Hidden Falls

by Newport, Olivia

  9:43 a.m.

  The will and the graves last night gave Jack Parker a jolt. He’d gone home in time to say good night to his family, as he promised, and then he unlocked his briefcase and took out the file. Jack added to his notes the cemetery information he’d typed on the tiny keys on his cell phone as he stood in the dark with Lauren, Nicole, and Ethan. He’d stayed up late, sitting in the high-back leather recliner in his home office, jotting the questions that prevented any consideration of sleep until one in the morning.

  Jack couldn’t bill Nicole for this time, of course. He had already done what she asked him to do, and when they met in the graveyard last night, she seemed satisfied with what he turned up. But he couldn’t let go of this until he made sense of his suspicions.

  The disadvantage was now Nicole Sandquist was on the trail of the same information.

  The advantage was if there were legalities involved, Jack would have the upper hand. He had the files.

  What Jack didn’t know was why Nicole was so interested in an old will executed long before she was born by someone she had no connection to—at least not that Jack had found.

  Yet.

  Maybe impending surgery on her broken ankle would slow her down. He could only hope.

  Names multiplied. Marriages introduced new names and new trails. Jack now had his own list of surnames of interest that took him back into the old files. And this was what brought him to the point of canceling two appointments, rolling up the sleeves of his bold yellow dress shirt, and sitting on the floor of his office. He’d entered the suite at seven in the morning and started all over again with a new system for sorting files that quickly overtook the surface space of his conference room table. He set the business lines to go directly to voice mail if someone called and turned off the sound on the cell phone and put it out of sight in his briefcase. Jack wanted full concentration.

  There was something here, and he was going to find it if he had to create a cross-referenced inventory of every single yellowed document in every single brittle file.

  Using a permanent marker and sheets from a yellow legal pad, Jack labeled stacks, making sure he knew which file every document he removed came from. All those clandestine sessions looking through these old folders were starting to pay off. He felt a jump-start familiarity with their contents now that he had a specific task to pursue.

  With two doors closed between his piles and the hall outside his office, Jack blocked out the usual sounds of the building—approaching footsteps or the turn of the doorknob on the heavy door or a voice in his outer office. A rap on his inner door made him close a folder over his hand before he looked up.

  “Jack?”

  Gianna.

  “Come in.” Jack braced himself for the onslaught.

  The door opened. Gianna scowled. “What in the world are you doing?”

  “Working.” He ought to get up and kiss her cheek, he thought, but his piles left him little space to maneuver.

  “Is this the same client from last night?”

  Jack couldn’t say yes because he was off the clock. To say no would trigger an interrogation.

  “Jack?” Gianna rarely had patience when Jack hesitated to reply.

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  “Try me.”

  He didn’t find the right words quickly enough.

  “Jack, this looks … entirely unprofessional. What are you doing?”

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” he said.

  “Clearly.”

  “Did you need something?”

  “I’ve been trying to call you for an hour. What happened to answering the phone?”

  “I wanted to concentrate.”

  Gianna made a wide gesture. “On cleaning dusty old files?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t answer.” It wasn’t the truth, but it seemed the right thing to say—what she would like him to say. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “Never mind. Since I came into town to see if you’re all right, I’ll do the errand myself.”

  He was going to have to tell her something or she wouldn’t stop. Next would come a speech about how he was losing perspective about what really mattered, or how he was letting his obsessions control him, or how he couldn’t just cut himself off from real life. He had responsibilities and relationships, after all.

  Jack retrieved the pad of sticky notes he’d lost under one thigh and peeled one off the stack to affix to the document he’d been reading. He let it hang off the edge of the page so he could find his place easily again.

  “Jack?” Gianna still stood in the doorway.

  “Let’s go sit in the reception area,” he said. “We can talk there.”

  Jack carefully stood up and took a long step over one pile to get to the clear space where he could put down a foot. He followed Gianna to the corner seating arrangement and sat next to her on the love seat.

  He didn’t tell her everything. He didn’t know everything yet. He didn’t say who his client was. But Jack told his wife more than he had in a long time.

  “So you think this all has to do with a prominent family in Hidden Falls,” she said when he finished, “and there’s some secret from seventy-five or eighty years ago.”

  “I do.” He refused to feel apologetic.

  “Why is this so interesting to you?”

  Because I’m bored in this little town. Because I want you to be happy, but I’m not sure if I can stand it.

  “Because it’s not straightforward,” he said aloud. “Because it’s something to figure out, something that has ramifications. This could change somebody’s life.” Maybe it could change mine. Ours.

  “I don’t understand.” Gianna crossed her legs. “I don’t think all the puzzle pieces are in the box. You could be wasting your time and never get the whole picture.”

  Had she always been so utterly practical?

  “Gianna, please don’t stomp all over this.”

  “But, Jack—”

  “Please.”

  She sighed. “Okay.”

  “Do you remember,” he said, “in the beginning? When you were a paralegal in Atlanta, and then Memphis? I was always glad to have you assigned to work with me because I knew you could dig like no one else.”

  “That was another life, Jack.”

