Hidden Falls

by Newport, Olivia

  “She hasn’t woken up,” Sylvia said softly. “I call her name every now and then, but she doesn’t answer.”

  “We’re going to fix that,” Ethan said.

  “We should pray for her.” Cooper moved to the bedside and lifted Lauren’s limp hand.

  “The OR should be ready any minute,” Ethan said. Prayer was not going to heal Lauren. She had a bleed in her brain and treatment protocol was proven and clear.

  “Please,” Sylvia said. “Just until they come for her.”

  Other than his own unbelief, Ethan could think of no reason to deny them the comfort of their faith. It would do no good in a medical situation, but neither would it cause harm.

  “All right,” he said, “but it won’t be long.”

  Nicole shuffled over to the far side of the bed. Sylvia moved to the foot and put her hands on Lauren’s blanketed ankles. Surrounding her on three sides, Lauren’s friends bowed their heads.

  Ethan stepped back and turned his head toward the door to watch for the transit staff. He didn’t listen to the words Cooper murmured. In fact, he was surprised Cooper had been the one to suggest prayer. Cooper didn’t strike Ethan as the faithful sort. Then again, Ethan would be hard-pressed to describe the faithful sort, and crisis tended to make people hedge their bets in favor of religion. He’d seen it before.

  A young man in blue scrubs and soft-soled shoes entered. “I’m here from transit.”

  Ethan cleared his throat, and the others raised their heads. The transit employee looked at the name on the papers in his hands and checked the hospital bracelet around Lauren’s wrist.

  “I’m Dr. Jordan,” Ethan said. “I’ll be doing the surgery.”

  The young man looked doubtful, and Ethan didn’t blame him. Ethan wore street clothes and had no hospital ID badge.

  “My job is just to take her down to pre-op.” The man began exchanging the stationary machine that monitored Lauren’s vitals for the portable model that traveled with the bed. “After that you can take it up with them.”

  “I’ll come find you as soon as it’s over.” Ethan herded Cooper and the others toward the door.

  “I hope you don’t mind if we pray for you, too,” the mayor said.

  Ethan shrugged. If it made them feel better, what was the point of protesting? What mattered to him was the confidence that he was well trained—and that this was not a particularly difficult procedure for a neurosurgeon. Based on Lauren’s symptoms and information available from routine tests, Ethan was hopeful he would only need to bore two holes and suction the excess fluid away. Ethan did procedures like this every week.

  Cooper had his phone out. “I’m going to call Liam and Dani.”

  “I’m sure they’re asleep,” Ethan said.

  “I need them here. They’ll come.”

  Ethan shrugged again. Liam and Dani couldn’t do anything, but he wasn’t going to argue with Cooper. His focus was his patient.

  The young man from transit released the brakes on Lauren’s bed and swung it toward the door.

  5:16 a.m.

  “Sylvia, trade places with me.” Nicole leaned on the end of the waiting room couch and stood up on her good foot.

  Sylvia was satisfied with the chair she occupied, but since Nicole was already up, she complied with trading seats.

  “It’s not a bad sofa for a doze,” Nicole said. “You should at least try to catnap.”

  “I feel surprisingly good.” Before Lauren’s downturn ten hours ago, Sylvia left Lauren in the company of Nicole and Cooper and went home for a few hours. She changed clothes, ate a good meal, checked on her mother, and straightened up two guest rooms—one for Lauren and one for Nicole. Sylvia even managed to work in a short nap before returning to the hospital to await Lauren’s discharge and bring her home.

  Beside the bed, Nicole believed Lauren to be sleeping. Cooper had stepped out of the room. The peaceful scene erupted when Sylvia called Lauren’s name and got no answer.

  Sylvia, Cooper, and Nicole hadn’t spoken much since resuming their vigil in the second-floor waiting room. They were all equally exhausted from the last two days, but for Sylvia, at least, the spike of worry fractured soon enough. Even Dr. Glass agreed his patient was fortunate Dr. Ethan Jordan was available for the procedure, and the bleed was slow. Lauren was in capable hands, and ultimately she was in God’s hands.

