Secrets in a Small Town

by Kimberly Van Meter

  Owen sobered. Gretchen had inadvertently zeroed in on his secret fear. Piper hadn’t exactly answered his question when he asked what her angle was. But he couldn’t imagine anyone in Dayton wanted to read anything new about Red Meadows and he certainly didn’t want to see it splashed all over the news again. Although he supposed if he wanted people to know his father wasn’t the bastard they thought he was, he’d need to release the information somewhere…still the idea of opening up the wounds was a little daunting. There were people who would never believe anything but what they wanted to believe. To some, Ty Garrett would always be the devil.

  And no amount of evidence proving otherwise was going to matter.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  PIPER FILED HER LAST STORY for the upcoming issue and tried to leave the building before Charlie made a nuisance of himself but she wasn’t so lucky.

  She was just at the front door when Charlie made his appearance.

  “Police seem to be interested in your comings and goings after finding William Dearborn with a bullet in his head. Weird stuff,” he said, causing her to turn and give him her best I’m-disinterested-in-whatever-you-say look.

  “Charlie, if you have a point, please make it. I have an appointment.”

  He shrugged, but his eyes registered delight. “No point. Just making an observation.”

  “How’d you know he was shot?” she asked, latching on to that, as of yet, unreleased detail.

  “I have sources.”

  “You’re the education reporter. What sources could you possibly have? Unless, of course, there’s some breaking news about the rising price in school lunches and the janitor wants to share what he’s been pulling out of the trash cans.”

  He chuckled but there was a distinctly nasty tone to it. “You ought to watch yourself. You’re poking around in things that could get a girl like you hurt.”

  “Oh? Says who?” When he simply smiled, she turned away in disgust, but only to hide the shiver that had chased her spine. “Go bother someone else, Charlie. You bore me.”

  She closed the door on his next comment but she felt his stare boring into her back. She’d always considered Charlie harmless… Had she been wrong?

  PIPER PULLED UP TO THE FARM and parked, not exactly looking forward to this appointment but she couldn’t walk away from the possibility that Farley Deegan was actually Farley Dearborn. Given how Farley worshipped her, she imagined getting the information from him would be easy—if he had any information to give; however, Olivia Deegan might be difficult.

  She walked up to the cottage that the Deegans had occupied since she was a child and knocked with sweaty hands. Farley opened the door, a giant smile wreathing his dopey face.

  “Hi, Farley,” she managed with a smile. “I hope I’m not intruding…”

  “You’re always welcome. You know that,” he said, ushering her inside the small home. The immediate scent of patchouli made her nose twitch but, by the grace of God, she held back the sneeze. “Can I get you some fresh mint tea?” he asked, the picture of a solicitous host, which only made Piper feel worse.

  “Tea would be great,” she said, glancing around the home, looking for any sign of William in the photos scattered around in handmade frames of shells and rocks and other unusual scavenged items. “Is your mom home today?” she asked casually.

  Farley returned with teacups in hand. “No, she’s off with the group, making a difference. You know how she is. Nothing stops Olivia Deegan.”

  “She’s a force of nature, that’s for sure,” Piper murmured in agreement as she lifted the teacup to her lips, wondering how to go about broaching the subject. In the end, she figured direct was best. Setting her cup down, she met Farley’s stare and asked, “Farley, are you William Dearborn’s son?”

  “Yeah.” Farley’s bemused answer shocked her so much she could only stare. “Why would you want to know that?”

  She let out a confused breath, staring at him for being so calm. “Did you know he died a few days ago? Was murdered even?”

  At that, Farley looked away and gave a short shrug. “I didn’t know him. It’s a tragedy he died so violently. But he’s with Gaia now, so I don’t grieve, I rejoice. He was a very unhappy man in life.”

  “Why’d he leave you and your mom? And why don’t you have his last name?”

