“W-we did everything together,” Olivia wailed, pulling her cardigan tighter around her shoulders. “I just can’t believe she’s g-gone!”
Jack’s phone vibrated. He smiled vaguely at Olivia and, when she rubbed the tissue over her eyes, he took the chance to pull his phone out slightly and glanced at the message that had come in. As expected, it was from Paige.
Cynthia never mentioned Olivia. Not once.
Jack’s eyebrows shot up, but he slipped his phone away and put a more sympathetic expression on his face as Olivia looked up. Cynthia had never mentioned Olivia, her supposed best friend, to her lawyer? Strange.
Still, there was nothing to say about it now. Grimacing, he handed Olivia another tissue. He guessed he wasn’t going to get anything useful here.
“That was a complete waste of time,” Jack muttered as they left Olivia’s house.
“At least Olivia calmed down,” Paige pointed out.
“I’m a police officer, not a psychologist,” Jack said with a huff. “In the end, all she could tell me was that she didn’t see Cynthia at all last week.” He shot her a look. “Knowing Cynthia never mentioned Olivia to you at all was the most useful thing I got out of that.”
“Were Cynthia and Olivia close?” Paige asked curiously.
“They went everywhere together,” Jack mused. “Though not recently. Did you notice anything?”
Paige’s mind instantly sprang to the carefully folded papers in her bag. Taking something from someone’s house definitely constituted stealing, and she hoped Olivia didn’t notice its disappearance.
Glimpsing both Cynthia’s and Olivia’s names on it where it sat innocently on the dining table, though, had interested her enough to move closer while Jack tried to console Olivia. She hadn’t expected to see the beginnings of paperwork for the approval of a new business, and she had slipped them into her purse to have a look at later.
“Not really,” she said, deciding to keep this to herself for now; she didn’t know if it was important.
Jack grumbled and started the car.
Unfortunately, the day did not grow any more productive from there. Visiting Elizabeth Benson’s house (much larger and grander than Olivia’s, a sweeping mansion more than a house) had been a lesson in futility.
“I know nothing,” the woman snapped the moment Jack and Paige stepped through the door, regal even with a satin dressing gown wrapped around her thin shoulders and propped up in bed by a dozen pillows.
“Sorry?” Jack sputtered, confused, as he paused in the doorway.
“You’re here to ask me about my daughter’s death?” Mrs. Benson asked, head held high. “I have no information for you.”
“We just want to know when you last saw your daughter, Mrs. Benson,” Jack tried.
“Two weeks ago,” the woman said haughtily. “Now, leave me be, I will be having lunch soon.”
No matter how they tried, they couldn’t get any more information from the difficult woman, who seemed intent on blocking them at every turn. Eventually, a young woman with a distressed look on her face ushered them out, just after she brought Mrs. Benson a tray.
“If she wasn’t so obviously bedridden, I’d suspect her,” Paige muttered as they got back in the car. “What is she sick with, anyway?”
“Cancer,” Jack said, killing Paige’s forming idea that the woman was pretending. “From what I’ve heard, she doesn’t have long left.” He chuckled. “She’s as strong-willed as ever, though; she terrified me the first time I met her officially. Meeting her was one of the downsides to having to introduce myself as the new sheriff to the town.”
Paige could almost imagine it, easy-going Jack introducing himself to the high-strung woman, who likely hadn’t been impressed with the change. The grimace on Jack’s face told her that she wasn’t far off the mark.
“It just feels like the whole morning was a waste,” Paige said with a sigh.
“This is what an investigation is like,” Jack shrugged. He threw her an amused look. “What, did you think the clues were just going to land miraculously in our laps? You might have gotten a lucky break with Senator Johnson, but real investigations include a lot of legwork and a lot of witnesses that you have to talk to more than once in order to get to the truth.”
Paige frowned and crossed her arms. “I guess I thought it would be a bit more exciting than that,” she admitted.
