Hidden Falls

by Newport, Olivia

  She prayed that this would be the day that Quinn came home. That would be the beginning of normal.

  8:23 a.m.

  Ethan heard laughter before he reached Lauren’s room. He stood in the door and waited for them to observe his scowl.

  “Uh-oh.” Nicole giggled. “Busted.”

  “Last I checked,” Ethan said, “none of you qualified as next of kin.” Liam and Dani didn’t even know Lauren all that well, other than growing up in the same town.

  “You can’t pick us up and throw us out,” Liam said.

  “Wanna see me try?” Ethan spread his feet in a solid stance and crossed his arms, Lauren’s chart enveloped in his stance and held flat against his green surgical scrubs. “I only got privileges a few hours ago. I don’t want to start out my relationship with the hospital by being a rebel.”

  “Someone should be with Lauren,” Nicole said.

  Ethan waved Lauren’s chart. “I’m here.” And the nurses’ station was only a few doors down the hall.

  Liam, leaning against a wall, shifted his feet. He wasn’t as tough as he liked to sound. Dani rolled her eyes, a gesture Ethan had come to expect from her. They were waiting on Nicole, Ethan realized. She was the ringleader. He set the chart on the bed and picked up Nicole’s crutches to hand to her.

  “I mean it, guys,” he said. “Lauren doesn’t need a bunch of people in her room.”

  Lauren hadn’t said anything yet. Ethan glanced at her to make sure her eyes were open. They were, and he saw gratitude in them.

  Nicole pulled herself upright. “When can we come back?”

  “I’ll let you know,” Ethan said, “but one at a time, please. Right now I want Lauren to rest.”

  The trio shuffled out of the room. Ethan closed the door behind them.

  “How are you feeling?” Ethan flipped the blanket back from Lauren’s ankles and ran fingers up the soles of her feet. She flinched, just as she should.

  “What’s this thing in my head?”

  Ethan explained the drain. The tubing would come out soon enough if there was no further evidence of blood accumulating.

  He picked up a hand. “Squeeze my fingers.” Lauren’s grip was satisfactory. Ethan moved quickly through a standard neurological assessment. Her responses were just what he expected they would be. Lauren’s eyes tracked well, her tongue stuck out straight, and she pushed her hand well against his resistance.

  “When can I go home?” Lauren asked.

  “I just drilled into your head,” Ethan said. “Give us a couple of days to be sure everything is all right. You can sleep if you’d like. The nurses will keep an eye on you, and I’ll be back.”

  “Dr. Jordan, I presume.”

  Ethan pivoted and smiled at Sylvia, who entered with a tall, disposable cup of coffee. “I went for breakfast.”

  “Smart idea.”

  Sylvia raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question.

  “She’s doing fine,” Ethan said.

  “Do I need to have somebody here?” Lauren asked.

  He shook his head. “You’re in a hospital. Nobody is going to leave you alone for long.”

  “Aunt Sylvia,” Lauren said, “I think you should go home.”

  “You’re kicking me out?” Sylvia said.

  “I still don’t remember what happened, exactly.” Lauren readjusted her blanket. “But I’m pretty sure you were here all night.”

  “I was,” Sylvia said.

  “And the night before.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Then go home.” When Quinn got back, Lauren didn’t want to have to explain to him that Sylvia collapsed from exhaustion because she was looking after her.

  “She’s right.” Ethan made notes in Lauren’s chart. Sylvia needed to take care of herself and rely on the nurses to follow the orders he would leave.

  “I’m going to sleep.” Lauren closed her eyes.

  Sylvia sat in the chair next to the bed. “I’ll just stay long enough to be sure that you do.”

  “Of course you will,” Lauren said without opening her eyes.

  Ethan allowed himself a smile at the two of them, wondering if he and his mother would have the same comfortable familiarity if one of them were a patient in a hospital. He supposed not, unless their relationship underwent its own surgery. Perhaps yesterday’s long afternoon visit was the beginning of a new season, a small hole to relieve the accumulating pressure of the last decade. After all, he and his mother shared a new understanding of their own family history.

