“May I take another one?” she asked him.
He smiled again, this time for the camera. He was a Sullivan all right. Marsh and Reed didn’t need a DNA test to determine that much.
“I can’t believe it,” Noah said.
She glanced up and snapped his picture, too. “What can’t you believe?”
“It’s the first time I’ve seen him smile. He obviously has good taste in women.”
She wished she didn’t feel so complimented.
“Would you like to hold him?” he asked.
She ached to. “Maybe some other time.”
There was a moment of awkwardness between them. They weren’t a couple anymore, and neither knew what to say. After a few more seconds of uncomfortable silence, Noah picked the baby carrier up by the handle, an effortless shifting of muscles and ease, and said, “I guess I should get this little guy home.” He slipped the strap of the diaper bag over one shoulder then started toward the back door where he’d entered ten minutes earlier.
Lacey slid her hand inside her pocket. Reassured that her nest egg was still safe and sound, she glanced into the shadowy corners around the room. Goose bumps popped out up and down her arms all over again.
With her camera suspended from the strap around her neck, her key in one hand and the bowl of spaghetti in the other, she hurried after Noah, locking the door behind her as she left. While he wrestled to secure the car seat properly in the seat of his truck, she started up the stairs.
“Lacey?” he called when she was halfway to the top.
She glanced down at him. “Yes?”
He was looking up at her, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. “I’m glad you’re back. Orchard Hill hasn’t been the same without you.”
She didn’t have a reply to that because she wasn’t sure how she felt about being back. She climbed the remaining stairs and let herself into the apartment. After putting her camera and the spaghetti away, she stood for a moment catching her breath and willing her heart rate to settle into its rightful rhythm.
When Noah was gone, she went out again, locking that door, too. She cut through the alley and emerged onto Division Street.
Orchard Hill was a college town of nearly 25,000 residents. Three seasons of the year, the downtown was teeming with activity. Now that most of the students had gone home for the summer, Division Street had turned into a sleepy hometown main street. That didn’t keep her from looking over her shoulder this afternoon.
Her first visit was to the electronics store three blocks away where she studied the wide assortment of cell phones before choosing one she could afford. Her first call an hour later on her prepaid, bare-bones cell phone was to the Orchard Hill Police Department. After all, it was one thing to be unafraid of things that went bump in the night and another thing to ignore evidence that somebody had gotten into a locked tavern and slipped out again with barely a trace.
Lacey knew how a shadow felt.
She’d waited an hour for the police cruiser to arrive. Now she wasn’t letting the man in blue out of her sight.
She’d shown Officer Pratt the sleeping bag and cue stick, and explained the situation as best she could. She answered his questions then remained an unwavering six feet behind him as he checked the perimeter of the tavern inside and out.
A tall man with thinning gray hair, he didn’t seem to mind having a shadow. He painstakingly rattled windows, inspected sashes, jiggled locks and shone his silver flashlight into corners, behind doors and inside both restrooms.
After examining the doors and dead bolts and finding that nothing seemed to have been disturbed, he returned to the pool table where the narrow sleeping bag now lay. “You’ve never seen this before today?” he asked.
Lacey shook her head.
“Are you sure you didn’t give out any keys to anybody? An old boyfriend, maybe?”
He was only doing his job, so she answered his question. “I had new dead bolts installed after my father passed away. Nobody has a key except me. I know I locked the doors yesterday because I had to unlock them this afternoon before I could get in.”
He turned the narrow sleeping bag upside down and gave it a little shake. A plastic bottle of water rolled out, across the floor. With a great creaking of his hips and knees, he squatted down to reach it. Hauling himself back to his feet, he unscrewed the top.
“Do you wear pink lipstick?” he asked, holding the bottle toward the light.
She shook her head and took a closer look, too. The clear plastic bottle was half-full. She recognized the brand of sparkling spring water as one sold locally, but the pale pink shade of the lip print around the top didn’t look familiar to her at all.
