Dangerous Secrets

by Lyn Cote

  Block eyed him. “You don’t see anything that we might have missed? I was hoping you would bring a new perspective.”

  Ridge shook his head, not liking the fact that everyone was gazing at him. His neck warmed just under his collar.

  “Well,” Block said, “let it percolate overnight. And tomorrow, you will visit the crime scene. And we should have all the results from the forensic tests by then. We’ll have more to work with.”

  Ridge, along with everyone else, pushed back his chairs and surged to his feet. It was nearly time for the day to end. Ridge returned to his office and looked at his oddly unfamiliar desk. He should feel right at home here. But he felt strange, as if he had become an alien to these surroundings. He’d only been away nearly three weeks. He sat down and tried to think what to do. He began going through the neat paper-clipped files on top of his desk, trying to reorient himself.

  He recognized his handwriting on his papers but he still felt as if he were a stranger sitting at someone else’s desk. It will just take me a few days to get back into the flow. That’s all. But Sylvie’s face popped into his mind again, her wispy fringe of bangs, her fair skin. He imagined stroking her soft cheek and trailing his fingers through her short hair. He closed his eyes, banishing her from his mind. And then he opened his eyes and resumed going through his files. Snap out of it, Ridge. Get a grip.

  Later that night, the phone rang at Keir and Audra’s house. “Sheriff, this is Ollie.”

  From Ollie’s tone, Keir did not expect this to be a social call. He could hear Audra saying good-night to their little girl, Evie, in her bedroom. “What can I do for you, Ollie?”

  “My granddaughter is missing. I think she might have run away.”

  Great. “Did she leave a note?”

  “No,” the older man said, sounding distracted, “I tried to look for one in her stuff. And, Sheriff, I think you need to come and look at Tanya’s room.”

  “What’s in her room?”

  “Just come. It makes me sick.”

  ELEVEN

  Ridge sat in his silent apartment. In front of him on the dusty coffee table, he riffled a stack of bills to pay. And he had so many other chores to do. He’d spent the whole day investigating the triple-murder crime scene and trying to keep his mind nailed to it. But it had been a futile exercise.

  His mind had kept returning to his North Star, which had become Sylvie, Ben and everyone up in Winfield. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve the unrelenting pressure he felt.

  Still, he’d put off calling Sylvie as long as he could stand it. Because yesterday, he had realized how much he had not wanted to leave her. Surrendering, he dialed her number. It rang six times and then she picked up, sounding breathless. “Hello, this is Sylvie.”

  “It’s Ridge.” Then he couldn’t think of what he wanted to say to her. Or was it that he knew what he wanted to say to her but he couldn’t say it? He pinched the bridge of his nose again.

  “Oh, hi,” she said.

  Her tone was not welcoming. Was she upset that he’d left her immediately after proposing marriage? But she hadn’t taken his proposal seriously at all. That still stung. “How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  Why was she acting as though he were a stranger? The memory of her soft lips made his own tingle. “How are things?” he asked, realizing how inadequate his own words were.

  “The ice is beginning to crack near Washburn.”

  I didn’t call for a weather report. I could look that up on the Internet. “I mean,” he said with emphasis, “how are things with the case?”

  “Didn’t the sheriff call you?” She sounded miffed with him. Why?

  Ridge began to steam. “No, he didn’t call me. Why should he have called me?”

  “Well, maybe he didn’t think that it…it had anything to do with Ginger’s case. But I think it might.”

  All right. Just tell me. “What’s happened?” he asked, holding on to his irritation with both hands and clenched teeth.

  “Tanya Hendricks, you remember who—”

  Why was she acting as if he’d lost all memory of Winfield in a mere twenty-four hours? “Yes,” he said emphatically, “I know who Tanya Hendricks is. Now what’s happened to her?”

  “They think she’s run away.”

  “She’s missing?” He sat up straighter.

  “That’s right. And, well, I know you hate gossip. But rumor has it that all kinds of drugs—LSD, marijuana and amphetamines, I think—were found in her room at Ollie’s house. I guess Ollie is pretty shook up.”