  “My work here is finished.” Ethan flipped the chart closed and tucked it under one arm.

  In the corridor, he turned toward the nurses’ station. Lauren was his only patient. He could go back to the locker room where he’d left his clothes in the wee hours of the morning and figure out his next step after that.

  “Ethan.”

  He recognized the thumping behind him and turned to see Nicole. “Were you waiting outside the door all this time?”

  “You didn’t really think you were going to chase me off that easily, did you?” Nicole halted and leaned against the wall.

  He chuckled. “No. I was just going to find my own clothes before I came looking for you.”

  She met his gaze. “I’ve never seen you in scrubs before. You look like a real doctor.”

  “I’m practicing for when I play one on TV.”

  “How was the surgery?”

  “You saw for yourself how well she’s doing.”

  “No.” Nicole’s emerald eyes held his. “I meant for you.”

  “I do this procedure all the time.”

  “Not in Hidden Falls. Not after everything you found out yesterday.”

  Ethan had returned to the hospital last night because Nicole called him when Lauren’s deterioration began—or at least when someone noticed it. Through the crisis hours, they hadn’t had a chance for a private conversation. He’d left her in the waiting room while he prevailed on his fledgling acquaintance with Dr. Glass to discern the particulars of Lauren’s condition and express his opinion about appropriate treatment. Then he set aside the tangle of personal conundrums and focused on being the best doctor he knew how to be for someone he’d come to care about in the last seven days.

  “I have so many questions,” Nicole said. “How it went with your parents. What’s happening in Columbus. What you meant when you said you were starting a relationship with the hospital here.”

  “I know.” Ethan moved the hair off the side of her face. He didn’t have answers to all her questions. “We have a lot to catch up on since yesterday at this time.”

  “How about breakfast?”

  The flash of a white coat caught the corner of Ethan’s eye. He stood up straight. “Dr. Glass.”

  “I’ve been looking for you.” Dr. Glass looked from Ethan to Nicole. “I hope I’m not interrupting something.”

  “This is my friend, Nicole Sandquist,” Ethan said. “She’s a friend of Lauren Nock, as well.”

  Dr. Glass extended a hand and Nicole shook it.

  “Lauren is in good hands,” he said. “But if you know Dr. Jordan, then you already know that.”

  Nicole nodded. “Thank you for all your help, as well.”

  “Just doing my job. Can I steal Dr. Jordan for an hour or two? We have some business to take care of, and I want to introduce him to a couple of people who were kind enough to agree to give him emergency privileges when I woke them in the middle of the night.”

  “Of course,” Nicole said.

  Only someone who knew her as well as Ethan did would see the slight droop of disappointment that overtook her eyes. She wanted to talk, and so did he. He would have to go with Dr. Glass, though. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—snub the man who had welcomed him into Lauren’s care.

  “It was nice to meet you.” Nicole adjusted the crutches under her armpits. “Thank you again for everything.”

  Ethan felt Dr. Glass’s hand on the back of his shoulder as she thumped away
.

  “Are you hungry?” the older doctor said.

  Ethan had only this moment realized the inadequacy of the snack he’d had at five in the morning on his way to the OR. “I could eat.”

  “Good. Why don’t I buy you some breakfast? We can eat in the conference room off the cafeteria where we’ll have some privacy.”

  “That sounds great.”

  “I’ve been making a series of inquiries.” Dr. Glass set a determined stride toward the elevator. “I had a most enlightening conversation with Dr. Gonzalez.”

  Ethan’s stomach dropped. His hunger vanished. “I can explain.”

  Dr. Glass punched the elevator button. “I just want to have a friendly conversation to set a few things straight.”

  8:47 a.m.

  Nicole turned around only long enough to watch Ethan and Dr. Glass disappear into the elevator. Questions thickened in her throat, but answers would not come by standing and gawking in the hospital hallway.

  What she needed was a ride, and not back to Lauren’s apartment.