  Sylvia had a harder time letting go of her worry about Quinn. In the eight days since his disappearance, Sylvia’s hours filled with her duties as mayor, reopening her shop, checking on her mother, and now being on hand as Lauren’s closest family. Undulating beneath the rise and fall of sunrise and sunset was swirling disappointment that she couldn’t call and confide in Quinn. She didn’t know what happened to him, so she didn’t know whose hands he was in.

  Quinn was still in God’s hands, Sylvia reminded herself. Somehow that assurance was less comforting without the visible form of a trained physician like Ethan Jordan. She closed her eyes to pray.

  Squeaking steps in the hall carried in Liam and Dani. Cooper perked up. Dani dropped into a chair next to him.

  Liam was neatly dressed in pressed khakis and a dark green polo shirt. And he looked rested—more rested than Sylvia had seen him appear in the last week. His eyes, though sad, had lost the frantic expression Sylvia saw the day he came into her shop and on Saturday at the health fair before the storm hit. The tension had vacated his shoulders, and he offered his brother an embrace.

  Now they were five. Still silent, for the most part. Still waiting. Still captive to their own thoughts.

  Nurse Wacker entered the room, and as if on a conductor’s cue, all five of them sat erect.

  “I see the gang’s all back.” The nurse looked at Dani and smiled. “I hear I missed quite a tackle yesterday afternoon.”

  Liam furrowed his forehead into four rows. “Excuse me? I don’t understand.”

  “Dani knows,” the nurse said. “Nicole and Cooper, too.”

  Sylvia sighed. Why was it that lately she was the last to hear about anything?

  “Dani took down one of our transit employees,” the nurse said.

  “I had a good reason,” Dani muttered.

  “Is Lauren out of surgery?” Cooper asked.

  “Not quite,” Nurse Wacker said. “But Dr. Jordan wanted me to tell you—”

  A shriek pierced the early morning tranquility, jolting everyone but the nurse.

  “That will be Room 231, right on schedule,” she said.

  After a few seconds of silence, a fresh scream filled the hall.

  “I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “I’ll have to go help settle her down or she’ll keep doing that and have everyone on the wing awake.”

  She turned and left before any of them could protest.

  Liam turned to Dani. “What was she talking about? Who did you tackle?”

  “Bobby somebody.” Dani leaned back in her chair with her hands on her hips. “And I’d do it again.”

  Sylvia folded her hands in her lap. “Maybe this would be a good time to hear the story.” She was the mayor, after all.

  “I tracked down the guy who put that hole in my boat,” Dani said. “He works here. Somebody had to catch him.”

  Sylvia’s eyes moved to Cooper. “Oh? I didn’t hear about this.” Even while she was sitting with Lauren, Sylvia’s cell phone had been within reach. If even one of the recent crimes in Hidden Falls was solved, the mayor would like to know about it.

  “There wasn’t much to hear about,” Cooper said. “Witnesses say Dani assaulted Robert Doerr.”

  Dani shuffled her feet. “Think of it as a citizen’s arrest.”

  “We don’t do that around here.” Cooper’s voice remained as calm as it always did. “I wish you’d clued me in to what you suspected.”

  “Was I supposed to let him walk out of the hospital?” Dani glared. “You could give me credit for nabbing him.”

  Sylvia tilted her head at Cooper. “Is he the guy?”

>   Cooper shrugged. “Innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Did you arrest him?”

  “We took him in, but it was because he took a swing at me when he was trying to get away.”

  “Sounds like suspicious behavior to me,” Sylvia said.

  “I wasn’t in uniform,” Cooper said. “The man had just been knocked down by a stranger.”

  “I can see your point.” Sylvia glanced at Dani.

  “Whose side are you on?” Dani rolled her eyes. “This could be the guy who smashed up your store, too.”

  Sylvia knew better than to try to persuade Dani when she was in this kind of mood. “Cooper, if you took him in, what happened?”

  “The sheriff ordered his release a few hours later. We don’t have anything to tie him to Dani’s boat.”

  “I’ll show you the pictures,” Dani muttered.

  “You didn’t even take the pictures you think incriminate him,” Cooper said, “and happening on somebody out in the woods is hardly the same as catching him at the scene of the crime.”

