Liam swung around the gas station lot so he could park with the nose of his blue sedan aimed at Jessica’s building. A light went on in the corner of the third floor. Jessica’s bedroom. She never went to bed this early. Liam could still call her, still drive across the street and take the elevator up to her floor. He could still be abject, still tell her what she wanted to hear. They could still set a date and move toward their wedding.
If only the stakes were not so high this time.
He got out of the car and pulled a credit card from his wallet. Forcing himself to look away from Jessica’s building, Liam slid the card into the pay-at-the-pump slot and picked up the nozzle for regular unleaded gasoline.
“Hello, Liam.”
His head snapped up and he stared into the eyes of Mayor Sylvia Alexander as she filled her tank next to his. “Good evening.”
“It’s not often I see both Elliott brothers in one evening,” Sylvia said.
“I hope Cooper’s behaving himself.” Liam opened his tank and inserted the nozzle. He smiled. Liam knew the mayor preferred Cooper, but he would play along with her friendliness if for no other reason than the meeting he had scheduled with her in a couple of weeks.
Of course, he could be on his way to prison by then. Cooper would probably be the one to come and arrest him. Liam squeezed the nozzle with one hand while he felt for Jack Parker’s business card with the other.
“Any word on Quinn?” Liam asked. Two days ago, Quinn seemed like Liam’s last hope, but that was before Liam found the missing pieces of his puzzle.
“No, but I remain optimistic,” Sylvia said. “We’ll find him and he’ll have an explanation.”
If Quinn had an explanation for what he’d done, he’d be ten steps ahead of Liam, whose only way out—possibly—was to point a finger in a direction that made his gut twist just thinking about it.
The mayor’s nozzle shut off, and she replaced it in its cradle on the pump. “I guess I’ll call it a night.”
Liam nodded. “Let’s hope for good news tomorrow.” He certainly needed some.
While his tank filled, rather than look at Jessica’s building, Liam watched the numbers on the digital display flip. Maybe tomorrow he would know what to say to her. He drove back through downtown and west to the complex of apartments where he lived. With the strap of his briefcase hanging off one shoulder, Liam turned the key in the lock. He had everything from his desk at the office in that bulging, soft-sided leather computer bag. He wasn’t letting the incriminating papers out of his sight. Someone in the corporate office might still trace the electronic trail, but Liam saw no point in making the job easier.
As Liam flipped on the light switch next to the door, his foot scuffed against something on the floor. He squatted to pick up a nine-by-twelve-inch manila envelope and turned it in every direction.
He found no mark. The flap was sealed. Supposing it to be a communication from the building owner to the tenants, Liam tore off the top edge and slid out the single page of contents.
Centered neatly on the sheet of ordinary white copy paper, the message was simple.
I know. For a price, I’ll help you.
Breakfast in Birch Bend at seven.
You know the place. Don’t be late.
6
No Time for Answers
Wednesday
7:42 a.m.
Liam Elliott was first aware that his right elbow hurt. Then his neck abruptly announced its discomfort. He swam up toward consciousness as his back demanded repositioning. The yawn that followed, huge and devouring, reminded Liam of the chronic lack of sleep over the last few days and the persistent sensation of waking up without feeling refreshed. He rubbed his eyes, stunned that he had fallen asleep at all.
He hadn’t dared go to bed.
Liam had laid the note on the breakfast bar and stared at it for two hours. Before its arrival, in the last few days Liam had imagined the shame of being confronted by a corporate executive about seventy-three thousand dollars missing from the client accounts Liam managed. He had imagined the embarrassment of being arrested, of having his hands locked together behind his back. He had sickened over the possibility of losing Jessica. He had known the dismay of a suspicion he could not yet prove.
But he had not imagined a blackmail note.
By midnight Liam was playing snippets of old movies in his head. A clever detective noticed a swirl in the handwriting or the texture of paper that gave away the blackmailer. For Liam, there were no handwriting clues.
