Buried Sins (10 page)

But that wouldn’t help Caroline. He was probably the last person who could help her, but he was the one she’d confided in, and he had to try.

“He was a criminal wearing a badge, and I’d like to see him get the justice that’s due him. But he was only one person. You had the misfortune to have run up against him.”

To say nothing of the poor excuse for a mother she’d had. Seemed as if Caroline had been given the raw end of the deal too many times.

“I know.” She straightened, quickly blotting a tear that had escaped as if ashamed of it. “Intellectually, I know that. But that doesn’t keep me from wanting to stay as far away from the police as I possibly can.”

“Understandable.” It was a good thing she’d pulled herself together, because he longed to put his arm around her, pull her close, tell her—

No. There was nothing he could tell her. He might understand her better now, but that understanding had only served to emphasize the barrier between them.

She pushed herself off the bench, taking a few quick steps away from him. Maybe she sensed the feelings he was trying so hard to suppress.

“Look—about the money. You could tell the Santa Fe police about it, couldn’t you? Tell them it isn’t mine. That I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“I can tell them.” That wouldn’t end her involvement, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her that now. Push her too hard, and Caroline might just run again.

He could understand why she always seemed to perch on the edge of flight. Nothing in her life had given her the assurance that she could trust people, and running away had been her only defense.

“It’ll be okay.” He stood, went to her. Wanted to touch her, but he didn’t quite dare, knowing what he did. “You’re not a helpless kid any longer, and you have family to love and protect you.”

She had him to protect her, too, even though she probably didn’t believe that and wouldn’t welcome it. Still, he was the one she’d told. That had to mean something.

“Since you haven’t called me again, I realized the only way I’d find out how you’re doing is to call you.” Francine’s voice was clear and crisp over the cell phone. Possibly a little annoyed, as well.

“I’m sorry.” Caroline curled into the corner of the leather sofa. She’d closed the curtains against the darkness outside and told herself she was perfectly safe. Still, it was good to hear another person’s voice. “It’s been so hectic here, getting settled and trying to get into the craft-show circuit. That’s no excuse. I should have called.”

“Craft shows?” The words were dismissive. “Really, Caroline. You have a position waiting for you here. I’ve told you that. Why don’t you come back to Santa Fe where you belong?”

“I’m not sure I do belong there.” Odd, how far away that life seemed now. “Maybe what happened with Tony changed everything.”

“Nonsense. You had a good life here before you ever met Tony, didn’t you? There’s no reason why you can’t have that again.”

“I’ll think about it.” That was an evasion, but how could she know what she wanted? She’d been battered by one shock after another until it was impossible to do anything except tense up, waiting for the next one. “What’s going on with the gallery? Are you all right?”

“Never mind me. How are you?” Francine’s voice softened on the words. Caro could picture her, leaning back in her custom-made desk chair, her sleek blond hair shining under the indirect lighting she insisted upon. “I didn’t mean to snap, but I’ve been worried about you. So many people have asked how you are, and I don’t know what to tell them.”

“I’m fine. Really.” It was good to feel she had friends who cared about her. “It’s just—things have been a little crazy.” She could trust Francine, but it didn’t seem fair to unload all her worries on her.

“You’re not. I can hear it in your voice. What is it? Have you heard from Tony?”

The question had her sitting bolt upright. “Why would you ask that? Tony’s dead.”

Francine didn’t speak for a moment, but her very silence communicated her doubt. “I know that’s what the police said. What we all believed. But after you told me about the man who accosted you that day—”

“You’ve found out something.” She was shaken, but at some level she wasn’t surprised. Francine knew everyone who was anyone in Santa Fe, and she heard every rumor first.

“Nothing that I’d want to take to the police.” Francine sounded unsure of herself, and that was unusual. “People have been talking. People liked Tony. He was good at selling upscale real estate, probably because he was so likeable. But now there are rumors of gambling debts—enough rumors that there must be some basis in fact, I’d think. You had no idea?”

“No.” It was hard to look back and see how naive she’d been. “But now—” She didn’t want to tell Francine about the safe-deposit box stuffed with money, but if that didn’t indicate gambling, what else could it have been?

“Now it seems likely to you. Don’t bother to deny it. I can hear it in your voice.” Francine had become her usual brisk self. “Well, that increases the possibility that Tony is still alive. And if so, he’ll get in touch with you. You’re his wife, and he—”

“I’m not.” She couldn’t let Francine go on any longer making assumptions that weren’t true about her relationship with Tony. “I found out yesterday Tony had a wife in Philadelphia. He didn’t bother to divorce her before he married me.”

“I can’t believe it. Caroline, are you sure? He must have been divorced. He couldn’t hope to get away with anything else.”