  The folder of notes and photos Nicole had dragged around for the last three days was getting ragged stuffed in the only bag she could carry and still manage crutches, but Nicole was certain it contained more clues. Additional information could tie up some loose ends. Ethan had been her chauffeur the last few days, but Nicole didn’t want to wait two hours for Dr. Glass to finish whatever he had in mind. If no one was in the waiting room, Nicole would call a cab. Hidden Falls had taxi service, didn’t it? She wasn’t entirely sure, a reminder Nicole wasn’t in the city she’d called home since right after college.

  But Quinn was in St. Louis, or had been.

  Maybe now he was in Oklahoma, where the tune whistled into Lauren’s cell phone had originated.

  What could possibly be in Oklahoma of interest to Quinn?

  Thump. Swing. Thump. Swing. Nicole made her way to the waiting room, where Dani was the only face she recognized. Three other people, guarding their personal space by strewing personal belongings in the chairs on either side of them, flipped magazine pages or leaned over their phones. Only Dani sat with nothing in her hands and her gaze out the window.

  Dani’s eyes turned toward Nicole, and Nicole swung herself over to Dani.

  “I wasn’t sure anyone would be here,” Nicole said.

  “Cooper went to work,” Dani said. “I don’t know what happened to Liam. I figured Ethan might need to hang around the hospital and you might want a ride back into town.”

  Nicole’s assessment of Dani warmed. She’d been surprised when Dani turned up early that morning to sit with Cooper during Lauren’s surgery. Now she was surprised that Dani was the one who patiently waited for her. Nicole reluctantly admitted to herself that she’d been prepared to go off to breakfast with Ethan without wondering if anyone was waiting for her.

  “I could use a ride,” Nicole said. “But I don’t want to go home. I want to go to the historical society. Will you go with me?”

  Nicole braced herself. If she had to, she would get Dani to drop her off at the historical society and worry about getting back to Lauren’s apartment later. One thing at a time.

  Dani took several slow breaths. “What are you expecting to find there?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems like a logical place to go. It’s the kind of place Quinn would go, don’t you think?”

  Dani pushed her lips out and nodded.

  “If you have to go to work, you can just leave me there.”

  “I haven’t checked my messages,” Dani said. “Work can wait.”

  Nicole smiled. “So you’ll go with me?”

  “Yes, I’ll go.” Dani stood and they moved toward the hall.

  “Cooper seems pretty attached to Lauren,” Nicole said. “And I think she might be coming around.”

  “Yeah.”

  Thump. Swing. Thump. Swing. Nicole made no further attempt at chitchat. She was tempted to ask Dani about taking another look at Quinn’s bank account to see if they could track him to Oklahoma, but she was afraid if she did that, Dani might abandon her. Nicole wanted to avoid that complication.

  Nicole resolved to call her detective friend before day’s end and persuade him to make some inquiries. They could at least explore Quinn’s movements in St. Louis, and maybe the detective knew someone in Oklahoma. All they had to go on was an area code, though, and Oklahoma had plenty of rural areas. If only they had a way to narrow the search.

  She was also going to try to get hold of somebody at the newspaper or her editor at his home. On a Monday, administrative operations would be in full swing. Did she or did she not still have a job?

  A few minutes later, Dani parked her Jeep in front of the Town Hall. As Nicole eased herself out of her seat—a little high for someone with a bum foot—another car pulled up.

  “That’s Marianne,” Dani said. “Sylvia’s assistant.” She made the introductions.

  “I’m dreading this morning,” Marianne said. “The phones were ringing off the hook all last week as it was, and now Lauren. Is it true she had brain surgery?”

  Nicole blinked, surprised that the rumor could have spread so efficiently by nine in the morning. “Not exactly. Fortunately something less drastic seemed to work.”

  She gripped her crutches and faced the task of mounting the steps to get into the building.

  “If you’ve come to see the mayor,” Marianne said, putting a key in the door, “she’s not here. I don’t think she’ll be in today.”