  Farley quieted, and for the first time in their acquaintance, she saw a different side of Farley. “You know, Red Meadows changed people. Some people were able to pick themselves up and move on…William couldn’t seem to do that. William’s brother, my uncle Teddy, was among those who died. I think William lived with a lot of guilt. In the end, it was too much. When he left, we came here. My mom thought it would be best to cut ties completely so that we could get a fresh start. The farm enabled us to do that. We changed our names legally and William never contacted us again.”

  “But you’ve lived in the same town,” she exclaimed, her mind spinning. Did everyone in this town have something to hide? Had she lived her entire childhood with a bunch of strangers? It sure felt like it right about now. “Surely you must’ve seen each other from time to time. How awkward…and didn’t you want a relationship with your father as you got older?”

  Farley shrugged. “That wasn’t our path. He went his way, I went mine.”

  “Farley,” she began, shaking her head, not quite sure how to wrap her head around everything that she’d discovered in the past few days. “He was your father. And now he’s dead. Doesn’t that bother you in the slightest?”

  Farley met her incredulous stare with a strong one of his own. “We all make choices. He made his. I’m not going to live my life with regret.”

  She huffed a short breath and set her teacup down for fear of dropping it in her agitation. “Okay, so you weren’t close and you didn’t want to be. But the fact remains he’s dead. Who would want to hurt him? Do you think it has anything to do with Red Meadows?”

  “Why would it? That was twenty-five years ago.”

  She dropped her gaze and nibbled her lip. “Well, I don’t know if this means anything, but when I found out that your dad was at Red Meadows and he still lived in town—of course, this was before I discovered there’s a handful of people still around—I went to his place to ask some questions. He told me some things that have led me to believe that…well, maybe things weren’t reported accurately when it all went down.”

  “William had begun to lose his mind from the isolation,” Farley warned her. “I wouldn’t put much store in what he had to say. His memory was likely faulty. He might’ve even made a few things up. You never know.”

  “I thought that at first, too, but I have reason to believe that he was telling me the truth and now he’s dead. Do you see a correlation?”

  Farley paused, then said, “I think it’s a stretch. This is Dayton, not San Francisco. It’s not like this town has secrets worth killing for,” he added with a patronizing chuckle that immediately grated on her nerves, signaling the Farley that annoyed the hell out of her had returned. “But it’s so like you with that clever mind to try and find a story no matter where you look.”

  Piper tried not to grit her teeth. Instead, she directed the conversation back to more fertile ground. “You know that box you brought to me yesterday?” At Farley’s nod, she continued, more convinced than ever that she was sitting on the hottest story Dayton had ever seen. “There was a journal in it that didn’t belong to me. It belonged to a woman named Mimi LaRoche, a woman who was killed twenty-five years ago, right before the Red Meadows raid.”

  Farley looked aghast. “How morbid. Did you throw it out? I’m sorry you had to find that.”

  “Of course I didn’t throw it away,” she retorted, unable to keep the irritation from her voice. “It’s important evidence that proves my theory.”

  “Your theory of widespread deception in the town of Dayton?” he said with another deprecating laugh that made her want to do something rash. And particularly painful on his end. Sensing h
er rising blood pressure, he tried to mollify her, saying, “Listen, I think you’re chasing a ghost story, but it seems important to you, so it’s important to me. How about this… I will see what I can find out about that journal, such as how it winded up in your things, and if I find anything, I will let you know.”

  She relaxed a little, realizing that he was making an effort. “Okay,” she agreed, yet added a caveat. “Please call first before just showing up. I don’t want a repeat of the other day.”

  Farley’s grin said he wasn’t sorry at all for catching her in her birthday suit, but she supposed she’d let him have that one. As much as Farley annoyed her, he’d been a friend for a long time. It wasn’t his fault she could never see him as anything but the boy she grew up with when he’d, at some point, fallen in love with her.

  She rose and prepared to leave, but Farley stopped her at the door. “I miss hanging out,” he admitted, all traces of the annoying Farley gone. “Since you left the farm, I never see you anymore. It’d be nice to get together once in a while. Even just as friends.”