“But he did, didn’t he? I had no idea the woman existed, any more than she knew about me.” Her throat tightened, and she had to force the words out. “He had a child with her.”

“Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry.”

Somehow the sympathy in Francine’s voice broke through the control Caroline had imposed on her emotions. A sob burst out before she could stop it, then another. She could only hold the phone like a lifeline and let the tears spill out, vaguely registering the soothing words Francine uttered.

Finally she managed to take a deep breath, mopping her face with her palm. “Sorry.” Her voice was still choked. “I didn’t mean to let go that way.”

“Well, it’s not surprising. But look, are you positive about this? How did you find out? Did your family help you, hire a private investigator?”

“No, nothing like that. I haven’t told them about it yet. The local police chief got involved. He’s the one who found the record of Tony’s marriage, and no record of any divorce.”

“A country cop?” That was Francine at her most superior. “My dear, if you’re depending on someone like that, you’re really in trouble. It sounds as if what you need right now is a friend you can count on.”

She pressed her palm over her burning eyes. “I know how lucky I am to have you.”

“Well, I’m not much use to you when I’m way out here. Let’s see—” she could hear the tapping of computer keys “—there are a few things on my calendar I can’t rearrange, but I ought to be free in a couple of days. I’ll let you know when my flight gets in.”

Her mind grappled to keep up. “You’re coming here?”

“Why not? I suppose that inn of yours can rent me a room, can’t it?”

“But I can’t let you do that. You have so much to do. The gallery—”

“I own the gallery, remember? I can give myself a vacation whenever I want to.”

“Francine, I appreciate it.” Her voice choked again. “I can’t tell you how much. But I can’t let you change your plans for me.”

“There’s no point in arguing about it. I’m sure you think you can handle things by yourself, but right now it sounds as if you can use a friend.”

She’d make another attempt to dissuade her, but Francine was right. She did need a friend, and it was far better to rely on someone she’d known for over two years than someone she’d known for less than two weeks.

An image of Zach’s frowning face formed in her mind. What did she know about him, really? And what had made her trust him with secrets she hadn’t told another soul?

C
aroline folded the tortilla over the chicken-and-pepper-jack-cheese filling. She’d come over to the house to show Grams how the quilt looked after its initial cleaning, and ended up offering to cook supper. She just hoped they’d like her chicken enchiladas. There weren’t too many recipes in her repertoire. She’d had to make some substitutions, since Snyder’s Grocery apparently considered that one kind of pepper was sufficient for anyone’s needs.

Grams came into the kitchen, carrying a large document box—that sort that was used to store fragile paper and photographs. “Here it is. I’m sure you’ll find something in this batch of papers and letters about the quilt.”

Caro gestured with the tortilla she’d just warmed in the microwave. “Great. I don’t dare touch them now, but I’ll look through them after supper.”

Grams found nothing unusual about her interest in the quilt, attributing it to a natural desire to learn about her family history. Caro didn’t think it was that, exactly, but she couldn’t explain, even to herself, the fascination the old quilt held for her.

“There’s no hurry. You can take the box back to the apartment with you.”

Grams turned to set it on the end of the counter, her earrings swinging. Caro couldn’t help a smile. Grams wore the earrings she’d made for her almost every day.

“I’ll be careful with it,” she promised.

“I know you will, dear. And after all, family documents belong to you as much as anyone.”

That calm assumption that she had a place here still took her aback, even though she’d already encountered it several times. To Grams, it was as if Caroline’s time away was just a visit to another world, and now she was back where she belonged.

“Your grandfather started collecting family papers and letters after he retired, with some idea of writing a family history.” Grams’s smile was reminiscent. “He should have known he wouldn’t be content with something that sedentary. He loved to be out and about, meeting with his friends and taking an interest in civic affairs.”

“I wish I had more memories of him.” She’d been too young when Mom took them away, and time had blurred whatever memories had been left.

Grams came to hug her, her cheek soft against Caro’s. “He loved you, you know. You’d sit on his lap and listen to his stories until you fell asleep in his arms.”

Her throat tightened. “Thank you, Grams.” For the memory, and for the sense of belonging. She wiped away a tear. “And thanks again for being so welcoming about Francine coming.”

“Well, of course it’s fine for your friend to come. She can have the blue bedroom. We don’t have any guests booked until the weekend.” Grams pulled the wooden stool over so that she could watch the enchilada-making. “Goodness, Caro, wouldn’t you know we’d welcome your friend?”

“I know nothing hampers your hospitality. I just thought it might be an imposition if you have other guests booked. Although I’m sure Francine will insist on paying.”

“She’ll do no such thing.” Grams’s response was prompt. “She’s your friend.”

