Hidden Falls

by Newport, Olivia

  “Could have been worse. Could have been the tree.” Lauren remained in his arms. Quinn had never been one to hurry a hug.

  “Congratulations on a wonderful job on the health fair,” Quinn said. “My sources tell me it was a rousing success.”

  “I wish you’d been there.”

  “Me, too.”

  Lauren looked around at the crowded room, a medley of chattering voices and punctuating laughter.

  “I have so many questions,” she said, “but I guess I can’t ask them right now.”

  “All in due time.” Quinn waved at someone across the room.

  “How about just one question?” Lauren said. “The calls to my phone—and the tune. I don’t understand.” This was one tiny piece of a giant puzzle that Lauren didn’t understand, but it was the piece that had rattled her past enough to unnerve her.

  “You do deserve an explanation of that. Come with me. I’d like to introduce you to someone.” Quinn took Lauren’s hand and led her around the outskirts of the mingling mass of townspeople. Cooper followed.

  A man looked up at them. He reminded Lauren of somebody in a vague way. Then the sensation snapped into place. The man reminded her of Quinn.

  “This is my brother, Scott,” Quinn said. “This is Lauren, the young woman you pestered with your mysterious phone calls behind my back.”

  Scott shook Lauren’s hand. “I suppose you’d like an explanation.”

  “Well, yes, if you have a short version.” Lauren would press for the details later.

  “Ted kept whistling the same simple tune—even picked it out on the tinny old piano at my house. One day I picked up his phone and noticed he’d called a certain number multiple times.”

  “Mine,” Lauren said. Although Quinn did most of the organizing work for the health fair, he’d called Lauren with questions several times. Did she want him to make the announcements in church? Did she have a printer in mind for the flyer he had ready? Lauren had been at the fringe of the arrangements, but Quinn had called her more often than usual.

  “My brother built a life here in Hidden Falls,” Scott said. “He told me enough about it that I knew people would be worried, but he refused to call anyone until he was certain the danger was past.”

  What danger? Lauren would have to ask later.

  “I thought the tune might mean something, so I called and whistled it,” Scott said.

  “Only the tune didn’t mean anything to me,” Lauren said. How was a stranger to know she’d been bullied with a phone when she was a teenager?

  “It was a long shot,” Scott said. “I didn’t know what the tune meant or whose number I was calling. I just hoped it would somehow be a message that my brother was all right.”

  “Scott tries hard,” Quinn said, “but he’s not very good at playing the spy.”

  Quinn had played the spy himself lately, Lauren thought. A secret box in Sylvia’s attic, a curious photo in his file cabinet, Morse code in Old Dom’s books at the cemetery, a sudden disappearance.

  Cooper nudged Lauren and put his phone in front of her. “Now you can see this.”

  Quinn looked over her shoulder. “My goodness.”

  The image was so unexpected that Lauren had difficulty fitting it into a sense of reality.

  In the picture on Cooper’s phone, Quinn was kissing her aunt—and not on the cheek.

  Cooper pointed. “She’s over there.”

  Sylvia waved at Lauren with her left hand. The diamond on her ring finger caught the light perfectly and sent a dazzling greeting.

  4:47 p.m.

  Ethan shook Quinn’s hand in the hospital hallway. There was still so much to talk about, so many questions about how Quinn had tracked down documents and connected the dots leading to the revelations of the last few days. For the moment, though, what mattered was getting Lauren out of the hospital. Ethan had done what he could to keep the administrative process moving.

  Quinn tapped the cell phone in his shirt pocket. “I have your number now. I have a feeling there will be dinner plans that include you and Nicole. I’ll call you.”

  “We all have to eat.” Ethan doubted anyone who had welcomed Quinn home so far would decline if offered the chance to have dinner with Quinn. Certainly Ethan wouldn’t.

  “You’ll be back in Hidden Falls before the wedding, won’t you?” Quinn asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Ethan said, “I’ll be at your wedding.” He hadn’t heard Quinn or Sylvia mention a date yet, but Ethan anticipated tying up loose ends in Columbus and moving back to Hidden Falls fairly soon. Without an obligation to Dr. Gonzalez, Ethan had nothing to hold him in Ohio for longer than it took to organize the details of a move. Most of his furniture wasn’t worth the expense of transporting it. He would divest himself easily enough and pull a small trailer to Hidden Falls.