  “Did you even question him?”

  “We didn’t get much out of him before he played the ‘I want a lawyer’ card.” Cooper gave a sly smile. “But we got his fingerprints.”

  Dani elbowed him. “Don’t give me false hope.”

  “We can at least see if he has a record, or if he matches any of the prints we’ve taken.”

  Sylvia inhaled slowly. “You mean in my shop?”

  Cooper nodded.

  “And Quinn’s car?”

  He nodded again.

  Sylvia wasn’t sure if she hoped the prints would match any in Quinn’s car or not. Fingerprints belonging to somebody with a record might point to foul play. While Sylvia couldn’t imagine why Quinn would decide to pick up and go to St. Louis after not leaving the county for more than thirty years, she preferred that mystery to the possibility that someone meant him harm.

  “You know you can’t get prints from my boat,” Dani said. “What are you going to do about that?”

  “One step at a time,” Cooper answered.

  “What motive would tie everything together?” Sylvia asked. She could understand the thefts, but putting Dani’s life in danger was a different sort of crime, a fiercer vandalism even than the unbridled destruction in Sylvia’s store.

  “We’re working on that,” Cooper said, “but sometimes people like to see what they can get away with. I doubt Dani was supposed to figure out it wasn’t an ordinary leak in an old rowboat.”

  Quinn’s disappearance.

  The vandalism in Sylvia’s store.

  Dani’s boat wrecked.

  Lauren in surgery.

  Sylvia rubbed one eye. “Cooper, I’m confident you’ll do what you think is right. But if you get any matches on the prints, I hope you’ll keep me in the loop.”

  “Yes, Mayor.”

  Liam was quiet but peaceful. Dani, usually unflapped, was visibly irritated. Cooper would have to go to work in a couple of hours, but his mind was on Lauren. Nicole hadn’t left the confines of the hospital since she and Ethan followed the ambulance from the church the day before yesterday.

  If Quinn would only come home. Or contact somebody.

  “What happened to Lauren’s phone?” Sylvia asked. “Do we still have that voice mail recording?”

  Cooper shook his head. “It took one whack too many—from a tree. I don’t think we’ll get anything off of it.”

  “I know what I heard,” Nicole said. “It was Quinn’s tune, but I don’t know who was whistling.”

  Nurse Wacker returned and stood in the doorway. The hall was quiet again.

  Nicole leaned forward. “What’s the word?”

  “Lauren should be going into recovery soon. Mayor, you’ll be welcome to see her then. The rest of you will have to wait until Dr. Jordan gives the okay.”

  “How is Dr. Jordan?” Nicole asked. “I mean, operating here for the first time.”

  “I think we can presume the surgeon is fine.” The nurse left.

  Sylvia smiled, watching Nicole settle back into her chair. If Quinn didn’t come home soon, he was going to miss the unfolding reunion between two of his favorite people.

  7:46 a.m.

  Lauren recognized the sensation as what came just before she would wake. Light from somewhere saturated the backs of her eyelids with a thick orange haze, and she could tell she was lying flat.

  The hospital.

  Surgery.

  Aunt Sylvia.

  Sylvia had spoken to her, leaning over the bed and looking down at Lauren’s face. How long ago had all this happened?

  Lauren felt the mattress beneath her, the blanket over her legs, and the itch at the side of her head.

  No, not an itch. Something was there. She raised an arm—and felt the hindering grasp of fingers around her wrist. Her eyes fluttered open.

  The word formed in Lauren’s mind. Cooper. Not Sylvia. Where was Sylvia?

  More words formed in her mind. “My aunt?”

  “I talked her into going to the cafeteria for breakfast.”

  Lauren realized she’d spoken aloud. She swallowed and ran a dry tongue over chapped lips.

  Cooper guided her hand back to the mattress. “I don’t think Ethan would be happy if you pulled out the drain he went to so much trouble to put in.”

  “I didn’t know.” What else didn’t she know? Her eyes searched Cooper’s. “What did Ethan do?”

  “The simplest procedure possible. Two very small holes and a drain that he wants to leave in place for a while.”

  That didn’t sound so bad. Considering. Her headache was better, and she didn’t feel like she was going to empty her stomach involuntarily.