Grams and Francine could battle that one out, she decided. They were both so strong-willed that she didn’t have a clue which one would win.

She transferred the enchiladas to one of Rachel’s ceramic baking pans, trying to concentrate on that instead of on the vague worry that had possessed her since hearing of Francine’s plans.

The thing that bothered her about the proposed visit didn’t have anything to do with Grams’s hospitality. It was more of a reluctance to see two such different parts of her life meeting. The truth was that she felt like a different person since she’d come back to Pennsylvania. With Francine here, who would she be?

She didn’t think she wanted to go back to who she’d been in Santa Fe—the woman who’d fallen in love with Tony and who’d also fallen for his lies. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to move forward, either.

“Are you all right, dear?” Grams touched her arm, her fingertips light as the wings of a butterfly. “You know I’ve been worrying about you. And praying for you, of course.”

Her throat tightened. “I know. I’m going to be all right.”

“Grieving takes time,” Grams said, her voice gentle. “You can’t rush it.”

Shame flooded her. She couldn’t keep doing this—couldn’t go on letting Grams imagine she was grieving for a beloved husband. She set the casserole dish in the oven, closed the door and turned to face her grandmother.

“It’s not what you think. The situation with Tony—” She stopped, because Rachel walked into the kitchen, the dog at her heels.

Rachel glanced from one to the other of them, obviously knowing she’d interrupted something. “Should I make some excuse none of us will believe and go away?”

“No. Don’t go. I want both of you to hear this.” They deserved to hear the truth. Caro took a breath, trying to frame the words she needed to speak. “I fell in love with Tony at first sight, I guess, enough in love to agree when he wanted to elope. But I didn’t know him very well.” That was a massive understatement.

Rachel came to lean on the table, as if wanting to be closer to her. “You found out you made a mistake.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it.” She tried to smile, but she couldn’t manage it. “It didn’t take long to find out that Tony lied constantly—about where he’d been, about his business dealings. He wiped out my savings and checking accounts. When I confronted him—” They didn’t need to know about all the hurtful words Tony had thrown at her. “He was furious. He left, and that was the night he died.”

“Oh, honey—”

She held out her hand, stopping Rachel’s instinctive embrace. There was more to be said before she could let herself accept comfort. “I never did find out what he was doing, but I think he might have been involved in gambling. The other day, when I went to Philadelphia…” She couldn’t watch their reactions. “I learned he was married before. Apparently he never got a divorce. So it looks as if our wedding wasn’t even legal.”

Silence for a moment. And then she felt Rachel’s arms go around her, strong and comforting, the way she had been when Caroline was eight and had broken her arm falling out of a tree. “Caro, I’m so sorry.”

She nodded, those weak tears spilling over again. Grams’s arms went around both of them, holding them tight.

“You cry all you want, Caro. You don’t have to be brave for us.”

Maybe that was what she needed to hear to give her strength. “I’m all right.” She pressed her cheek against Grams’s, and then hugged her sister. “I’ve cried enough over it. I just wanted you to understand that—” She stopped, not sure what she wanted to say.

“That some odd things have been happening since you got back,” Rachel finished for her.

Caroline drew back, shock running through her. “How did you know that? Did Zach tell you?”

“No, he didn’t say a word, but I’m not an idiot. I can see what’s right in front of me. If he’s helping you…well, he’s a good man.”

“We want to help you,” Grams said. “But we don’t want you to think we’re interfering.” Grams brushed her hair back from her face with a gentle touch. “We’re on your side, that’s all. We love you. Just remember that.”

She nodded, wiping tears away, and gave a watery laugh. “I’ll remember. I love you, too.”

She’d told them the worst of it. No one had blamed her or looked at her with that pitying expression that she dreaded. Only with love.

Caroline came down the stairs from the loft, still yawning, and squinted at the bright sunlight flooding through the living room windows. She crossed to the sofa, mindful of the papers she’d left spread across it and the coffee table.

She’d sat up far later than she’d intended, absorbed in the contents of the box Grams had given her. Those fragile papers, with their faded ink, shouldn’t be left where sunlight might touch them. She didn’t know much about preserving old documents, but common sense told her that.

Still, her fingers lingered as she started sorting them back into the box. Grandfather hadn’t, as far as she could tell, done anything more than put together whatever he’d found relating to the 1850s and ’60s. The papers weren’t grouped in any way, and she’d found the Civil War enlistment papers of one Christian Unger shoved in among a sheaf of household bills and letters.

The letters were what fascinated her. Most of the ones she’d found so far dated from the 1850s. Elizabeth Chapman Unger, Grandfather’s grandmother and the maker of her quilt, had come from Boston, Massachusetts. She seemed to have kept up a lively correspondence with her sister, Abigail, after she married and moved to Churchville. Judging by Abigail’s replies, Elizabeth had found plenty to say about her new surroundings and her husband’s family, apparently not all of it complimentary.