  Sylvia stepped toward them in the brisk, focused pace Ethan had come to expect from her. She moved physically in the same manner with which she discharged her varied responsibilities around town.

  “She’s ready,” Sylvia said.

  “Wheelchair?” Quinn said.

  “In the room.”

  “I want to push it,” Quinn said.

  Ethan’s lips turned up in amusement. He imagined hospital policy would specify an employee had to handle the wheelchair. Then there was the reality Lauren wouldn’t want to ride in it at all. He would let them all sort it out.

  When Quinn started for Lauren’s room, Sylvia hung back.

  “Come to Our Savior,” she said.

  Ethan tripped over the words, a tug toward his abandoned early faith pulling him out of the moment. Come to our Savior, he had heard. Believe as you once did, the voice continued, though Sylvia had paused. Ethan realized Sylvia meant the church, and the invitation he’d sensed came from deep within.

  “Six o’clock,” Sylvia said. “We might not be on a schedule, but there’s a plan afoot.”

  “What sort of plan?” Ethan asked.

  “A plan to finish what we started ten days ago.” Sylvia radiated the pleasure of the day, her eyes shining, her features creased in a smile. “Make sure Nicole gets there.”

  Ethan nodded. Nicole was moving toward him now, coming from Lauren’s room as a small mass of well-wishers nearly smothered Lauren. Quinn had his hands on the handles of the wheelchair, but the hospital transport employee had not given up the fight for control. Cooper walked alongside, holding her hand. At the rear—but closing in—were Sylvia and Quinn’s brother.

  An urge to call his own brother shot through Ethan. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d spoken. They hadn’t had a falling out, just a fading away, each of them finding his own path away from their father’s disinterest in their lives. And whatever happened with his brother, Ethan would try harder to find something in common with his father. Richard might not be able to make an effort, but Ethan could, if for no other reason than the happiness it would bring his mother. All these years he’d thought only of himself, his own scars. Moving back to Hidden Falls might cut into the wounds again, but perhaps that’s what it would take to keep them from seeping for the rest of his life.

  Ethan stepped toward Nicole, wishing again he could take her hand as they walked and instead making sure his feet stayed out of the way of her crutches with an artificial distance between them.

  “What a day,” Nicole said.

  Yes, what a day. What a week. They paused, and Ethan moved the hair off the left side of Nicole’s face, exposing the mole she always tried to hide. He kissed her cheek.

  “Sylvia said I should bring you to the church later,” he said.

  “She’s up to something.”

  Ethan followed Nicole’s gaze as the gaggle around Lauren crammed into the elevator, no one willing to be left behind.

  “I’m going to get my father to come to Quinn’s wedding,” Nicole said. “I want Quinn to see that Dad is doing well, that at last he has found a new life for himself.”

  Ethan and Nicole drifted slowl
y toward the elevators themselves.

  “Let’s not do what Quinn did,” Ethan said, pausing and turning toward Nicole.

  She raised her eyebrows in question.

  “Once I move back here,” Ethan said, “I’ll only be two hours from St. Louis. We can see each other frequently and figure things out.” Ten years ago Ethan had let circumstances make decisions for him. He’d had more of his father’s passivity in him than he thought, he realized now. Despite his ambition, he hadn’t known how to get past his own fearful inertia when it came to Nicole. This time Ethan wasn’t going to hesitate about what he wanted.

  He wanted Nicole.

  “I won’t be in St. Louis,” Nicole said. “I’ve made other plans.”

  Ethan’s stomach burned.

  “While you were chasing after Quinn yesterday,” Nicole said, “I was chasing down the truth at the paper in St. Louis. I was ready to resign, but they offered a separation package, and I took it.”

  “Did you get an offer from another newspaper already?”

  “Well, I suppose Marvin Stanford would always take me back at the Dispatch.”

  Ethan let out his breath. “You’re going to be in Hidden Falls?”