  “Actually,” Nicole said, “we’re here to visit the historical society. Will they be open?”

  “Should be. It’s all volunteers, you know,” Marianne said. “For the most part, they keep the posted hours, but Patricia Healy seems to have her own time zone.”

  Nicole glanced at the hours posted on the door. It was already a few minutes past nine. It looked like she and Dani were in for a wait of indeterminate duration. Nicole hoped there was a place to sit down.

  She hadn’t been in this building in years, even before she finished college and moved away permanently. It was a popular field trip destination for school children in younger grades learning about local government, and Quinn brought his tenth graders to the historical society every year to inspire the genealogy projects that were a rite of passage at the high school. Nicole was fairly certain she’d come in one other time during high school on an errand for Marvin Stanford while she worked for the Dispatch. But that was a long time ago.

  Marianne paused at the bottom of the stairs. “The historical society is still straight back on the first floor. I’ll give Patricia a call and make sure she’s on her way.”

  Nicole moved as nimbly as she could on crutches, and Dani patiently restrained herself to Nicole’s pace as they progressed alongside the staircase to the rear of the building. Dani tried the door to the historical society, but it was locked just as Nicole suspected it would be.

  A portrait secured to the wall beside the door made Nicole gasp. She moved closer, reading the label affixed to the wall below the painting.

  MATTHIAS TABOR WITH WIFE MATILDA AND SONS HAROLD AND TRUMAN, 1915.

  “Wow.” Dani stared at the painting.

  “Yeah, wow,” Nicole said. “How long has this been hanging here?”

  Dani shrugged. “Museums are not really my thing.”

  “Months? Years?”

  Dani bent her head to one shoulder. “I installed a new projector in the town council chambers seven or eight months ago. I don’t think it was here then.”

  “But you’re not sure.”

  “No, I’m not sure.”

  “Look at that,” Nicole said. “It could be Ethan in high school. Regardless of when it went up, this is where it all started. Quinn saw this.”

  “Now you’re making stuff up,” Dani said.

  “Just filling in the gaps,” Nicole retorted. “Why would Quinn have that photo of the graveyard? He was probably here helping to organize his students’ essays and saw the painti
ng. He saw what we see, and it made him ask questions.”

  “If it’s been hanging all this time, how come Sylvia never saw it?” Dani asked.

  “Her office is on the second floor. She comes in the front and goes up the stairs.” To Nicole, it didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that Sylvia simply hadn’t walked to the rear of the first floor recently. Even if she did, Ethan had been away a long time, and Sylvia hadn’t been his teacher or neighbor.

  It was Quinn who would have seen the resemblance. It was Quinn who would have dug up the photo she’d found in his den. It was Quinn who researched the birth and adoption records he left in Sylvia’s attic. It was Quinn who sent Ethan a personal note urging him to come to the banquet.

  And it all started here.

  For the first time, Nicole felt as if she were at the beginning of the trail instead of somewhere in the middle.

  She heard footsteps on the old tile floor and pivoted on her good foot. Patricia Healy approached.

  “Oh my goodness,” Patricia said. “I will have to make a note of this historic occasion—visitors eager and waiting to get into the historical society. I don’t think that’s ever happened before.” She turned a key in the door.

  “This portrait has me curious.” Nicole hobbled through the open door. “I suppose you have a lot of information about the Tabors from the era of the painting.”

  Patricia stepped behind a desk and dropped her purse into a lower drawer. “The first part of the last century was the heyday of the Tabor influence on Hidden Falls.”

  Patricia’s reply sounded like it came straight out of an essay. Nicole suppressed a smile.

  “Are there photos from those years?” Nicole surveyed the space, trying to recall what it looked like when she was fifteen. If she’d seen photos of the Tabor sons at that time, she would have seen the resemblance to Ethan.

  “We’re all in a dither these days,” Patricia said. “An old storage building on orchard lands formerly owned by the Tabors was scheduled to be torn down, and the current owner found several crates of items we believe belonged to Matthias Tabor or one of his sons.”