“This isn’t a movie,” Jack said with a laugh. “Well, there’s not much else to do other than go back to the station and add what little I have to my notes. Want to grab a bite to eat?”
Paige’s stomach growled loudly and she blushed. “Sure,” she said quickly, causing Jack to laugh again.
They traveled to the west of Otter Rock, ending up at Mo’s. The sight of the bright blue walls pulled Paige abruptly back to the past, when she and Jack had stopped in for a burger on weekends while they were studying, either taking the food with them on their way to the library in Newport or sitting on the rocks nearby, watching the ocean. She smiled fondly as they walked inside, the cheerful atmosphere filling her with nostalgia.
“Been a while, hasn’t it?” Jack asked, following her thoughts.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
Their food came quickly, and Paige bit into the burger, delighted to find that it was just as delicious as she remembered. As she went to take another bite, however, she noticed Jack watching her.
“What?” she asked, a little embarrassed.
“Just remembering all the times we used to come here,” Jack chuckled. “We were pretty young back then, weren’t we?”
“Yeah,” Paige said, laughing as she remembered her headstrong, eighteen-year-old self. “I remember I was going to take on the world.” She quieted, frowning. “I remember I thought you were going to take it on with me.”
Jack’s smile fell. They ate in uncomfortable silence for a moment. Paige kicked herself for bringing that up; she hadn’t held any resentment for what she had once seen as a betrayal for a long time. Certainly not now that she was also living in Otter Rock.
“I guess we both needed to grow up a bit,” Jack said finally. “Back then, we both thought we knew exactly what we wanted. It’s funny how life works, isn’t it?”
“You got what you wanted, though,” Paige couldn’t help pointing out. “You stayed in Otter Rock; you even became the sheriff.”
“I didn’t get everything I wanted back then,” Jack murmured cryptically. He paused, as though considering whether to say anything, and then shrugged. “There was a part of me that actually considered it, you know. Going with you.” He smiled at Paige’s surprise. “I was too afraid to say anything back then… but I really wanted to be wherever you were.” He laughed. “I had the biggest crush on you.”
Paige flushed as warmth rushed through her.
“I didn’t know that,” she managed.
“You know, sometimes I wonder what would have happened if you had actually asked me to go with you, instead of just assuming I would,” Jack confessed. “After you left… I really regretted not asking you out.”
Paige opened her mouth to reply… and then her phone rang, making them both jump. Heart racing, she answered it without looking.
“Paige!” her mother said. “How are you doing? Not working too hard?”
“No… I’m just having lunch,” she answered. She felt oddly off kilter.
“Good,” Jennifer said, pleased. “I’m about to come into town… would you like to take the afternoon off and do a bit of shopping in Newport with me?”
She had no appointments today. She had nothing of importance to do right now. Except—she glanced at Jack and cleared her throat.
“Sure, sounds good.” She rolled her eyes even though her mother couldn’t see her. “You’re just trying to stop me working too hard.”
“Guilty,” her mother said cheerfully. “I’ll see you soon.”
She hung up and Paige cleared her throat again.
“I’d better go. M
om wants to do some shopping with me,” she said with a small laugh.
“Better not keep her waiting,” Jack chuckled, rolling his eyes.
“I’ll see you later, then,” Paige said, standing.
Smiling to show that there was no awkwardness between them, Paige tossed down a twenty dollar bill to pay for her own lunch and strolled out of the restaurant. Part of her wished that her mother hadn’t interrupted before she could reply to Jack’s confession that he had wanted a relationship with her. I probably would have said yes.
8
A Son’s Grief
When he arrived at the station early Monday morning, mind spinning with thoughts and ideas, Jack barely glanced up from his perusal of the papers in his hand. It wasn’t until someone pointedly cleared their throat in his own office that he stopped, startled.
“Paige?” he asked, confused. “Don’t you have work?”
“I just have some paperwork to do later,” Paige said with a shrug. “But there are more important things to think about. Like this.”