By 2:00 a.m. Liam was thinking about the old typewriters, where no e was like any other, so finding the blackmailer was a matter of locating the typewriter and following the trail from there. The note Liam found under his door was printed in a common default font on ordinary printer paper that anyone could buy in an office supply store or a big-box store. How many computers were there in Hidden Falls? How many printers?
At 3:00 a.m. his brain was empty of possibilities for who might have slipped that note under his door.
I know, the note said.
Who could know? Liam had only discovered the missing funds a few days ago, and he had spoken to no one about it. He carried his papers and his laptop everywhere he went. The screen on his office desk was only a monitor. Without the hard drive of Liam’s laptop, the screen could give away nothing.
Who could possibly know?
At 3:30 a.m. Liam jammed his swollen briefcase in a backpack in the rear of his closet and buried it among the camping gear he never intended to use again, hoping it would be safe there for a few hours.
At 4:00 a.m. Liam made coffee and resolved to shower and put on a business suit before driving to Birch Bend. He wouldn’t go to this meeting looking disheveled and frightened and vulnerable.
At 5:00 a.m., dressed, he sat at the breakfast bar staring at the note again and wondering about fingerprints.
At 5:30 a.m. he folded his arms on the breakfast bar and laid his head in their nest just for a minute.
Now Liam shot off the stool, the red lights of the digital wall clock in his kitchen finally registering in his weary brain. 7:43! His heart pounded and his eyes refused to stop blinking. He gasped at irregular intervals.
Breakfast in Birch Bend at seven, the note said.
Liam had no idea who left the note, so he had no idea whether the person would wait. He slid the note into its envelope, snatched his keys off the breakfast bar, and ran out of the apartment.
You know the place, the note said.
Liam wasn’t certain. Birch Bend was larger than Hidden Falls, and Liam had a couple of favorite places to go for breakfast. Was the note writer someone who knew his haunts? In the twenty minutes it took to drive to Birch Bend, he would have to decide which was the right place.
Liam imagined it was sacrilegious for a supposed embezzler to pray about a meeting with a probable blackmailer, but he didn’t know what else to call the sensation of trying to conjure hope. He had no hope within him. It had to come from somewhere else.
One restaurant edged out the other in his head, and he drove there, arriving at 8:10—more than an hour after the appointed time. A waitress in a green apron put a menu in front of Liam and offered coffee. He raised the menu to read it, but the words blurred. Blood pulsed through his temples as he looked around the restaurant for anyone he recognized. He had clients in Birch Bend. He had clients all over the county, but his files were confidential. Midwest Answers had one security system layered on another. Hacking in would have taken serious expertise, and a second person discovering the missing money—if it was a second person—screamed against the odds.
Yet Liam sat in a restaurant, suspicious of every face that looked vaguely familiar. He ordered a tall glass of orange juice and a muffin. Food in front of him, whether or not he consumed it, gave him a reason to remain in his booth and watch people. Liam didn’t know who he was looking for, but if the author of the note was still in the main dining area, he or she would see Liam.
When it
arrived, Liam sipped the orange juice.
His eyes met the gaze of a fiftyish man six tables away, his stomach burning at the realization that he knew this man. Burt. Bart. Something like that. Henderson or Hendricks. They stared at each other. Liam sipped his juice again without moving his eyes.
Finally Burt—or Bart—dropped his napkin on the table and zigzagged between diners. Liam stood up, wondering if a handshake was appropriate under the circumstances.
“It is you,” the man said, extending his hand.
Liam accepted the handshake, which felt anything but sinister. Wouldn’t someone who wrote a blackmail note be certain whom he was meeting?
“I know it’s been a few years since you set me up,” Bart—Liam was sure now—said. “I just wanted to tell you how well that fund you suggested for me has worked out. I didn’t believe you when you said it would yield as well as it has, but I’m glad to admit I was wrong.”