  This was not news to him. He’d read the signs of drug abuse when he’d watched Keir question the girl. Ridge rubbed his taut forehead. “Does the sheriff have any leads about where she might have gone?”

  “They’ve talked to her stepfather, that Jim Leahy that you and the sheriff went to serve a search warrant on. But he says he hasn’t seen the girl for months. Not since her mother dumped him and then dumped Tanya on her grandfather, Ollie. Keir and Ollie have tried to contact Tanya’s mother. But she’s somewhere in the south of France and they couldn’t get hold of her.”

  Sylvie’s concern for this young girl, whom she hardly knew, glistened in every word. His voice softened. “Do they think the Hendricks girl was snatched? Or did she just run away?”

  “They really don’t know. They’ve put out an APB because she took nothing with her. I would have thought that you might have heard about that.” Sylvie sounded distracted. Had Tanya’s disappearance increased her own unspoken fear?

  “No, I’ve been buried with this case.” He was stuck here and she needed him. “It’s really messy.” That was putting it mildly. He was glad that when they found Ginger, there hadn’t been any blood.

  “Do you want to talk to Ben?”

  No, I want to talk to you. Really talk. To you. Just you. Did being in Madison separate him so completely from her? Or was she upset because he had returned to his home in Madison? Everything had become tangled in a confused mess. A headache was beginning at the back of his neck.

  “Ridge?” she prompted.

  “Is Ben near the phone?” Ridge tried not to sound aggravated, though he was.

  “Come here, Ben,” she summoned. “Ridge is on the phone and wants to say hi.” Then she was off the line. Beyond his reach. That cost him an unexpected sharp pang. He massaged the center of his chest with the heel of one hand, trying to soothe the tension building there. He made small talk with Ben for a while and then he asked for Sylvie again.

  “She’s gone downstairs,” Ben reported. “Here’s Milo.”

  This felt like she was definitely avoiding him. Ridge tasted sour acid on his tongue. Was Sylvie avoiding him? But he did not ask that of Milo. They made small talk for a few moments.

  Then Ridge said, “I’m going to try to get off on the weekend to come up for a visit.”

  “Watch the weather reports,” Milo cautioned him. “There’s a lot of activity overhead—coming and going.” And you know how unsettled March can be.”

  It was as if everybody in the Patterson household was warning him away. When had he become persona non grata? “I’ll keep that in mind, Milo. Take care.” He hung up before he said anything more about Sylvie.

  Altogether a completely unsatisfactory phone conversation. He massaged the back of his neck, and then stretched his aching head in every direction. The words he had exchanged with Sylvie put him in mind of his weekly conversations with his parents—where they completely disconnected from him, leaving him “outside.”

  Without hesitation, he dialed Keir’s home number. And then without preamble, he asked, “What’s this I hear about Tanya Hendricks running away?”

  “Oh,” the sheriff replied, “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

  Obviously. “What’s this I hear about the Hendricks girl running away?” Ridge repeated, tapping the coffee table with his fingertips, making divots in the dust.

  “Ollie c
alled me last night. The girl didn’t show up to relieve the day person at the convenience store.” The sheriff sounded as if he was reporting the case to someone he didn’t know. Ridge’s fingertips tapped faster and harder. “Tanya hasn’t made many friends here, but Ollie called a few people who knew her. Without any luck—”

  “I heard they found drugs in her room,” Ridge interrupted.

  “Evidently Winfield gossip has traveled all the way down to Madison, too,” Keir observed wryly.

  “Sylvie told me.” Her name caught in his throat. “Who do you think Tanya’s supplier is? Maybe her stepfather?”

  “Well, there are several possibilities. As soon as I find the girl—that’s our main priority right now, of course. After I find her, then I’m going to set up a drug bust at Leahy’s. I’ve put it off too long because of Ginger’s murder investigation. I can’t get rid of drugs completely. But I need to keep the pressure on the local dealers. I can’t let them get cocky.”

