my tape recorder: a Hawthorne admitting to not having all the answers. Come on, Coze. Tell me why Thad Vanackern would steal his own stuff, why he’d risk breaking into your house and office. The guy’s known all over town. He’d be recognized.”
She gritted her teeth. “So would Seth.”
“He doesn’t stand out like Thad Vanackern would. He could do stuff and no one would necessarily pay any attention. Thad Vanackern’s got no motive; Seth does. If I were you, I’d find your brother before he does something he really regrets. Now go on. Get out of here and let me do my job.”
Cozie opened her mouth to protest but shut it again when she realized Will Rubeno was in just the mood to arrest her. He’d been looking for an excuse since the eighth grade. She headed back to her Jeep, ignoring both men.
But Daniel fell in behind her. “I’ll follow you.”
“Maybe I’m not going where you’re going.”
“Honey,” he said, “wherever you’re going, I’m going.”
Daniel was true to his word. Cozie felt only a minor twinge of guilt that she hadn’t been true to hers: it wasn’t his brother on the run. After letting Aunt Ethel know she was alive and well, she took a discreet look around the house in case Seth was there. She began with the toolshed and worked her way inside, not giving a damn if Daniel could guess what she was up to. For all she knew, her brother was hiding in the dirt cellar with the garter snakes.
She straightened. It was a thought. He knew she hated venturing down cellar. He could tuck himself down there in relative safety and comfort.
Daniel was putting together sandwiches in the kitchen.
She slipped into the back room and down the cellar stairs. Half the cellar had been modernized, with concrete floors and finished walls, while the other half had the original dirt floor. She ducked under a low beam and felt through the cobwebs for the overhead light, just a bulb in a socket. She found the string and pulled, and the sixty-watt bulb illuminated the immediate area. The corners behind the furnace and pump, toward the stone walls, remained dark. Her parents had been great do-it-yourselfers, but she planned to hire plumbers and electricians to deal with anything that went wrong down here. It wasn’t so much the work, it was the atmosphere.
She could smell dust and mildew, feel them in her nostrils.
A splotch of dark red in the dirt caught her eye. She dropped to one knee, blood pounding in her ears. With one finger, she touched the splotch.
Blood. It was still tacky.
“Seth.”
Squinting, her eyes adjusting to the dim light, she could see more splatters of blood. Her brother had been here. He was hurt.
Was he close by now? Had he snuck in here after Thad Vanackern spotted him up at the farmhouse?
A snake slithered about six inches in front of her bare foot, and she leaped up, yelling.
The snake disappeared, but the damage was already done. She could hear Daniel upstairs as he bounded into the back room, presumably to her rescue. Cozie groaned.
“Seth,” she whispered, “I hope you’re not in here.”
Because if he were, she was leaving him to the snakes. She pulled the string to the light and backed out, keeping her eyes open for any other slithering intruders.
She was back in the finished part of the cellar when Daniel hit the last stair.
It was speckled with blood. Cozie could feel her knees sinking under her. But she said, “I was startled by a snake. I’m going down to the hardware store in the morning and get some poison. I know they eat mice and bugs and all that, but I really can’t have snakes in the cellar.”
“Cozie—”
“I suppose you want to know why I’m down here?”
“I don’t ask questions when I already know the answer, unless I want to know if the person I’m asking would lie to me.” He casually dropped from the bottom step to the floor, standing very close to her, so she could see the little scar at the corner of his eye. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Cozie?”
She licked her lips, and he watched. “I wouldn’t want to.”
“You were looking for your brother,” he said.
“He’s not down here.”
Daniel moved a step closer, seeming even bigger, more muscular, under the low ceiling. “What would you have done if you’d found him?”
“Made sure he was all right.”
“I like to think,” he said, “that in similar circumstances I would be as loyal to my family as you are to yours. But I can’t say that I would be. I’ve been bred and trained all my life to consider the facts and make judgments accordingly.”
“I am considering the facts,” she said calmly.
He didn’t argue with her. He touched the scrape on her forehead. The warm brush of his fingertips on her skin brought an unwanted, unwelcome surge of physical aw
areness. “Are you all right?”
She nodded.
But she could see he didn’t believe her. “You’re hiding something,” he said.
“Daniel—”
He dropped down from the bottom step and pushed past her into the old part of the cellar. She didn’t stick around. She headed back upstairs to look for any spots of blood she might have missed, any clues as to where Seth might have gone.
Zep was curled up by the woodstove. “If only you could talk,” she said.
When Daniel came back upstairs, she could tell at once that he, too, had seen the blood. He said, “We’re going down to the police station. You’re telling Will Rubeno everything.”
But this time she didn’t argue. She’d already come to that same conclusion. “I think for once we’re on the same wavelength.”
He moved close to her, and she could tell from the smoky steel of his eyes that he wasn’t thinking about her brother. “What about last night? Were we on the same wavelength then, Cozie, or was that just a fluke?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and darted past him out the back porch before she could say something she would regret, like how much she hoped, in spite of everything, last night had been anything but a fluke.
Chapter
17
It was a long time at the police station. Daniel was impressed at how Cozie, once she’d made up her mind, gave it to Will Rubeno straight. Sneaking out to the monk hut, being pushed from behind and landing under a tree, getting the anonymous call at her office, finding the missing goods in her brother’s Land Rover. She even told him about the blood in the cellar.
Daniel was likewise forthcoming. He produced one of the detonator caps he’d found among Seth Hawthorne’s things in the monk hut. Rubeno regarded it with interest. “Think it’s yours?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said.
Finding You Page 25