Secrets in a Small Town

by Kimberly Van Meter

  Leaning back in her chair, she ignored the flashing cursor on her word processing program, her thoughts in a tangle. And there was the biggest problem of all…what was she going to tell Owen about what her parents had shared? She felt she owed it to him, but when she thought of how crushed he’d be…there it was again…hesitation. Damn it, Piper, she chastised herself. Get it together. Just because you slept with the first man in your life, doesn’t mean you have to give up everything you’ve worked for.

  Do you still want a Pulitzer? she questioned herself ruthlessly.

  Yes. God, yes. The medal would look so wonderful framed on her mantel.

  So suck it up. Stop falling for Owen Garrett and get focused.

  Right. She bypassed the sad little ache that created a fissure in her chestbone and returned to her computer, determined to get the newspaper work finished so she could do some more digging on Red Meadows. The problem, she realized, was that she had to determine if her parents were being truthful about Ty Garrett, and if they weren’t, why?

  Well, she amended, that was the problem she was willing to tackle today. The rest would have to wait.

  OWEN MADE ARRANGEMENTS with his foreman out at the site and then headed for the hospital to see Gretchen. He’d received a call saying there was some kind of disturbance involving Gretchen.

  He strode to Gretchen’s room, his thoughts racing. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Timothy standing sentinel by her side. A police officer was taking a statement, which told him something happened involving Danny Mathers, the piece of shit who’d caused all this turmoil.

  “What happened?” he asked Gretchen after the officer took his leave.

  She wiped at the tears flowing down her cheek, but he was glad to see the high spots of anger there. “He had the balls to come here, acting like it was all okay and he was going to see the baby. It’s a good thing she’s not here but in the NICU, or the jackass might’ve tried to run off with her, not even caring that she needs special care right now.” She spared Timothy a grateful look. “If it weren’t for Timothy… He made sure Danny understood the lay of the land.”

  She dabbed at her eyes but then clenched her fists in a show of righteous indignation. “That rat bastard. I can’t believe I ever thought I was in love with him.”

  “So they caught him?” Owen asked, hoping that was the case. He’d sleep a lot easier knowing that asshole was sitting in a cell instead of roaming the countryside.

  “Yes, thank God,” she said. “Timothy wouldn’t let him in the room and things got a little heated. Then the police showed up when I hollered for the nurse and told her who he was and that he was wanted for trying to kill me and the baby.”

  Owen looked to Timothy and he simply nodded as if to say he agreed with her rendition of the events. “Good job, Timothy. Glad you were here,” he said, not liking the thought of what might have happened if Timothy hadn’t been here. But by the looks of things, you’d have to pry Timothy away from Gretchen’s bedside. The man had it bad. How he’d managed to hide his feelings for Gretchen all this time, Owen didn’t know but then he didn’t traffic in matchmaking so he didn’t much care, either. He was just relieved Gretchen and Quinn would be safe. “So how’s the baby?”

  Gretchen lost her ire and beamed. “She’s doing excellent. She’s a fighter. You can see her later if you want. Timothy was just going to help me to the NICU so I could express some breast milk for her.”

  Breast milk. That was his cue to leave. “Thanks, but I have to get back to the site. Do you have a name for the kid yet?” he asked, being polite and to steer the topic to safer ground.

  Gretchen’s mouth softened and she shared a look with Timothy. “Well, Quinn was having a hard time deciding so Timothy suggested Audrey, because it means noble strength. We thought it was perfect, since she’s such a survivor.”

  “Audrey.” He tested the name and found he liked it. “I agree. It’s a good fit.” He smiled and went to shake Timothy’s hand for being there when Gretchen needed him. He sensed Timothy would always be there and he was standing where he’d always wanted to be. He envied the man’s quiet resolve and patience and wondered how he’d known Gretchen was the woman for him, even though at the time, she’d been with someone else. He’d simply waited until Gretchen realized the man she’d been looking for had been right in front of her the whole time.