Liam eased out the air lodged in his throat. “I’m glad to help. Call me anytime you have questions.”
“I live out of the area now and I’m going home tomorrow, but I just might do that.”
Bart turned to go. Liam’s knees barely held his weight, finding security in the booth bench behind his legs just in time. His throat parched, and he dumped the juice in his mouth and downed it in one long gulp. It was past eight thirty now. Liam scanned the room one more time. No one stared back. Leaving his muffin untouched, he tossed a ten-dollar bill on the table and walked out into the sunlight.
Liam wasn’t ready to get in his car and drive back to Hidden Falls—not while his heart beat so fast. There were always errands to do in Birch Bend. He could check his UPS box, for starters. He had several around the county so clients and vendors in each area would feel they were dealing with a local consultant. The county was too thinly populated for Liam not to cover as much territory as he could, and he and Jessica were in Birch Bend often enough that checking the box was never an inconvenience. Liam walked the four blocks to the UPS store, flipped through the keys on his ring to find the right one, and withdrew a stack of envelopes.
What he needed were the responses to corporate mass mailings or paperwork from clients. Liam riffled through the contents of the box, prepared to toss junk mail before he even left the store. As he pulled one pale yellow envelope from the stack, Liam’s fingers trembled.
Mr. Ted Quinn, it said.
Quinn had a UPS box, an alternate address. The three digits in the box number were an inverted arrangement of the same three in Liam’s number. Liam understood his own business reasons for the box he kept in Birch Bend, but why would a schoolteacher pay for a box? He flipped the envelope over and inspected the seal, which was firm and flat. Liam glanced up at the clerk busy behind the counter with a customer and three stacked boxes to ship.
He ought to give her the envelope. Liam knew that. He didn’t need to add another form of theft to the list of crimes he might be accused of.
But what if the contents of the yellow envelope contained a clue to Quinn’s whereabouts? Liam knew enough about direct mail to recognize this was not an impersonal advertisement. Neither was there a glassine pane to show an address on an invoice or a statement. This had the feel of a true letter. The name of the business, however, gave nothing away about its nature.
With one fingernail, Liam again tested for a loose edge at the end of the seal, but nothing gave. Short of taking it home to steam it open and reseal—a procedure Liam had no experience with—he couldn’t open the letter without ripping the envelope.
Liam propped the envelope up against a sample shipping carton and took his phone out of his pocket. With a swift click, he photographed the envelope, and with a second he zoomed in on the return address. Then he put on his congenial face, approached the clerk, and returned the mysterious envelope.
10:04 a.m.
“I know the health fair was my idea,” Lauren said, “and I still believe in it. I’m just not sure we can do it well without Quinn, and I would hate for it to be a sloppy catastrophe. So I wonder what you think is the best way to let people know it’s canceled.”
She raised her water bottle to her mouth and waited for what the pastor of Our Savior Community Church had to say. They sat at the round table in Lauren’s office at the church.
“I don’t think we should cancel.”
Lauren had expected Matt Kendrick to say that. Still, its reality stung.
“I made a little progress on Monday,” Lauren said. “But I lost all of yesterday looking after Nicole Sandquist and her broken ankle.”
This was Wednesday. The health fair was scheduled for Saturday. Lauren didn’t see how she could pull it off. Quinn had been the primary organizer, and Lauren didn’t even have his notes. Nicole needed help whether or not she admitted it, and Ethan could be leaving town at any minute. Lauren hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Quinn disappeared on Saturday evening.
“I thought there was a committee,” Matt said.
Lauren shifted her weight to one hip. “There is, officially.” But Quinn was running the show, and Lauren had been glad for his enthusiasm.
“Then we can start there.”
By we he meant you. Lauren knew Matt well enough to understand that.
“I’m not usually a quitter,” she said, “but the circumstances this week have been especially stressful.”
“I know.” Matt leaned on the table. “Quinn gone, finding his car wrecked, the burglary at your aunt’s shop. And now your friend Nicole.”