  “I’ll pick up some freelance projects. Mostly I’ve decided to go into the home rehab business. A particular house I know needs a lot of work, but it might someday be a decent place to live again.”

  “I know the place.” Ethan smiled. “I hear the neighbor over the back fence is an extraordinary guy.”

  “The people next door might not be so bad either,” Nicole said. “They have an eligible bachelor son. A hotshot brain surgeon.”

  Ethan put his arms on Nicole’s elbows to steady her. He intended to kiss her hard.

  6:17 p.m.

  Sylvia leaned over the open oven door, pulled back a corner of foil, and stuck a fork into the tray of lasagna. The escaping steam encouraged her.

  “It shouldn’t be too much longer,” she said.

  “I wish you’d let me help.” Sitting in a chair in the corner of the church kitchen, Lauren pouted.

  “You will sit right there until instructed to do otherwise.”

  Sylvia calculated—again—how many servings of lasagna now occupied the church ovens. Gavin had assembled ingredients at Fall Shadows Café with speed Sylvia had not thought possible and delivered the trays to the church. It looked like the food would be hot enough to serve before too much longer. The challenge was estimating how many people were coming. Sylvia would wait until she saw how much of the town’s population caught wind of the impromptu event and how many potluck salads and bread baskets showed up before deciding whether she would reduce the recommended portion size of lasagna in order to feed everyone. Someone from Eat Right Here was supposed to bring over assorted dessert trays at any minute.

  “I could at least go sit out in the fellowship hall,” Lauren said.

  Sylvia hesitated. She’d parked Lauren where she could see her for a reason, but the work in the kitchen was under control, and Sylvia herself would need to go out into the fellowship hall soon to make sure setting up was progressing satisfactorily.

  “Well, all right,” Sylvia said, “but I’m going to put Cooper in charge of you, and you know he’s a stickler for the rules.”

  Together they left the kitchen and went into the main hall. Sylvia delivered Lauren into Cooper’s willing custody and found Scott Wilson sitting in a folding chair against a side wall. Already Quinn was surrounded by people who had come to help set up.

  “You okay?” Sylvia asked.

  “I can’t tell you how often I wondered about stuff like this,” Scott said. “Where my brother was. Whether he had people who loved him. Whether he was happy after our whole lives changed in a split second.”

  A lump threatened to fill Sylvia’s throat. “He is loved. Well loved.”

  “I can see that for myself now,” Scott said. “After years—decades—of imagining what his life might be like, now I feel like I’m looking in from the outside.”

  Sylvia hoped Scott was as well loved as his brother. The last few hours hadn’t allowed much opportunity to find out about Scott. Or maybe she should be thinking of him as Andrew. She could tell Quinn was making an effort to call his brother Scott, and Scott referred to Quinn as Ted, but she could also see the remembrance in both of them of when they were Adam and Andrew Kreske. Their safety all these years had come at a high price.

  “I look forward to lots of visits back and forth between here and Oklahoma,” Sylvia said.

  Scott smiled. “I’m glad he has you. And I always wanted a sister.”

  Henry and Patricia Healy paced across the old tile floor. “Tell us what to do,” Patricia said after Sylvia made the introductions.

  Sylvia inventoried her mental list. “How about setting up the portable sound system?”

  “I can do that,” Henry said.

  Scott stood up. “I’ll help.”

  “Can you make sure the coffee urns are heating?” Sylvia said to Patricia. “Then we need tablecloths and dishes and silverware.”

  “Are we setting the tables?” Patricia said.

  That would take a small brigade and more time than they had available.

  “We’ll just set up the long serving tables,” Sylvia said decisively. “But let’s use the real dishes, not the Styrofoam stuff.”

  Quinn would fuss about causing extra work, but Sylvia didn’t care. She wanted the evening to be something solid even if it was last minute. Sylvia would stay all night in the church kitchen washing dishes, if she had to. While Patricia went off to check on the four large coffee urns Sylvia had set up forty-five minutes ago, Sylvia opened a cupboard and was relieved to find ample clean, folded tablecloths in various colors. She took two stacks out and set them on a nearby table. When she looked up, Sylvia saw Sammie Dunavant enter with Emma on her arm. She walked over to greet them.