  That was some heavy stuff. Mama Jo would’ve called something like this divine intervention, guiding two people who were meant to be together. He wasn’t sure if he bought into that entirely, but he was glad to see two people find each other, no matter the unusual circumstances.

  Inspired and buoyed by his friends after he left the hospital, Owen detoured from his office to the Dayton Tribune where he hoped to find Piper but had no such luck—the receptionist told him she’d already left the building.

  “Might you know where she went?” he asked, to which he received a false smile but little else. “Let me guess…you don’t give out that kind of information?”

  She smiled again as if to say Bingo! And realizing she wasn’t going to budge, he left. But before he could drive away, he found a man slouching against his truck in the parking lot. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I bet I know where Piper is,” he said.

  “Yeah? You a friend of hers?” Owen asked, not liking the man’s tone or the way he was leaning on his truck.

  “Friend is a generous term. Colleague is more like it. So, I hear she’s digging into the Red Meadows raid. I bet that puts a crimp in your date nights.”

  Owen narrowed his stare at the man. “What did you say your name was?”

  He pushed off the truck and held out his hand, which Owen reluctantly accepted. “I didn’t. My name is Charlie Yertz. My family’s been around a long time in these parts. My uncle owns this place, actually.”

  Owen didn’t see why that was relevant but he figured even skinny nerds like Charlie Yertz needed something to crow about. “So, did you say you knew where Piper went?” he asked, bringing the conversation back to something he was interested in hearing.

  “You know, I’ve never seen anyone more driven, more focused than Piper. When she sets her mind to something, she gets it. I mean, look at you…one minute you’re ready to pull her head off and the next she’s got you dropping by the office all nice-like, ready to enjoy a pleasant lunch date. She’s good. I’ll give her that.”

  Owen didn’t like what this guy was implying and his scowl said as much. “What’s your point?”

  Charlie held his hands up. “No point, just making conversation. But man to man, I think I owe it to you to warn you.”

  Man to man? That was rich. Only one of them qualified by Owen’s estimation but he wanted to know where the guy was going with his warning so he encouraged him with an “Oh?”

  “She’s just using you to write the story that she thinks is going to propel her out of Dayton and into the big-time New York scene. She wants a Pulitzer and she’ll stop at nothing to get it.”

  He stared at the man, not sure if he wanted to deck him for being an annoying little pissant or shake more information out of him. Something about what he said made a certain amount of sense and that was the part that bothered him. Piper was undeniably driven. And she had pursued him relentlessly to gain access to him for her research into Red Meadows. Against his better judgment, he asked, “To what purpose? So what if she’s digging into the Red Meadows raid? Who’s going to want to read about that? It’s old news.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. William Dearborn was killed in the same way Mimi LaRoche bit it twenty-five years ago. Seems a little suspicious that Dearborn eats it right after sharing some juicy details with Piper about the raid. You know, the cops consider her a person of interest in Dearborn’s case.”

  That was absurd. Piper was capable of getting into a heap of trouble, but he couldn’t see her killing someone for a story. However, he could see her being ruthless in her attempt to get information. Had she inadvertentl
y put Dearborn in danger by asking questions?

  Charlie’s nasal voice cut into his thoughts. “Why do you think she’s been digging so hard into the past? She needed you for one reason and one reason only…your memories of Red Meadows.”

  “That’s a bunch of bullshit,” he muttered, eager to get the hell away from this man and the toxic crap he was putting in his ear, but Charlie wasn’t finished.

  “Is it? I don’t know…I’d at least check it out. You wouldn’t be the first Garrett to fall victim to a beautiful woman, no matter how bad they were for you.”

  At the reference to his father, Owen nearly grabbed the man by the neck but he’d already turned tail and returned to the safety of the office. What the hell did he mean? He bit back a mouthful of frustration. It felt like everyone in town knew more about the past than he did, even when it came to his own father.