Triumphantly, she held up a form of some sort. Jack took it from her, eyes widening when he saw the names Cynthia Johnson and Olivia Clark scrawled on it.
“Where did you get this?”
Paige waved her hand dismissively. “Not important,” she said, which Jack took to mean that she had done something (again) that would likely get her in trouble. For a brief moment, he lamented ever asking her to help with this investigation; he couldn’t see it ending well. “What is important is what that form means. Olivia and Cynthia planned to go into business together!”
“Yes, I can see that,” Jack mumbled, scanning the page; it was the preliminary paperwork for opening a business, and he could almost see the excitement for the idea in the scrawled words. “Seaside Jewels? It looks like they were pretty serious about it. What does it matter, though?”
“It matters because of the date,” Paige huffed impatiently.
Humoring her, Jack looked down at the date beneath the signatures. His eyebrows shot up in surprise; the women signed these forms at least three months ago. Knowing Cynthia and Olivia as he did, it was startling that he hadn’t heard about this before now.
“So I did some research, called in some favors, and got a bit of information,” Paige continued when she saw that she had his full attention now. “It turns out that Cynthia and Olivia were right on the cusp of opening their business; they had even garnered some interest from people who knew Cynthia was the senator’s wife… when, a short time later, Cynthia sells her shares and backs out. Not long after, she has the money to pay for the divorce, and the business falls apart.”
Jack put two and two together. The ramifications of it concerned him, however; Cynthia had been making plans to build a business without considering divorce, but something had forced her hand. Needing the money in a hurry, she had betrayed the business she had set up with her best friend, which explained why Cynthia hadn’t spoken of Olivia to Paige and why the two hadn’t spent as much time together recently.
A sudden divorce and a betrayed best friend—Jack wasn’t sure where these two angles might lead, but they were worth looking into.
“There’s more, too,” Paige went on. She looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary, and Jack’s lips twitched in a smile. The feverish excitement on her face made it difficult to reprimand her for keeping all this from him until she was sure, despite the fact that it was his job to investigate these things. “I went through Cynthia’s files last night. She didn’t mention many people other than her husband and son… she only ever spoke about her mother once. But, it turns out Cynthia has a younger sister—which I’m sure you knew.”
Jack nodded. He knew Cecilia, a cunning, ruthless young woman that he rarely saw, but found thoroughly unpleasant at the times he did have to interact with her.
“Well, here’s the real kicker; Cynthia also told me that when her mother died, she would get the inheritance, not her sister,” Paige said, hands on her hips. “I looked into what Mrs. Benson’s will actually says—”
“How?” Jack couldn’t help but ask; those records were sealed.
“Turns out Mrs. Benson only used the best, which included lawyers from Portland,” Paige shrugged. “Of course, I couldn’t look at the will, but my friend was able to tell me that Cynthia was a major inheritor. Doesn’t that make it seem like Cynthia’s sister might have a motive, too?”
Naturally, Jack had already considered all the possible suspects, which included Cynthia’s entire family. Cecilia was on that list, but, despite her unpleasant disposition, there hadn’t been a strong enough motive to question her more thoroughly.
Now he had one.
“Looks like we know our next step,” he said, putting his papers down on his desk. “Interested in a visit to Cecilia Benson?”
When she was still in school, Paige had thought that the drive to Newport took forever. On a bus, with constant stops to pick up more students on the way, she had had to get up ridiculously early just to make it to school on time, and she generally hadn’t gotten home until the evening. More than once, she had wished for a quicker way there.
As an adult, however, she had to admit that the quarter-hour drive was nowhere near as bad. She watched as the coastal town approached; this was the third time she had been here since she was a teenager, but her irritation had kept her from appreciating the trip when they came to the senator’s office.
“Why did Cecilia choose to live in Newport?” she asked curiously.