  “I hear you.” Ridge racked his brain for some suggestion to offer the sheriff about finding Tanya. But he came up with nada. He stopped tapping the table and flexed his fist. He changed subjects. “Have you been able to arrest Doyle Keski yet?”

  “You’ve only been gone one day,” the sheriff chided. “I just took the DNA sample from him yesterday. It will take a while for the lab to identify it as a match or not with the cells left in the snowmobiling mask.”

  Ridge swallowed his irritation. “What I had in mind was—when you used the search warrant we got, did you find the money from Bugsy’s in Keski’s trailer?”

  “No luck there. And believe me, we searched. And his trailer was like a condemned landfill.” Keir revealed his disgust with his voice. “It took hours to search.”

  Keir cleared his throat. “I know you won’t like this. But I want to warn you. I am getting serious about setting Sylvie up as bait—”

  “You are right.” Ridge wished he could reach through the phone and shake some sense into the man. “I don’t want to hear that. I think doing that is completely irresponsible. It’s taking an unacceptable risk.”

  “And I think you’re deluding yourself. As a law enforcement professional, you know that it is the easiest way flush out our culprit. But you’re in love with Sylvie Patterson and you refuse to admit it.”

  Keir’s unforeseen words drenched Ridge like ice-cold water in his face. He almost sputtered out the first words—ones of staunch denial. But just in time, he caught himself before he said anything he would regret. “Well, keep me posted. And before you set up your trap with Sylvie as bait, I’ll expect you to give me advance warning.”

  “Will do.”

  Was he imagining it or did Keir sound amused? “Fine,” Ridge snapped and hung up.

  March 24

  The sheriff drove slowly down the highway that followed the line of the shore of Lake Superior. Tanya Hendricks had been missing now for two days. Even though he should be on his way home he couldn’t shake the idea that the key to finding the girl had something to do with her stepfather.

  He did not like Jim Leahy. It was a gut reaction and when it came to assessing people, he had learned to trust his gut. There was something furtive and underhanded about Leahy. The man might even be responsible for Tanya’s disappearance. And he may have left some clue of her whereabouts near his home. Keir slowed to let a deer pass in front of him.

  Wisps of mist floated up from the shore. Warm air had blown in and it was moving across the frozen surface of the lake, forming fog. The snow had melted over the last week, shrinking mounds and revealing brown, strawlike grass. And as Keir drove slowly down the highway behind the Leahy place, he glimpsed a private lane, which the snow had hidden before. It looked as if it followed the western perimeter of the Leahy property.

  Keir slowed and turned in. He would drive as far as the snow would permit him and then he would give up for the night and go home. His deputy Josh would be searching for the girl on every dead-end road and in every hunting shack in the county tonight. He entered the lane and drove slowly.

  Ahead, near a clump of trees, he glimpsed a strange mound on the ground. Rags? Keir blinked his eyes. No one would leave a bundle of rags out here in the snow mounds. Maybe it was just a pile of soggy autumn leaves. The bundle or pile or whatever it was moved. An animal? Or the lost girl?

  He slowed and halted. Getting out, he started for the pile. It growled. A small, dirty white dog appeared from the pile and barked at him. Keir shook his head and turned to go.

  The small dog pursued him—yapping. Keir ignored him, but the dog didn’t give up. Finally the little pest sank his teeth into Keir’s pant leg. “What!” Keir tried to shake the dog off. The little ball of fur wouldn’t let go. “Get! Get off me!”

  The dog began to tug at Keir, as if trying to pull him back toward the heap. Keir stopped. This dog wasn’t trying to be irritating; he wanted Keir to go to the heap of leaves. And wasn’t this the dog he’d seen at Leahy’s? Keir turned back and gazed at the leaves. They moved again. “Okay, fella, what’s this all about?”

  The dog yapped excitedly and bounded back toward the pile of leaves. Keir began walking and then running. He dropped to his knees in the melting snow beside the pine trees. Under the leaves lay Tanya Hendricks.