  Piper nodded. “I’ll work on it,” she promised.

  He accepted her answer with a smile. “See you around, then.”

  She started toward her car but then noticed the farm was oddly quiet. Usually, it was bustling with activity. The quiet was unnerving and it signaled that something was going on. She turned to Farley, a question in her eyes. “Where did you say your mom went?”

  Farley cracked a grin. “The tree-sit, remember? They’re staging a protest against Big Trees Logging. Gonna shut him down for as long as possible. Didn’t your mom tell you?”

  She winced, her immediate thought going to Owen and how fired up he was going to be when he found his operation shut down. “I gotta go,” she said, rushing to her car. She had to talk some sense into her parents before they ruined any chance for her to get more answers out of Owen.

  Damn. Damn. Damn!

  OWEN LISTENED TO HIS FOREMAN, Wesley Butcher, pepper his rant with swearwords above the crackle of the radio and once Owen caught the gist of the information, he followed with a blue streak of his own.

  “They’ve shut us down, Owen,” Wesley ground out. “They were here first thing this morning before first light. And there’s a bunch of those tree-hugging liberals up the tree, too. You better get over here, pronto.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said, shoving the half-eaten sandwich Gretchen had made for him into the trash. He wouldn’t have time to eat it now and it would likely go bad sitting in his truck. He called out to Gretchen, letting her know where he was going in case she needed him, whistled for Timber who came bounding, and tore out of there, spitting gravel in his wake.

  This was just perfect, he thought sourly. He should’ve known something like this was coming. That group had been entirely too quiet as of late. Obviously, they’d been mobilizing for a bigger event. Had Piper known this? Had she been running interference, keeping him busy so they could slip in unnoticed?

  The thought raised plenty of ugly questions and one thing was for sure, if he saw a certain reporter she was going to get an earful.

  Owen arrived in a cloud of dust, throwing his truck into Park so hard the transmission protested but he was too pissed to care. He strode into the clearing with Timber loping beside him, past the silent and waiting skidders and loaders, and their operators. He went straight to Wesley, who was staring up at the cluster of ecoterrorists with a jaundiced eye worthy of a crusty pirate. “You call the police?” he asked.

  Wesley nodded in disgust. “For all the good it does. They’re just gonna yell at them with a bullhorn and order them to come down, which they’re gonna refuse. We’re gonna lose a full day of production. Damn it!”

  He clapped a hand on Wesley’s solid shoulder and gave the short, compact man leave to take a breather. “I got this,” he said, agreeing with Wesley the day was shot. “Why don’t you guys go crack a beer. I’ve got some cold ones in the truck.”

  Wesley gave a final look at the tree-sitters who were perched on a platform about thirty feet in the air and walked away in search of a cold one, saying, “You’re the boss.”

  He called out to the tree-sitters, “You’re breaking the law, you know. Don’t you have better things to do than make the lives of honest folk miserable?”

  An egg came sailing his way, narrowly missing him as he sidestepped the bio-missile to have it shatter messily on the ground. Timber sniffed at it before walking away, disinterested. Owen silently fumed. Maybe he should’ve let it hit him. Then he could’ve had them arrested for battery, too. Laughter followed and he gave them a middle finger.

  The sound of another car pulling up caused him to turn and, when he saw Piper climbing out, camera in hand, he wanted to put his hands around her neck and squeeze until her head popped off.

  OH, DEAR. HE WAS REALLY MAD. Piper’s heart fluttered. No, that was too gentle a word for what was happening in her chest right now. Perhaps banging was more appropriate. Yes, her heart was crashing, banging, colliding into her chestbone so hard she worried a cardiac event was next.

  “I didn’t know,” she started to say even as she lifted her camera to snap a picture at the spectacle. She snapped again from another angle. “I mean, I can’t be held responsible for everything my parents do.”