“Frankly,” Officer Pratt said, “I’m stumped. Nothing inside the tavern has been taken, broken, meddled with, defaced or damaged in any way. Judging from the size of the sleeping bag and the pink print on the bottle, it’s safe to assume we’re dealing with a female. I don’t know how she got in and out, or why. The windows are all intact and the locks appear secure. It looks to me as if we have a Houdini on our hands. I’d call it breaking and entering, except nothing’s been broken. Other than the sleeping bag and water bottle, there’s not even any evidence that an actual trespassing has occurred. It feels more like a mystery than a crime, doesn’t it?”
He capped his pen and closed his book, obviously finished here. She followed him to the door, where she said, “Then you’re not going to do anything?”
“There’s nothing more I can do,” he said. “I’ll make a note of your call and the subsequent findings for my report, and I’ll have a patrol car drive by periodically if it’ll make you feel better. Call the department if you notice anything else or if she comes back, but I don’t think she will.”
She thanked the policeman for coming. After he was gone, she put the cap back on the bottle and started to gather the sleeping bag into a heap for the trash. Something made her stop short of the trash can.
She hadn’t heard any news reports about recent serial killers wearing pink lip gloss and sleeping under pool tables. Officer Pratt said it himself. The entire situation felt more like a mystery than a crime.
Crimes were frightening, but mysteries were, well, mysterious. The goose bumps that had been popping up all over her body dissolved. Rather than throw the items away, she shook out the bedroll and refolded it, then put it back where she’d found it under the pool table, the bottle of water with its cap screwed on tight beside it.
After cataloging everything in her mind, she turned out the lights and locked the tavern’s back door. As she climbed the stairs to her apartment, she wondered if Officer Pratt was right, and whoever had visited the tavern was long gone, never to return.
Upstairs, she wandered through the little kitchen and the living room with its ancient sofa and her father’s old chair. She wasn’t surprised when she found herself in the tiny storage room her dad had converted into a darkroom for her when she was fourteen.
She hadn’t used anything here since she’d left town two-and-a-half years ago. The amber safe light still worked and the four flat trays were stacked neatly on the counter. The enlarger, developer, chemical thermometer and the rubber-ended tongs were on the shelf where she’d left them. Maybe later she would develop the pictures she’d taken today.
The coming night no longer seemed bleak. Miraculously, neither did the immediate future.
She had a roof over her head, enough money to live on for a little while, although she was going to have to find a job soon. She had a dear, quirky friend to talk to, a mystery to ponder and a heartfelt apology from Noah to savor. Maybe there was a reason she was in Orchard Hill and Noah was in Orchard Hill. In her mind she pictured him as he’d looked this afternoon, a sleeping baby in one hand, his hair a little too long and his eyes hinting of intimacies they’d shared.
“People don’t change,” he’d said.
Perhaps not, she thought as she took the spaghetti from the refrigerator and sampled her first bite
, but sometimes circumstances did. Noah had told her he was glad she was back. It was beginning to feel good to be back. And that was the last thing she’d expected.
Chapter Four
A phone was ringing. And ringing.
Lacey was leaving the restaurant on Division Street when it dawned on her that the ringing was coming from her purse. This was her first incoming call, and since only one person had her number, she said hello to April as soon as she answered.
“Any luck with your job hunt?” April asked.
“Not yet.” She stepped out of the way of two customers heading for the busy restaurant. “Everyone I’ve talked to so far is cutting back. Rosy promised she’d call me if one of her waitresses quits. Oh, and Henry Brewbaker proposed while I was there.”
Henry Brewbaker walked with a cane and tottered to The Hill for a late breakfast every morning where he had a standing order of two eggs over easy, crisp bacon and blackened toast. Not even Henry could remember exactly how old he was.
“I hate to break this to you, but Henry Brewbaker proposes to somebody at least once a day.” April’s laugh was cut short by a soft moan.