  “I know. You don’t want to be a paralegal anymore. You want to be there for the kids. But I remember how good you were at your job, and I learned from you.”

  “What did you learn from me?”

  “How the odd fact is the one that matters. How hunches are worth chasing down. How finding the string that connects two random facts can break a case wide open.”

  “You make me sound like an investigator, not a paralegal.”

  “You investigated documents in the files like no one else.”

  “But those were the days of billable hours.” Gianna uncrossed and recrossed her legs.

  “It was billable hours that brought us together,” Jack said, “but you had such a thirst for the truth.”

  “I guess maybe I’m chasing a different truth these days.”

  Home. Family. A legacy. Remembrance.

  Jack knew what Gianna wanted now. Couldn’t she see it wasn’t incompatible with what he wanted?

  “I miss the days we were in sync with each other,” he said.

  She waited a beat and said, “And I’m afraid we’ll miss the days of being in sync in the future.”

  Jack leaned over and kissed his wife full on the mouth, something he hadn’t done in a long time. He lingered and heard her breath catch.

  “I don’t want to miss those days either,” he said, his voice hushed. “But I’ll be a happier husband and father if I know I can jump on opportunities that get me excited.”

  “Wow, Jack, that’s quite a speech from you.”

  “I mean it. I want to be a good husband, but I have to be me in the process.” Jack hovered over her, one hand on her waist, wondering if the gesture meant anything to
her.

  Gianna’s phone rang. Jack leaned away from her, uncertain whether anything he’d said would sink in.

  “It’s Eva,” she said.

  Jack listened to Gianna’s side of the conversation.

  “Again? … Are you sure? … I’ll be right there, then.” Gianna hung up.

  “Did she forget something?”

  “Another stomachache,” Gianna said.

  Jack did his best to disguise his lack of awareness that there had been a previous stomachache.

  “I think she should stay at school this time,” Gianna said, “but I’ll go talk to her.”

  11:13 a.m.

  “So no surgery?” Nicole swung her cast-clad leg over the side of the examination table. She had insisted she could handle a simple doctor’s appointment on her own and left Ethan sitting in the waiting room.

  “We don’t gain a lot from operating on this kind of break,” the orthopedist said. “But you should plan on being in the boot for eight weeks, followed by physical therapy. Do you have an orthopedist in St. Louis?”

  “I’m sure I can find one.”

  “Just let us know where to send the records.”

  “I will.”

  “And be careful. Take it easy as much as you can.”

  Nicole wasn’t going to promise that aloud, not when there was so much to do.

  He tapped a few times on the iPad that held her electronic record, shook Nicole’s hand, and left the room.

  Nicole crutched her way out the door and to the main desk. She could see Ethan sitting in the waiting room looking at an old magazine. How did doctors feel when they were on the waiting end of the health care system? She folded the papers the clerk gave her and held them between her middle and ring fingers as she hobbled out to Ethan.

  “No surgery,” she said. “Next stop, county records.”

  He held the door open for her and offered to fetch the car. Nicole declined. If she gave him reason to think she couldn’t handle being up and about, he would get some silly notion in his head about going straight back to Lauren’s apartment and a bucket of ice. On a good stretch of sidewalk, she could move fairly well.

  In the car, Ethan asked, “Do you know where this place is?”

  She’d already noted the address in her phone and now rattled off driving instructions.

  A few minutes later, Ethan again held open a door while Nicole hobbled through. “What exactly are we looking for?”

  “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “That’s a pretty wide field.”

  Nicole had two agendas. First, public records related to Quinn that might not have been online when she searched. Second—and she likely would have to make a special research request for these because of their age—records related to the Tabor, Fenton, and Pease families in the 1930s and 1940s. It was still a broad search with a wide margin for error.

  “Ted,” she said. “His name is just Ted.”

  When Quinn first disappeared, Nicole and Ethan realized neither of them knew if Ted was short for another name. She’d started with his address and backtracked through property records until she found the deed to his house showing his name as simply Ted Quinn. No nicknames, no middle initial.

  Ethan kissed her cheek. “We’ll see him again.”

  Ethan should know better than to make promises that were not within his power to keep. Even if Quinn was safe in St. Louis right now, which was far from certain, maybe he was never coming back to Hidden Falls. Maybe whatever made him leave was so huge that anything could happen now.

  Nicole read instructions posted in large letters, sat down at a carrel with a computer terminal, and began the process of making requests for copies of documents. First she tried several searches to determine whether she could narrow down what might be in the system.

  Ethan stood behind her, watching her click through various screens. “You look like you know what you’re doing.”

  “Every county’s system is different,” she murmured, “but the same information should be available in some form.”

  Deeds, liens, mortgages, marriage certificates, tax bills, bankruptcies, birth and death certificates, divorce decrees, probate records.

  Probate.

  “Did you ever hear Quinn say anything about an inheritance?” Nicole asked.

  “Who would he inherit from?” Ethan rubbed her shoulders.

  The kiss yesterday started with a neck rub. Nicole hadn’t made up her mind whether she wanted to repeat that experience.

