Hidden Falls

by Newport, Olivia

  They could have pushed the button again and still had their breakfast.

  Nicole had seen enough of the elevator thief to recognize the blue scrubs of a nonmedical employee. It was a man with dark, close-cropped hair. Beyond that, Nicole wasn’t sure.

  The handle of her crutch was sticky with jelly, but Nicole gripped it enough to safely report to the cafeteria cashier that there was a mess in the hall. Then she went into the restroom to clean up. By the time she returned to the elevators, an employee from housekeeping was dropping the breakfast remains into a rolling trash can.

  The hospital wasn’t large. There were only three floors. Nicole went up one story to tell the Elliott brothers that the breakfast plans had gone awry—but the waiting room was occupied only by a young couple Nicole had never seen before.

  “There were two guys in here,” she said. “Did you see which way they went?”

  The couple blinked at her and shook their heads.

  Cooper and Liam should have been expecting breakfast. Why would they both leave?

  Nicole huffed back into the hall. There weren’t many places they could go. In one direction was a set of swinging doors leading to two squares of patient rooms around central nurses’ stations. In the other was an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign. Nicole did due diligence and hopped a short distance in both directions to satisfy herself that Cooper and Liam were not simply loitering just out of sight.

  Ethan had left for Columbus.

  Dani got a bee in her bonnet about chasing somebody just for being rude.

  Liam and Cooper had disappeared without explanation.

  She didn’t even have a cell phone number for Dani or her cousins—or Sylvia Alexander, who was probably still down the hall in her niece’s room.

  Nicole pressed her lips together and hopped back into the waiting room. Her stomach still rumbled for breakfast, but at the moment, she needed to sit down and give her sore hands a break. The young couple were both absorbed in magazines. Nicole moved past them and settled in a chair against the opposite wall.

  Ethan would be more than halfway to Columbus by now. Nicole had been dozing with her head on his shoulder when his phone rang at three in the morning and he eased away to take the call in the hall. When he returned, he didn’t say anything more than that he would have to leave.

  Nicole had wanted to protest.

  What about Lauren?

  What about me?

  What about Quinn?

  But she’d held her tongue. She knew no more about the reality of Ethan’s life in Columbus than he knew about hers in St. Louis. With the upheaval of the newspaper she worked for, the future of her job likely was beyond Nicole’s control, but Ethan might still have a choice. He deserved the chance to choose.

  They’d had no privacy or time for the conversation Nicole wished for.

  The one where she’d look in his eyes to discern what he felt for her.

  The one where she’d say that the storm had frightened her with the thought she might lose Ethan as well as Quinn.

  The one where she’d agree he was right when he said they should have no more regrets about each other.

  The one where she’d wish he would kiss her.

  Instead, they’d stared at each other over the cup of vending machine coffee Ethan would depend on to keep himself awake for a hundred miles or so when he pulled out of the hospital parking lot long before dawn.

  Ethan promised to call, that it wouldn’t be like last time.

  Nicole wanted to believe him.

  She took her phone from her pocket. Nicole’s only charger was at Lauren’s apartment. During the night, Ethan had brought in the charger he kept in his car, so Nicole had some juice, but the battery was not full. She opened her contact list just to stare at the entry under Ethan’s name. Nicole knew the name of the hospital where he worked, and she had his cell phone number. This was more information than she’d had for most of the last ten years. Nicole shut off the phone to save the battery and instantly felt disconnected from Ethan. With the top of the phone pressed against her forehead and her eyes closed, she pictured him in his Lexus driving on Interstate 70 into the rising sun.

  He would call. He would.

  In the meantime, Nicole kept watch for Lauren, not even knowing if her friend was conscious. Nicole supposed she could call Benita Booker for a ride, once the morning progressed further toward a reasonable hour, but if Sylvia came down the hall with news of Lauren, Nicole didn’t want her to find the room empty of her niece’s friends.

  Where had they all gone?