“Is something wrong?” Lacey asked.
“I called to tell you that your paperwork will be ready for your signature later this afternoon. Remind me to have my head examined if I ever so much as think about trying to drink you under the table again.”
Lacey smiled into the phone. After she’d eaten her fill of leftover spaghetti last night, she’d walked over to April’s house on Baldwin Street. April’s three-year-old twins had fallen asleep in the middle of the bedtime story Lacey had been reading to them. Once the little ones had been tucked in, April had uncorked a bottle of strawberry wine and she and Lacey had talked about everything under the sun. By the second glass, April was giggling.
“No offense,” Lacey said as she smoothed a crease from her navy slacks, “but you couldn’t drink a teetotaler under the table.”
“I know. It comes from being a preacher’s daughter. You really haven’t had any luck at your job hunt this morning?”
“Other than one maybe and that marriage proposal, no.” Lacey had left her apartment two hours ago. So far she’d spoken with every shop owner and office manager in every business on the first five blocks of Division Street. Most were friendly and talkative, but nobody was hiring. She still had two lawyers’ offices, a title company, two dress stores and a CPA firm to try.
“I’m surprised you haven’t found something,” April said.
“Why?”
“Because I had a dream about you last night.”
Lacey was intrigued because April’s dreams ranged from prophetic to unsettling to just plain weird. “You dreamed about me? What was I doing?”
“For a long time you were in the distance, lost in your reveries, walking, walking, walking. When you finally got closer, Johnny Appleseed stepped in front of you, blocking your path.”
“Johnny Appleseed?” Lacey asked.
“You know, the sculpture on the town square. He came to life and handed you a sign. On one side it said Welcome Home. On the other side it said Now Hiring. That’s why I was sure you’d find a job today. What else could it mean?”
“I think it means no more strawberry wine for you,” Lacey said, smiling. She didn’t get any arguments from April. After promising to stop by the real-estate office later to go over the listing contract, Lacey stood for a moment in front of the first dress shop she came to. She didn’t know why she didn’t go inside.
She started walking, walking, walking. A car backfired and easy-listening music played over the speaker on the corner. Lost in her reveries, she barely heard the sounds around her, her eyes on the bronze sculpture at the head of the town square.
Orchard Hill historians couldn’t agree how long the sculpture had been standing in its place of prominence in front of the courthouse. To the residents of Orchard Hill, he was iconic. Children tried to climb him, every year the varsity football team was photographed in front of him and couples became engaged beneath him. He was often cited in directions. “When you come to the sculpture, turn right.” Or “If you can see Johnny Appleseed, you’ve gone too far.”
A whimsical fellow, the statue stood eight feet tall in patched dungarees and a tattered shirt. On his head he wore a kettle for a hat. Lacey didn’t see any Welcome Home or Now Hiring signs in his outstretched hand this morning. However, she did see Noah and his brothers standing nearby.
She knew better than to stare, for staring at any of the Sullivan men was like staring at the sun. It caused her eyes to water and her head to spin far more than strawberry wine. Even after she managed to close her eyes against the onslaught of all that testosterone-laden brawn, the imprint was burned on her retinas, scratched into her brain. Nothing could have prevented her from looking again, though. This time, her gaze rested on Noah alone.
She found herself crossing the street as if she was gliding on a current of air. She didn’t stop until she was three feet away.
This was a bad idea.
Noah had known it since the moment Marsh and Reed had mentioned it after they’d returned from their meeting with the P.I. in Grand Rapids yesterday. He wasn’t surprised they were impressed by Sam Lafferty’s probing questions, straightforward approach and expertise. It was the P.I.’s advice that they contact someone in the court system that Noah questioned. According to Sam, the youth protection agency, a branch of State Services, had the authority to swoop in and move Joey to foster care unless Marsh and Reed went through the proper channels.
“Believe me,” Sam had said, “you don’t want that to happen.”