  Well, she knew she did want to repeat it, but it might not be the smart thing to do.

  “I don’t know,” Nicole said. “Nobody, I guess.” Probate was a much more logical lead for the Tabors, Fentons, and Peases, though. Nicole filled in the form with the broadest request possible for these three families. As she suspected, the fine print at the end of the form explained that documents dating that far back might not be digitized and would take a few days for staff to locate. Nevertheless, Nicole supplied her e-mail address for notification, asked for electronic versions, and submitted the form with a credit card for the fees.

  Nicole moved her feet and knocked her broken ankle against a chair leg. Gritting her teeth, she waited for the pain to pass. She wasn’t going to let Ethan see her wince.

  “Is that your phone buzzing?” he asked.

  When the wave of pain subsided, she felt the vibration in her pocket and answered the phone.

  “Hey, Terry.” Finally, someone from the newspaper was responding to all the messages Nicole had left.

  “Sorry not to call you sooner,” Terry said. “It’s been crazy here.”

  “Big story?”

  “More like big shake-up, so I’m out of here.”

  Nicole reached up to still Ethan’s hand on her neck. “You’re quitting?”

  “The department has been reorganized. They offered me an insulting reduction in responsibility and pay, so I told them where they could put it.”

  Terry had been at the St. Louis newspaper for twelve years. Nicole tried to picture the city desk without her, but the image wouldn’t form.

  “What does Reggie have to say?” Nicole would call her editor as soon as she got off the phone.

  “I suspect they’ve instructed our fearless leader not to talk to me. And maybe not you.”

  “What?”

  Nicole tried to think whether she had Reggie’s home phone number in her contact list—or whether he even had a landline anymore.

  “Heads are rolling, Nicole. I wouldn’t take anything for granted.”

  “You can’t think Reggie has anything to do with this,” Nicole said.

  “I don’t even know what this is,” Terry said. “I only know I’m not sticking around. I just wanted to give you a heads-up that you might want to keep your options open, too.”

  “I don’t have any options open.”

  “Then you might want to create some.”

  12:34 p.m.

  Dani Roose wiped polish into the bottom shelf of the repaired rack in Waterfall Books and Gifts. It looked good to her—probably better than it had before the break-in. It was overdue for the sanding and staining she’d given it.

  The whole shop looked to be in good shape, even if the shelves had slightly fewer items for sale than usual. It wouldn’t take Sylvia long to fill up the space, and after the store’s five-day closure, the whole town would be curious and make a point to stop in. For Sylvia’s sake, Dani hoped at least a few of the looky-loos would spend some money. Lizzie Stanford had lobbied for a special name for the sale that would herald the shop’s reopening: Break-in Bash, Steal of a Sale, Pitch It Pickings. Something like that. Dani figured Lizzie was working too hard if she thought Sylvia would spend advertising money on such silliness. Curiosity would do the job of getting people back into the store.

  The tables in front offered attractive price reductions on slightly damaged items. It seemed to Dani most people wouldn’t even be able to discern the damage, so they’d think they were
getting an even better deal. Sylvia had been particular about not trying to pass anything off as being in new condition if she could see it wasn’t, no matter whether anyone else could.

  Sylvia pushed her reading glasses to the top of her head and set down the sheets of orange price stickers in her hands.

  “Thanks for coming back today.” Sylvia rubbed the bridge of her nose. “The extra pair of hands really helped. We should be ready to go in the morning.”

  “I thought you’d want to be at the fair tomorrow.” Dani tossed the staining rag into her toolbox.

  “I’ll pop back and forth. Lizzie will be here.”

  “Let me just check that new lock again.” Dani didn’t like the way it was sticking. A new lock shouldn’t do that. If she had to take it back to the hardware store, she would, but she hoped it would smooth out because she wanted to get a good hike in that afternoon.

  Sylvia handed Dani the shiny keys. Dani had replaced both locks, front and rear. She saw no point in replacing only the compromised back lock when the front one was just as pitiful as the one the thief violated. While she was at it, she drilled into the antique doors and added deadbolts. It was the back deadbolt that refused to turn without a minor wrestling match.

  Dani put the key in the questionable lock and met with resistance. The same key worked effortlessly in the front lock. She went back into the store for her toolbox. She’d have to take the lock out of the door to get a good look. When she had it out, she laid the pieces on Sylvia’s desk and examined them. The mold on the bolt was off just slightly along an almost invisible seam, she decided. But it wasn’t worth the bother of taking the assembly back down the street when Dani could file off the offending protrusion and be on her way.

  The lights went out.

  “Hey, I’m still back here,” Dani called.

  “I know,” Sylvia answered. “I didn’t touch anything.”

  “Flashlight?”

  “In the bottom left desk drawer.”

  Dani felt her way around the desk and rummaged for the grooved cylinder of the light. It went on with one touch of the button, and she went to the breaker box. All the switches were properly aligned, which is what she expected. If every light in the store went out at the same time, the problem was likely the utility company’s. She stepped out the rear door of the shop and saw heads poking out doors into the alley.