Caro smiled at one passage, where Abigail urged her sister to be tactful with her new mother-in-law. Human nature hadn’t changed very much in the past 150 years.

She laid the papers gently back into the box and put the lid on. There’d been no mention of the quilt in what she’d found so far. Maybe the best thing would be to sort out everything she could find that related to Elizabeth and then go through it chronologically. Grams had promised to continue looking for anything else that related to her. The old house held the accumulated belongings of at least ten generations of the Unger family, and finding any one thing could be a challenge.

Grams had also suggested that Emma Zook would be a good person to give advice about repairing the quilt. She had a long tradition of quilting, as most Amish women did, and she’d know how to handle it.

But that could come later. Right now she was starving, and Rachel had insisted she come to the house for breakfast this morning to taste a new frittata recipe. Over supper last night, as if by unspoken consent, they’d kept the conversation on quilts and food, not on Caro’s painful revelations.

She slid the box into the closet and headed out the door, careful to lock it behind her. Nothing had happened recently, but still, she didn’t intend to take any chances.

She paused, hand still on the knob, wondering at the turn of phrase. Chances of what? Was she afraid that someone was trying to convince her that Tony was still alive? Or afraid that he was?

Tony wasn’t her husband. At some point over the past two days she’d accepted that. She didn’t have any obligation to him.

But she’d made the promises before God. She’d meant them, even if Tony had been lying the whole time. Her mind winced away from the memory of that ceremony. Tony, so tall and handsome in the dark suit he’d worn, seeming so solemn when he took his vows.

Had he been laughing inside, even then? She didn’t know, and the more she thought about it, the less sure she became that she could rely on anything she thought she knew about him.

Well, standing here obsessing about it wasn’t going to help. She started down the path that led around the corner of the barn. She was far better off to get on with things. She’d have breakfast, see if there was anything helpful she could do at the inn this morning.

This afternoon she’d work on the quilt and try to get a few more things ready for the next craft show. Once the moving company got around to bringing the rest of her belongings, she’d have a better choice of things to sell. There was an entire box of jewelry and some weaving that she’d left for the movers.

She ought to be working on jewelry instead of the quilt. Some simple pendants that she could price at under twenty dollars would be a good balance to the more expensive pieces. Plenty of people went looking for bargains, or what they thought were bargains, anyway, at craft shows.

The path led around the pond, past the gazebo toward the house. She glanced back at the barn and stopped. One of the double doors into the barn stood ajar a couple of inches.

Had she left it that way after that disturbing talk with Zach yesterday? Surely not. She was careful to lock things up, although there wasn’t much in the barn to attract a thief—just the quilt frame she’d set up and the table on which she’d laid the quilt to vacuum it. She’d packed the quilt up afterward to take to the Zook farm.

Coffee and frittata were waiting at the house. She sighed. It would worry her all through breakfast if she didn’t check now, just to be sure.

She cut across the lawn toward the barn doors, the damp grass soaking her sneakers in only a few steps. Well, that was foolish. She should have backtracked along the walk instead of trying to save time.

She went up the gravel ramp to the upper level of the barn, slowing as she reached the door. Silly, to be worried about it. She’d probably left it that way herself. Certainly she’d been cut up enough emotionally after betraying herself to Zach. Hardly surprising if she’d forgotten a little something like shutting the barn door.

But at some level she knew it wasn’t true. She’d closed the door and made sure it was latched, just as she always did.

She reached out, grasping the handle. Everything was perfectly still, except for the family of barn swallows who chirped under the eaves. If someone had been there, he or she wouldn’t hang around to be found. She shoved the door open and took a step inside.

Sunlight poured through the opening, casting a spotlight on the interior. Nearly empty, just as she’d left it.

Except that the table she’d been working on had been tipped over, and the quilting frame she’d brought down from the loft had been smashed to pieces.

Zach sat at the kitchen table at the inn, steam rising from the coffee mug Rachel had just set in front of him. By the looks of her, Caroline was the one who needed the coffee, but instead she was holding a cup of chamomile tea that her grandmother had forced on her.

Mrs. Unger and Rachel were hovering over Caroline, so he waited, letting them do all the fussing they needed to before he started in with more questions.

Come to think of it, their concern seemed a bit out of proportion to the cause. If so, that probably meant Caroline had finally told them about her husband. High time, too. They were capable of dealing with that trouble.

He’d sat in this kitchen before. The Hampton women seemed to be—well, not trouble in themselves, exactly. It was more as if they found trouble.