  He tried to wipe away the stain left behind from the man’s insinuations but they stuck no matter how he tried to bleach them with reassurances.

  Was Piper using him?

  His lips formed a grim line when he couldn’t get the questions to stop. Well, if she was, she was doing a bang-up job and deserved an Oscar because she was putting on a damn good show.

  Hell, he’d bought it.

  But he’d never been the kind of man to go off on vague notions and assumptions. He’d go right to the source and ask her straight. Mama Jo always said it was better to hear it from the horse’s mouth rather than another’s back end.

  He just had to find her first.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  PIPER WAS BACK AT THE LIBRARY hoping to find Mrs. Huffle in a chatty mood like she was the last time she’d been in but the old gal wasn’t at her post. Instead, a dour-looking matron with permanently down-turned facial lines bracketing her mouth greeted Piper with an expression that said I-hate-my-job, don’t-ask-me-any-questions, so Piper didn’t.

  She found the archives herself and thumbed through them in the hopes of finding something she hadn’t seen before but as she combed through the copious articles, her eyesight soon blurred and her thoughts wandered.

  She didn’t want to believe that Ty Garrett was a monster. If she were to believe her parents, Owen’s father seduced a young girl and then had her killed when she got in the way. It would devastate Owen if that were the truth. Sadness crept into her thoughts. Owen was a good man. How could the apple fall so far from the tree? She couldn’t imagine.

  If her parents lied about being at Red Meadows, what did that say about them? Could she believe them about what they’d said about Ty Garrett?

  She fished out the journal she kept in her purse and reread a few passages. Throughout, she found love and hope until the last entries. Had Mimi known something bad was coming? Had she lain awake at night, fearful for her unborn child? She swallowed the lump gathering in her throat. She wasn’t sure if she was morose for Mimi’s lost future or for her own turmoil. Piper tucked the journal away again, still unsure of where to turn. She needed to talk to her parents again and get them to somehow open up to her about the past but unless she had more solid proof…something to compel them to tell the truth… Her gaze returned to her purse where the journal remained hidden from view.

  An idea came to her. She may have found a way to sway them.

  But before she could leave, Owen walked into the library, a storm crashing behind his eyes, and she sensed she was at the heart of it. She nibbled her lip and tried a smile but he wasn’t having any of it.

  “We need to talk,” he said without preamble. No “hello,” “hey, baby,” “had fun last night”…nothing. Just a curt demand for her attention.

  She tried not to bristle but she didn’t do well with orders. Not even from men she found desperately handsome and devastatingly sexy. “About what?” she asked, settling back in her chair.

  “Tell me the real reason you’re going after Red Meadows.”

  She gaped, her mind furiously working, vacillating between the truth and total fiction and she was troubled by how quickly her first instinct was to offer up a fish tale. Just like her parents had given her. She chafed privately at her own drawn parallel and went boldly with truth.

  “I want to write about it.”

  He swore. “Why?”

  “Because it’s the biggest story no one has ever told, sitting right here in Dayton. Imagine, if I can prove Ty Garrett wasn’t the monster everyone thought he was…it would change history. And it wouldn’t hurt for you, either. For once, you could talk about your father without censure in this town.”

  “I could give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks of me or my father. I know who he was and that’s all that matters.”

  “You’re lying. It matters a lot. You’ve always wanted people to forgive your father for his part in Red Meadows but that’s kinda hard to ask for when the man’s been painted as the villain all this time.”

  “No one in Dayton is going to change their minds no matter what you find,” he shot back. “Besides, I don’t believe you have Dayton in mind for this story. Am I right?”

  She hesitated. It was true, she’d been thinking of a bigger, national stage for her story but in the face of Owen’s anger, she was reluctant to admit to it. “I don’t know,” she flung back, anxious to turn the focus away from her. “But if you’d just stop thinking emotionally for a minute, you’d see that it’s a win-win for you and me.” He drew back, as if stung, and she reacted defensively. “I don’t need your permission to write this story.”