  “Thank you, Sammie,” Sylvia said. She’d wanted to give her mother the option to attend, but if she’d gone herself to pick up Emma, preparations would have been substantially behind their current status.

  “No problem,” Sammie said. “As soon as I heard about this, I wanted to come anyway.”

  “How are you, Mom?” Sylvia looked for clues in Emma’s face for how lucid she was.

  “I don’t usually like to go out at night,” Emma said, “but I had to see for myself that the rumor is true that Quinn is here.”

  Sylvia was relieved to see the twinkle in her mother’s eye.

  “He’s come home, Mom.”

  Sammie drew in a rapid breath. “Is that what I think it is on your finger?”

  Sylvia nodded. There would be plenty of time for that story later. She’d like to tell it where her mother had fewer distractions to filter out than in the large church hall where each moment brought more activity.

  “I’ll be so glad to put Quinn back on my cleaning schedule,” Sammie said. “Come on, Emma, let’s go say hello to Quinn.”

  “He’ll be happy to see you,” Sylvia said. So far Quinn had been pleased to greet dozens of people today, but Sylvia had no doubt that he could greet five hundred more with the same untarnished warmth.

  The number five hundred had popped into her head randomly. Neither the table space nor the lasagna would stretch that far, but Sylvia decided not to worry. Whatever the evening lacked in logistics, joy and delight would cap it off.

  Sylvia was glad to see Nicole and Ethan enter next.

  “It’s coming together.” Nicole smiled widely. “It’ll be a great night.”

  “I hope so.” Sylvia touched Ethan’s arm. “We could use some help getting more chairs out. I have a feeling we should squeeze in ten to a table rather than eight.”

  “I’m on it,” Ethan said.

  Sylvia was delighted to see that Ethan still remembered right where the closet was that held the chairs the church used for overflowing events.

  “Do you want to sit with Lauren?” Sylvia asked Nicole.


  They both looked across the hall, where Cooper and Lauren tilted their heads toward each other from their chairs.

  Nicole chuckled. “She looks well cared for, don’t you think?”

  Sylvia smiled in agreement.

  “I want to help.” Nicole crutched toward the stack of tablecloths. “I may not be the speediest assistant around, but I think I can manage this task.”

  “Thank you.” Sylvia would send someone over to help as soon as she could politely interrupt a cluster of conversation. For now, she laid four folded tablecloths over one of Nicole’s shoulders and spread a fifth over a table while Nicole balanced on her crutches and moved to a nearby table.

  “There’s Dani and Liam.” Nicole flapped open a tablecloth.

  Behind Dani and Liam were Eva Parker and Zeke Plainfield.

  “We brought something to help with decorations,” Eva said.

  Zeke unfurled a banner. Sylvia recognized it immediately. THANK YOU, QUINN, it said. The planning committee had it made for the banquet ten days ago. She’d last seen it still on the wall of the dinner hall and amid the consuming events since that night had not wondered what became of it. As she was about to ask how the two teenagers gained possession of it, Sylvia remembered Zeke had been one of the servers for the event.

  “Can we hang it?” Eva looked at Sylvia with wide, pleading eyes.

  “Of course,” Sylvia said. “Do you know where the ladder is, Zeke?”

  “Yep.”

  “Have at it. Just don’t put any new holes in the wall.” Sylvia glanced at Dani.

  “We’ll make sure it’s done right,” Dani said, pulling on Liam’s arm.

  Sylvia couldn’t think of a time in recent history that Liam had been inside the church building—or Dani. But here they were. Zeke and Eva would know where everything was, and Dani and Liam would keep them from doing anything careless.

  The doors were opening and closing at a steady pace now as people brought in salads, breads, and vegetable dishes. They set the contributions on four long serving tables arranged end to end, where Patricia Healy made sure there was some organization to the fare and Scott transferred stacks of dishes from a rolling cart. Sylvia nodded in satisfaction as she saw Patricia was planning to serve from both sides of the tables. As soon as they relieved themselves of their food dishes, most visitors beelined for Quinn. He shook hands and kissed cheeks and dispensed hugs and grinned. He was as much himself as Sylvia had ever seen him.