  Her eyes still closed, Nicole leaned her head back against the wall. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt Lauren’s phone against her ear and Quinn’s tune playing from somewhere in Oklahoma.

  Or anywhere. If the 918 number belonged to a cell phone, its owner—and Quinn—could be anywhere. Nicole wondered if anyone at the newspaper would still talk to her. She needed investigative help, but maybe none of the people she trusted still had jobs. Later Nicole would turn on her phone and try to reach somebody.

  While the tune played in her head, the sequence of pitches formed in Nicole’s throat, and she softly released them to the empty corner where she sat. She longed to hear Quinn’s soothing whistle. Ethan’s scent wafted around her, and for a moment Nicole marveled at how real it seemed even in his absence. When someone dropped into the seat beside her, Nicole’s eyes fluttered open.

  The scent was not a memory.

  Ethan’s dark eyes were inches from her.

  “What are you doing here?” Nicole’s heart raced. He should have been closing in on Columbus by now.

  “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  A grin split her face. She drew in breath. “What about your job?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Whatever damage I’ve done to my career is not going to get worse at this point.”

  Nicole swallowed the thickness in her throat. “I’m glad you’re here.” She was—though she hoped he hadn’t thrown away his residency in his decision to turn around.

  “As long as I’m here, I might as well act like a neurologist,” he said. “I want to see Lauren’s chart and check her CT scan.”

  “Will they let you?”

  “I might be able to prevail on professional courtesy, especially if Lauren says she’d like my opinion.”

  “I’m sure she would.”

  “It’s almost the start of visiting hours, anyway,” Ethan said. “Let me go see what I can do.”

  He stood up, and she tilted her face up at him. When he bent to kiss her cheek, Nicole said, “Bring me breakfast.”

  8:06 a.m.

  Ethan figured twenty-four minutes before the official start of visiting hours was close enough to push through the swinging doors. He hoped one of the nurses on duty would remember his presence yesterday afternoon, when he followed Lauren’s transfer from the ER to a regular room. A gray-haired woman in the corner, probably the charge nurse, looked up from her stack of paperwork.

  “Dr. Jordan, isn’t it?”

  “Good memory, Nurse Wacker.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for Dr. Glass.”

  “Right. About your friend with the head trauma.”

  “I was hoping for sort of a professional courtesy conversation.”

  The nurse picked up her phone. “I’ll page him.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ethan wandered a few yards away from the nurses’ station but stayed within sight. When his phone rang, he glanced at the ID.

  BRINKMAN.

  He ignored the call. Ethan had nothing to say to Phil Brinkman, and he doubted his friend Hansen would call. Good news from Columbus, scarce to begin with, was out of the question now. If Dr. Gonzalez had not already returned to the hospital, he would within hours. Brinkman would alternate between a martyr who never left his duties in the chief’s absence and a tattletale about Ethan’s negligence. Ethan hoped Hansen had covered his own tracks enough not to be caught in the
fallout. The next conversation Ethan expected to have would be with Gonzalez himself.

  And it was not going to be pleasant.

  “Dr. Jordan.” Nurse Wacker signaled from the nurses’ station. “Dr. Glass just got here. He’s in the lounge down the hall and would like you to join him. Just push the buzzer by the employee doors and he’ll let you in.”

  Ethan hadn’t met Dr. Glass yesterday. A generalist in the ER had treated Lauren and admitted her for observation. But Ethan remembered the public health nurse mentioning Dr. Glass yesterday at the health fair.

  That was less than twenty-four hours ago, and once again, everything had changed in Hidden Falls.

  Ethan buzzed the doors, and a man more than twice his age peered through a narrow pane of plexiglass before opening the door.

  “Dr. Jordan, I presume.”

  “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “I understand you’re a friend of one of my patients.” Dr. Glass led the way down the hall to a staff lounge.

  Ethan took the chair Dr. Glass offered. “I haven’t seen Lauren in the last twelve hours. I wondered about her status.”