  “Your aunt said you were awake earlier,” Cooper said.

  Lauren was uncertain whether she was actually nodding, but she meant to. She had been awake. She remembered now. It was in another room. Recovery. Lauren stared at Cooper, trying to make out his features. Perhaps the fuzziness was due to lingering anesthesia, but it might just as well be because she was so nearsighted.

  “My glasses,” she said.

  Cooper winced. “Broken when you fell.”

  Lauren remembered now. All day yesterday she’d instinctively looked around for her glasses. But both pair had been broken in the last few days. She wished she could see Cooper more clearly. When she thanked him properly for getting Christopher out of one tree and then throwing himself between her and another as it splintered, she would like to be able to look into his eyes. Instead, she turned her palm up to squeeze his hand. They had run together on Saturday afternoon, holding hands, but it had not been a time to notice the softness of his touch or the gentleness of his grasp. Now she did.

  She hadn’t held hands with a man for a long time. Saturday didn’t count. Lauren wasn’t sure this counted, either. Only three days ago she had tried her best to avoid spending a moment longer than necessary with Cooper Elliott. Now she resisted the creeping disappointment that he would likely have to leave.

  What day was this? Not Sunday. That was yesterday. Monday. Her impulse was to shake off the fog wrapped around her brain, but she remembered the fall, the concussion, the headache, the promise of surgery. Fading away when it became too hard to remain alert.

  “I remember you prayed,” she said. “When was that?”

  “A few hours ago. We thought you were …”

  “Unconscious.”

  “Yes.”

  “I just know that I heard you. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Lauren heard the waver in his voice. “And I keep hearing Quinn’s tune. Will it help you find him?” She tried to hum the notes, but no sound came out of her throat.

  “I think,” Cooper said, “that you should be a lot more well before we talk about that.”

  He was probably right. “Are you going to work today?”

  Cooper squeezed her hand and said, “I don’t want to.”

  “At least the
storm was not another crime. And no one else was hurt, right?”

  “Not that I’ve heard of.”

  She knew he should go. And she knew he would be back.

  The door creaked open and several shadowy forms entered. Lauren turned her head carefully toward them.

  Cooper let go of her hand and stood up. “You guys are not supposed to be here.”

  “Neither are you.”

  The voice belonged to Nicole, who now stepped farther into the room, where Lauren could recognize her posture leaning on crutches.

  “Ethan will have all our heads if he finds out four of us were in here at one time.”

  “We’ll make a pact of silence,” Liam said.

  Dani scoffed. “I could describe at least four people who saw us come in here together.”

  “Ethan doesn’t scare me.” Nicole nudged her crutches closer to the bed. “I wanted to see for myself how you are.”

  Lauren attempted a smile. “They tell me things went well.”

  “I’m glad it was Ethan taking care of you,” Nicole said.

  “Me, too.” Lauren wished she could catch Cooper’s eye. He had stepped away from the bed when the others came in.

  Cooper slapped his brother on the back. “I guess I’d better go put on my superhero cape and fight some bad guys.”

  “You’ll call me?” Liam said.

  “If I hear anything.”

  Lauren rooted around her brain for the meaning of the brief exchange between Cooper and Liam but came up with nothing. Why would Cooper promise to call Liam about any of the recent crimes? She had to let the thought go. Hanging on to it entailed too much effort. Lauren was fairly sure Cooper was looking at her now, but he was too far away for her myopic eyes to be certain where his gaze fell.

  “Nicole can stay until Sylvia gets back,” Cooper said. “Liam and Dani, you need to leave.”

  “You’re not the boss of me,” Dani said.

  Lauren looked down at her hand and pulled up the sensation of Cooper’s fingers wrapped around hers. This was a thought she wanted to hang on to.

  “At least let Nicole sit down,” Cooper said.

  Somewhere amid the shuffling that ensued, Cooper left. Lauren felt his absence the instant he crossed the threshold. Outside the door, the hallway was coming to life with the steps and voices of the day shift nurses and rolling carts of breakfast trays. Cooper had stepped out into a normal day. Lauren closed her eyes, trying to picture a normal day.