“Right. It adds up.”
“And I don’t want to be unsympathetic. But we made a promise to the community. Families are counting on us. Kids need their immunizations, and we’ve collected a pile of winter coats to give away. Any day now the temperatures will start dropping at night. A lot of our church members are looking forward to the event, as well. Why don’t we do what we can?”
Church attenders had been bringing in coats for two months, and backpacks and school supplies lined one wall of a classroom in the education wing of the church. Lauren might not be able to organize all the booths Quinn had in mind, but the fair could still cover some basics.
“All right.” Lauren took a deep breath and reached for her clipboard. “I’ll get started.”
Lauren took three battered yellow sheets of random notes off her clipboard and laid them on the table. What she needed was an organized list of action steps. She gripped a favorite purple gel pen and wrote in tidy straight letters. The list filled every line on the page. Lauren went back through and starred essential entries.
Taking her clipboard, with the random notes behind the numbered list, Lauren went down the hall to the classroom where coats and backpacks awaited. She would find someone to sort them. Zeke Plainfield and a couple of other kids from the youth group could handle the job. Maybe Eva Parker would like to help. Lauren separated a few of the tangled sleeves and decided she would have to give guidelines for which coats were suitable to give out and which ones the donors should have thrown away. She pushed aside a few more and pulled out a brown-and-green child’s coat that looked brand-new. The zipper worked smoothly and the hood was securely attached. If most of the coats were in this condition, the church volunteers could make a lot of children happy and warm.
Lauren suspected Quinn would have talked with merchants in the downtown businesses about the health fair. Taking her clipboard, she set out to make the rounds. All she had to do was ask business owners if Quinn had spoken to them about participating in the health fair. If they said no, she would move on. If they said yes, she would get the details of donations or volunteer time. Once she knew where everything stood, she would call the health fair committee members and distribute the tasks of following up and having everything ready by Friday night for the fair to begin on Saturday morning.
Later she would call the rental store out on the highway to see what Quinn had arranged for equipment. He would have extracted a steep discount if not outright donation. Then she would b
ike to the community center. When she saw Quinn last Saturday, he’d said something about exercise classes and recipe exchanges. A nurse in the congregation of Our Savior would probably know who was going to provide the immunizations and blood pressure screenings.
Who would run the book fair, the joke contest, and the cooking demonstrations were mysteries to Lauren at the moment, but Brooke Parker had called her, eager to do face painting. She even said her father was going to help. Lauren had a hard time imagining Jack Parker painting the faces of little children. She made a note on her clipboard to find someone to organize games for the children and another entry to find a couple of compassionate church members to be available to pray with people on Saturday. They could use the church prayer room for that.
The plan was coming together, but Friday was the day after tomorrow. On paper the fair looked good, but Lauren was going to need information, volunteers, and equipment. If only she had a month instead of three days. Lauren popped a piece of gum in her mouth, picked up her water bottle, and left the church building.
This would all be so much more fun with Quinn.
While she walked up toward Main Street, Lauren called Nicole’s cell phone and promised to swing by and fix her some lunch. Ninety minutes later, Lauren had worked her way back and forth through the downtown blocks. Finding people who had agreed to help turned out to be surprisingly easy, and Lauren regretted doubting Quinn’s preparation. The time-consuming part of the task was having the same conversation over and over.
Is it true you found Quinn’s car?
You’re the mayor’s niece. What’s she telling you about where Quinn is?
What’s your theory about what really happened?
When is your aunt going to open her store again?
Lauren pitied the poor souls at the end of her circuit. Though she was fairly certain she hadn’t said anything unquestionably rude, she’d come close a few times. She understood their concern—and shared it. But Lauren didn’t have Quinn’s gift of patiently listening as if the person in front of her was saying something new when, in fact, everyone up and down the block scratched their heads and said the same thing. She had a long task list, and she hadn’t factored in how much everyone wanted to talk.
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