  “I haven’t seen her yet this morning, either, but my understanding is she had a good night, considering. My orders were for the nurses to wake her every two hours.”

  Ethan nodded. “Do you think I could see her chart?”

  “Don’t worry. We did all the scans. She has a significant concussion, but we’re following protocol.”

  “I’m sure you are. I’m a neurosurgical resident. If you could indulge me, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Neurosurgical, eh?”

  “Nine months to go.”

  “Where?”

  Ethan named the hospital in Columbus.

  “Ah. Gonzalez still running that program?” Dr. Glass asked.

  Ethan blinked.

  Dr. Glass laughed. “Did you think a small-town doctor like me wouldn’t know his reputation?”

  “I meant no disrespect, sir.”

  “He was full of himself even in med school.”

  Ethan allowed himself a half smile. “You know Dr. Gonzalez?”

  “I’m not sure he’d admit to knowing me. We had rather differing perspectives on the human side of practicing medicine when we started out, but I have no doubt he runs a fine residency.”

  “I’m there because of him.”

  “Despite his quirks.”

  Ethan relaxed. He liked Dr. Glass.

  “Where are you going when you finish?” Dr. Glass asked.

  Ethan shrugged. First he had to figure out if he still had a residency to finish. If he survived this crisis, maybe the hospital in Columbus would keep him on. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  “I’ve been trying to retire for years. I send as many surgical cases as I can somewhere else, but they keep calling me in for emergencies. We could use someone like you around here.”

  Ethan smiled blandly. “I’m not sure Hidden Falls is for me.” He was sure it wasn’t.

  “You’re here now.”

  “I came for Quinn’s banquet last weekend.”

  “Well, we all know how that went, don’t we?” Dr. Glass stood up. “Let’s go see our patient.”

  They stopped at the nurses’ station, and Nurse Wacker handed Dr. Glass a chart. He read the overnight notes and then handed it to Ethan.

  “See?” Dr. Glass said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Relieved, Ethan agreed. The radiologist’s notes on the CT scan mentioned nothing remarkable, and other than a mild headache and residual memory issues, Lauren had no significant symptoms.

  When they entered her room, Lauren gave them a drowsy grin. “They’re not going to charge me extra for two doctors, are they?”

  “Maybe you’re just seeing double.” Ethan held a finger up to see if she would follow it with her eyes and then automatically lifted the bedding off her feet to check her response to his touch.

  “I feel everything I’m supposed to feel,” she said.

  As he checked Lauren’s grip, Ethan glanced at Sylvia, settled in the chair beside the bed. “Is she behaving herself?”

  “I’m here to be sure she does,” Sylvia said.

  “Do you remember what happened?” Ethan asked.

  “Not exactly. But I remember that Aunt Sylvia told me what happened. Does that count?”

  He nodded. “It counts for something.”

  Ethan listened while Dr. Glass asked some questions about headache and nausea and made some notes in Lauren’s chart.

  “I’d like to keep you until we’re clear of the twenty-four-hour mark,” Dr. Glass said. “But right now I don’t see any reason why you should spend another night in the hospital.”

  “You can come home with me,” Sylvia said, “at least for a night.”

  “What about Nicole?” Lauren asked. “I’m supposed to be looking after her.”

  “She can come, too, if she’d like,” Sylvia said.

  “Nicole’s in the waiting room,” Ethan said. “She’ll be glad to hear you’re doing better.”

  “Your friends can visit now.” Dr. Glass clicked his pen closed and slipped it into the pocket of his white coat. “But they shouldn’t stay long.”

  With a wave, Dr. Glass left the room, taking Lauren’s chart with him.

  “Would you like to see Nicole?” Ethan asked.

  “Has she been here all night?” Lauren asked.

  “We all were. Dani, Cooper, Liam, Nicole, and me.”

  “Goofballs. You should have gotten some sleep.”