  He grabbed her camera and she startled at the sudden motion. “Your protests would carry more weight if you weren’t taking pictures for the paper while you do it,” he said in a steely tone that caused her to shiver.

  “I have a job to do,” she retorted, a subtle shake in her voice. She glanced at the tree-sitters, easily picking out her parents as they waved cheerfully, and she returned to Owen with a guilty flush. “I didn’t know. But if I leave this place without a story, I could be fired.”

  He let go of her camera but his gaze hadn’t softened. He looked every inch the hardened logger she’d been faced with at the newspaper, not willing to give an inch and ready to destroy any obstacle in his way. He wasn’t looking very cuddly, that’s for sure. So why was it her knees were weakening and her body tingled with awareness in a way that made remaining celibate seem a ridiculously lofty goal, particularly in his presence?

  “You and I are going to have words,” he promised her in a soft voice that did terrible things to her resolve. It was only when he stalked away that she could breathe normally again. She shaded her eyes and looked up at her parents’ group and resigned herself to the part she would have to play in all this. “I really didn’t know,” she muttered to Timber who had ambled over to her with his tongue lolling. She gave the dog a rugged pat on the head. “Not that he will ever believe me. Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad.”

  CORAL NARROWED HER STARE at the scene below as Piper absently stroked Garrett’s dog’s fur. She didn’t care for the familiarity at all. “Did you see the way he manhandled Piper’s camera?” she said to Jasper, incensed for their daughter. “What a brute. He’s Ty’s son for sure. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “She can handle herself,” Jasper said, pride in his voice. “I hope she gets a good shot. I’m not sure that camera has the range needed to get the full—”

  “Jasper, stop focusing on the minutiae of unimportant details,” Coral said stridently. “We have bigger issues. Likely he will have called the authorities by now. We need to hold the line for at least another day. That should put a serious dent in his profit margin. Perhaps with enough of these types of events, he’ll leave for good.”

  Jasper sighed. “It hasn’t worked in all the years you’ve been trying. I think a different strategy is called for…or perhaps just letting it go.”

  Coral’s stare turned wintry. “Let it go? How easily you’ve forgotten the fallen. Mimi should ring a bell.”

  “Let it go, Coral,” he shot back, irritably. “You’re becoming obsessed and it’s highly unbecoming.”

  Olivia hushed them. “Stop fighting. We can’t have our fearless leaders showing dissention in the ranks. We’re do
ing something important here.”

  Coral nodded but spared Olivia an annoyed look. Olivia had always been a sanctimonious twit but they were bound by common interests and circumstances. “Right. Stay focused, people. We don’t want anyone tumbling to their death.”

  Light laughter followed but Coral didn’t share their mirth. Jasper called her paranoid but she felt a shadow hovering over them and she couldn’t shake the notion that a reckoning was coming…one that was long overdue.

  She shuddered. Not yet…she wasn’t ready.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PIPER DOWNLOADED HER PHOTOS, picked the best one for the next issue and shut down her computer, eager to go home and bury her head under the pillows. Ordinarily, she might find her parents’ political antics entertaining but tonight, she felt weighted by their actions and forced to support a cause she wasn’t sure was hers any longer. She loved the environment as much as anyone else, she understood and believed in the reasons her parents championed certain causes, but this single-minded focus to drive Owen Garrett from Dayton was beginning to feel suspect.

  Doubts followed her all the way home. By the time she opened her door and walked inside, she was ready to fall into a tub full of bubbles with a bottle of wine for a companion.

  In fact, she knew that was exactly what she was going to do. She didn’t hesitate, dropped her purse to the table, and went straight to the bathtub. She simultaneously stripped while starting the water. While the claw-footed bathtub filled, she went for the wine.

  Reaching for the white zinfandel, she also grabbed a wineglass and returned to the bathroom.

  After a quick test of the temperature, she sank into the bubbles, sighing as the water lapped her tired body. Her head lolled back and she took a hearty sip of the wine, letting it soothe the rough edges and blunt the confusion making a mess of her brain.