  For one second, he feared that she was dead. Then he remembered he had seen movement. He found her pulse, but it was weak and so very slow. He gathered her into his arms. He looked around for the dog but it had disappeared. He didn’t have time for another mystery. But when he had time, he would find out who definitely owned the little white dog who had pointed the way to the girl. And saved her life, Keir hoped as he punched dispatch’s number into his cell phone.

  March 25

  Sylvie couldn’t believe what the sheriff had told her. Why would Tanya Hendricks want to speak to her? But here she was Friday morning at eleven o’clock walking beside him down the polished linoleum hallway on the second floor of the Ashford Hospital. They paused at the end of the corridor at a glass partition and doorway.

  The nurse at the glass partition smiled at the sheriff, rose and opened the secured door for them.

  The sheriff nodded his thanks. “This is Sylvie Patterson. She’s with me.”

  “You’re in luck,” the nurse said. “Tanya’s been with the psychiatrist. He has been assessing her. But I think he’s finished with her.”

  “I have a court order to talk with him, too.”

  The nurse agreed to arrange it. And after a quick phone call, she gave him directions to the psychiatrist’s office downstairs. But first she led him and Sylvie to Tanya’s bedside. Tanya was in a semiprivate room, but the other patient was out.

  “Hello, Tanya,” Sylvie said when the nurse left them. The sheriff hung back by the doorway.

  The young girl in a drab hospital gown looked at Sylvie. “I know who you are,” Tanya said in a very frail voice. The girl was skeletally thin.

  “Yes, I run the bookstore.” Sylvie sat down on the edge of the bedside chair.

  The girl’s hair was clean but flattened as if someone had washed it and merely combed it back. She gazed at Sylvie, her eyes underscored by gray shadows.

  Sylvie offered what she hoped was an encouraging smile, but the thought that this girl might know something, have something to do with Ginger’s death made her smile falter. “The sheriff told me that you had information about my cousin.”

  Tears filled the young girl’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, so very sorry.”

  It was painful to watch this young girl look so miserable, sound so forlorn. Sylvie took Tanya’s limp hand between hers. “What do you have to feel sorry about?”

  “It was me. I didn’t mean to.” The tears continued. “But when I woke up, she was dead.” Tanya slipped her hand from Sylvie’s grasp and covered her face with both hands.

  Hearing the sheriff inhale sharply, Sylvie felt as though someone had just emptied a load of bricks onto her breastbone. She drew breath, but with difficulty.
“Do you mean my cousin Ginger?”

  The girl bent her knees and folded her arms around them. Then she began to rock back and forth, making the bed creak.

  “Did you see my cousin?” Sylvie couldn’t hold back the words. “She came to your store that first night she was in town, remember?”

  “I didn’t mean to. I was looking for…” The girl began to rock harder and faster.

  Sylvie felt her heart beating faster. “What were you looking for?” The girl didn’t answer her. Sylvie reached over to touch her, to reassure her.

  The girl screamed, “Go away! I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!”

  Sylvie jerked her hand back. “What’s wrong? How can I help you?”

  Tanya screamed louder without words this time.

  Sylvie leaped up from her chair, turning to the sheriff for help. Instead, he pulled her back toward the door.

  The nurse came running into the room.

  Sylvie took another step backward along with the sheriff.

  The nurse tried to calm Tanya. But the girl only screamed louder, more frantically.

  Another nurse rushed in. As she passed Sylvie, she said, “You’ll have to leave now. Please.”

  Sylvie obeyed. Outside the door, she leaned back against the wall, breathing fast. She looked up into the sheriff’s face. “Did you expect her to tell me that?”

  He shook his head as he drew her down the hallway and out of the psych ward. “No, and I don’t know what to make of it. I need to talk to her psychiatrist. Thank you for coming.”

  Sylvie felt his urgency to leave her and proceed with his investigation. So she merely nodded and let him go. But then she just stood outside the psych ward, trying to put it all together. She couldn’t.

  Ridge parked his SUV on the street in front of My Favorite Books. After the sheriff had found the lost girl, he’d called Ridge. The rest of what Keir told him, he still couldn’t believe. But what did that matter? This development had been enough to cause Block to send Ridge north. And at this moment, that was all that mattered.