  “No, you just needed my memories,” he said bitterly. “And what better way to get them than to pretend your motivation was purely altruistic.”

  “Come on, Owen, you and I both know you didn’t really buy that story. But you wanted to believe it, so you did.”

  “What about this morning?” he asked.

  She colored, glancing around to see if anyone had caught their conversation. She lowered her voice, saying “What about it?”

  “Was that part of the investigative process?”

  This time she was the one who felt slapped. “Excuse me? I won’t even dignify that with an answer. No, wait, I will because that was the most vile thing anyone has ever said to me. I didn’t give you my…my…most precious gift because I was doing research.”

  Unmoved by her answer, he simply shrugged and said in the most infuriatingly flip manner, “So that was just a bonus?”

  “You’re a jerk,” she said, mortified to feel tears stinging her eyes. Damn, she was crying over a man—something she swore she’d never do. She gathered her papers to her breast and fixed her purse on her shoulder, needing to get the hell away from him. “You know what? I’m going to write this story and I don’t care what you think about it. I don’t care if you think I used you to get information—which, for the record, I did not—and when I win a Pulitzer for busting open the biggest scandal Dayton has ever seen, I’ll send you a Starbucks gift card for all your help.”

  OWEN STARED AFTER PIPER, willing his feet to chase after her, but he was stymied by his anger over her admission. That slime colleague of Piper’s had been right. She had been using him, even if she didn’t care to admit it. Her focus had been Red Meadows all along, but in the beginning, she hadn’t denied that fact, either. Maybe he was the idiot, not her.

  But even so, it rubbed him the wrong way.

  He liked her. Hell, he might even feel more than that for her but he was loath to admit to something that she didn’t share in the least.

  For the first time since he was a kid, he felt lost. An awesome wave of homesickness overcame him and he wished he were back in Bridgeport, sitting at Mama Jo’s table, eating cornbread and ribbing his brothers. He was too old to cry but the sucker punch to his gut was enough to make his eyes sting. Maybe it was time for a trip home. He’d put it off too long and Mama Jo had been after him for quite some time but he’d always had too much on his plate to commit. He’d give it some serious thought. His foreman could run the operation while he was gone. And Piper
? She could go to hell, for all he cared.

  TEARS BLINDED PIPER as she drove to her parents’ house, determined to get answers, no matter how hard they tried to dissuade her. She’d do whatever she had to to get them to open up, even if it meant threatening to walk away and never speak to them again. She dashed the salty moisture from her eyes, turning her attention to the road before she ran into a tree as she cried the tears of an idiot.

  She drove up her parents’ drive and parked. Taking a full minute to compose herself, she took several deep breaths before she could exit her car.

  I will not accept anything but the truth, she told herself as she marched to the door.

  She let herself in and found her parents sitting at the breakfast nook, speaking in low but urgent tones. They stopped as soon as she entered, their guilty expressions fueling her resolve.

  Piper reached inside her purse and slammed the journal to the table, causing both to jump at her sudden action. “This is the journal of a woman who was in love with Ty Garrett, the man you claim was a monster. Her words don’t support that claim. Now, either you level with me and tell me what you know or I’ll walk away and you’ll never see me again because I can’t be around two people who have blatantly lied to me my entire life. You have a chance to redeem yourselves right now.”

  Coral’s mouth trembled and she looked ready to lose it. She looked to Jasper. “You were supposed to throw that away years ago,” she said, blinking back tears.

  “I thought I did.” Jasper stared at the journal as if it were a snake about to bite him. “Where’d you find that?” he asked, his lips white.

  “Does it matter? The fact remains that I have read it and I know more than I did before, and your stories are smelling like fiction. How did you know Mimi LaRoche and how did you happen to gain possession of her journal?”

  “Piper—” her father started, but Coral interrupted, seeming to collapse in on herself, as if the strain of whatever secrets she was hiding had suddenly become too much.