“Rumors said to get away from her mother,” Jack said, steering around the streets carefully, looking at house numbers as he went. “Cecilia went to college and got a degree in nursing.”
“Good for her!” Paige said, impressed.
“Not according to Mrs. Benson,” Jack snorted. “That woman’s the old-fashioned sort; she believes a woman’s worth is only in who she marries. As an unmarried twenty-six-year-old woman, I can’t imagine Cecilia gets along well with her.”
“That’s… less old-fashioned and more completely archaic,” Paige scoffed. “In that case, I can’t blame Cecilia for not wanting to be anywhere near her.”
“Just remember she’s a suspect now,” Jack warned. “One with a pretty strong motive, at that.”
Paige wasn’t likely to forget, especially since she had discovered the motive. Part of her couldn’t help but feel sorry for the young woman, though; she understood the sense of not belonging.
Cecilia’s apartment was modern, but not particularly impressive. On an instinct that Paige couldn’t quite fathom, Jack parked a little further down the street, explaining to Paige, as they walked, that Cecilia wasn’t the type to speak readily to the police, so it would be better if they surprised her.
When they knocked on the door and it opened, however, Paige wasn’t sure who was more surprised; them or the young, male face peering out of the doorway.
She certainly hadn’t expected Avery to be here. The boy went so white that she worried he was about to faint and tried to close the door, but Jack’s reflexes were quicker. His foot shot out and wedged between the door and the frame, preventing it from closing all the way. The boy, if possible, looked even more terrified.
“You were at the search, weren’t you?” Paige tried when no one said anything. “I saw you there. You’re Avery, right?”
He hesitated, but then Avery nodded slowly, his eyes wary.
“Avery, we need to speak to your aunt,” Jack said, his usually gruff voice gentle; unexpectedly, this was exactly the chance that they had been waiting for, the chance they had never thought to get. “Is she home?”
“No… she’s at work,” Avery said, speaking for the first time. He opened the door. “If you’d like, you can wait for her.”
“We’ll do that,” Jack said with a nod, taking his hat off as he strode inside.
Paige threw a smile at the anxious Avery and followed Jack inside. The interior was pretty and modest, showing that Cecilia at least didn�
�t share Cynthia’s flare for dramatic decoration. Quickly, Avery led them to a small living room and hovered as they sat down.
Glancing at Jack, Paige frowned slightly, wondering what to do. They couldn’t actually question Avery without an adult present, and Jack could get in a lot of trouble if he tried. But this was perfect; Avery had knowledge that they needed if they were going to get any further.
She could see that Jack thought the same. He stared at Paige intently, and then he slowly nodded. He couldn’t get involved and, as such, would entrust this to her.
Paige cleared her throat, deciding not to decipher why she was starting to feel flushed, and turned to Avery.
“It’s good to see you, Avery,” she said kindly. “I’m very sorry about what happened to your mother.”
“How did you know her?” Avery asked, eyes hard and untrusting.
Some of the anxiety had left him, and Paige couldn’t help but feel impressed by the boy that stood unwaveringly before them. She detected traces of Cynthia in him, that same stubbornness and headstrong desire to get their own way.
“I was her lawyer,” she offered; the truth would be better here. “I’m helping the sheriff investigate since I have some inside knowledge on her thoughts and movements in the weeks before she disappeared.”
Not entirely a lie. Her knowledge was important to the case, after all, just not enough to allow her to investigate actively. But no one needed to know that.
“Oh, Mom mentioned that her lawyer was helping her a lot,” Avery said, coming further into the room. He hesitated and then sat down, staring at her thoughtfully. “If you’re investigating, I guess you have questions.”
Strong and straightforward; Paige liked this kid.
“Only if you’re willing to answer them,” Paige said with a nod. “Your mom told me that she kept you informed of the details of the divorce. We know a lot about it, but we don’t know why she decided to divorce your father. If you could give us some information on that, we’d be grateful.”
Secrets of a Small Town Page 5