Reed had called their great-uncle, Judge Ivan Sullivan, and Marsh was backing the decision. Joey wasn’t happy about it, and frankly, Noah didn’t blame him.
The baby had started crying as soon as they’d parked in the lot fifteen minutes ago. The meeting with the judge was scheduled to begin in five minutes, and the elder Sullivan didn’t take kindly to being kept waiting, great-nephews notwithstanding. They had five minutes to quiet Joey. Unfortunately, he showed no signs of relenting. His little face was red and his mouth quivered with every waaa-waaa-waaa. They’d tried feeding him, walking him, jiggling him and singing to him. He wanted nothing to do with being appeased. Noah hated to imagine what the judge was going to say about their ability to care for an infant if they couldn’t find a way to comfort him by the time the meeting began.
This was a bad idea. Presenting a crying baby to the judge had as much potential for disaster as the proverbial apple cart careening downhill.
“Is something wrong with Joey?”
Noah turned at the sound of Lacey’s voice. For the span of one heartbeat, everything else disappeared. There was no noise, no confusion. There was only Lacey. He was either having an embolism or a revelation.
“He won’t stop crying.” Reed had to raise his voice in order to be heard over the baby, who was screaming in his ear.
Noah blinked as if returning from a great distance. When he first met Lacey, she’d worn her dark hair short. It was long and slightly wavy today. The breeze fluttered the delicate collar of her blouse, the fabric nearly the same shade of blue as her eyes.
“What have you tried?” she asked.
“Everything.” This time Marsh answered. “Do you know anything about babies?”
“I know a little.”
“Do you have any suggestions?” Reed asked.
Lacey held out her hands to Joey and carefully lifted him from Reed. Cradling him in her arms, she swayed to and fro and crooned unintelligible words to him, gently holding his flailing hands to his sides.
Before everyone’s eyes, Joey stilled. He took one ragged breath, then another. His lips trembled, and tears matted his eyelashes, but he stopped crying. He looked up at Lacey so forlornly that Noah didn’t know what to say. Marsh and Reed were in awe, too.
All around them, normal life resumed. The bell in the nearby church tower chimed hosanna as it
did every day at half-past eleven. The sun peeked through holes in the clouds like grace in old Sunday-school posters. The breeze carried the scent of the Thursday lunch special from the restaurant a block away. A panel truck rattled through the intersection. Two lawyers conversed on their way from the courthouse. Flowers bloomed along the sidewalk, and tinny music played over speakers nearby.
In the midst of it all, Noah felt the stirring of something he couldn’t name. It was part desire—there was always desire when it came to Lacey—but there was something else, too, something akin to enchantment. She’d always been a looker, with her full, pouty lips and centerfold body. There was more to her than beauty, though. Sassy and witty, she could spar with the best of them. She wore sandals with cork heels and slim navy slacks that made her legs look a mile long. He’d felt those legs wrap around him many a night. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t give to experience that again.
“He’s falling asleep,” Marsh declared quietly.
“How did you do that?” Reed asked at the same time.
Noah watched Lacey as she looked down at the baby in her arms and then at Marsh, Reed and finally at him. She’d undoubtedly noticed that he hadn’t spoken a word. He ran his hand along his clean-shaven jaw, and saw her taking everything in, from Marsh’s black polo shirt, to Reed’s tie, to Noah’s white broadcloth shirt, the cuffs rolled up to his forearms.
“I learned that tactic from April,” she said quietly. “Babies this small like to be wrapped up tightly. It’s called swaddling. I don’t have a blanket so I’m using my arms to simulate that feeling of security. Why are you three dressed up?”
“Joey has an appointment to see the judge in a few minutes.”
“What did he do?” she asked.
Noah laughed out loud. The only one who reacted to her dry wit, he found himself looking into her eyes the way he gazed at the horizon, as if he could see all the way to infinity. He felt the stirring of something otherworldly again, and he didn’t want it to stop.
A Bride Before Dawn Page 5