  Ethan watched as Lauren rolled her head to one side and sighed. Clearly she was concussed, but her condition could have been much worse. She seemed in good shape to him for sixteen hours after a head trauma.

  “Nicole’s the only one still in the waiting room,” Ethan said.

  “Cooper’s gone?” Disappointment tinged Lauren’s voice.

  “Maybe he went for breakfast or a shower,” Ethan said.

  Sylvia patted Lauren’s hand. “He’ll be back. He was anxious to see you.”

  “Is he all right?” Lauren asked.

  “Scraped up,” Ethan said, “but all the parts are working properly.”

  “Good.” Her eyes closed.

  “Looks like you could use a nap,” Ethan said. “I’ll let Nicole know how you’re doing, and we’ll figure it out from there.”

  “Thank you.” Lauren was already drifting off.

  She conversed coherently. Ethan was satisfied she was progressing well.

  “I promised Nicole some breakfast,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

  He went down to the cafeteria and picked up orange juice, coffee, bagels, and bananas before returning to the waiting room.

  Nicole moved magazines aside, and Ethan set the tray on a coffee table.

  “She’s doing well,” he said.

  Nicole exhaled. “Good.”

  “I think you’re both going home with Sylvia tonight.”

  “I could be on my own.”

  Ethan laughed softly. “I think it’s already been decided.”

  Nicole rolled her eyes. “I’d be fine.”

  Ethan opened the juice bottles and handed one to Nicole, but she seemed more interested in lathering a bagel with cream cheese. She’d always liked three times as much cream cheese as he did. Closing her eyes, she moaned as she bit into her breakfast.

  Ethan turned toward steps slowing on the tile in the hall and saw Jack Parker pause in the doorway.

  “Here you are.” Jack came in and sat across from them. “My daughters made me promise to come and see how Lauren is doing.”

  “She’s doing well.” Ethan gave a brief report.

  “The girls will be glad to know that,” Jack said. “They both like her a lot.”

  Ethan took a long swig of juice, suddenly realizing how thirsty he was. “You wanted to talk to me about something yesterday, before all this happened.”

  Jack tapped his knees with his fingertip
s. “It was about that will I found earlier in the week.”

  Nicole leaned forward. “The Tabor will?”

  “Right.”

  “What about it?” Ethan asked. “I thought you said you wanted to study it some more.”

  “I did. Harold Tabor stood to inherit a great deal of money.”

  “But he had to have a male heir,” Nicole said. “That’s what you told us the other night. Otherwise the money went to his brother.”

  “Correct,” Jack said.

  It seemed to Ethan an odd provision in a will, but in a time of higher infant mortality, perhaps a child who survived to five had better odds of reaching adulthood.

  “And he did have a son,” Nicole said. “A boy named Merrill.”

  “Correct again.”

  Ethan looked from Jack to Nicole. What had she figured out and not told him?

  Nicole put her bagel down and wiped her sticky fingers with a napkin. “But the Tabors left town when Merrill was two.”

  “Was that in Old Dom’s ledgers?” Ethan asked.

  “Those notes I was puzzling over yesterday,” Nicole said. “They had something to do with Merrill Tabor. But there was another family involved.”

  Jack nodded.

  “The Peases,” Nicole said.

  Jack nodded again. Ethan felt lost.

  “There’s some connection between the Tabors and the Peases,” Nicole said.

  “I think I know what it is.” Jack raised his eyebrows. “And I think you’ll find it very interesting.”

  8:55 a.m.

  Jack had their attention now. “The man in the photo who looks like Ethan is standing in front of a Pease grave.”

  Nicole nodded tentatively. “I want to go back to the cemetery to double-check that with Old Dom, but I think you’re right.”

  “I haven’t quite got it sorted out,” Jack said, “but there’s a red herring involved—something that looks like it should matter, but it doesn’t.”

  “You’re losing me,” Ethan said.

  “I found a contract between Harold Tabor and Stephen Pease.”