Cold River (9 page)

“Oh. I’ll change if there’s time after I talk to Bowie. I’d hoped to stock the wood box before I got ready for dinner.”

“There’s no time for the wood box. These aren’t fancy people, but at least put on a sweater and a sport coat. You don’t want Sean showing you up.” She waited a half beat, but Lowell didn’t respond. Of course he wouldn’t. She felt a ripple of irritation. He was so damn
annoying
these days. “There doesn’t seem to be anything the Camerons can’t do, does there? Of course, you have your virtues, too.”

Lowell turned to his computer, an old desktop from their home in New York. Vivian felt dismissed, but she didn’t leave. She watched as he flipped on his computer, its sudden hum the only sound in the quiet house.

“Lowell,” she said finally.

He looked back at her. “Yes, Vivian?”

She sighed. “Nothing. Never mind. I’ll see you after you
meet with Bowie. Let me know if either of you has any questions.”

He didn’t even seem to notice when she withdrew from the doorway. They planned to celebrate New Year’s in Vermont and stay through the following week. She hoped overseeing the work on the guesthouse would prove to be a welcome distraction and the fresh start she needed.

Dinner tonight would be pleasant. She liked the Robinsons, and she looked forward to spending an evening with Sean Cameron. Whatever his faults might be, the man definitely wasn’t hard to look at, and he was strong, fit, competent and utterly masculine, as well as a self-made multimillionaire.

Perhaps her husband would learn a thing or two from him.

H
annah had forgotten she still had Sean’s scarf and draped it over her coat and hung both on a hook in the mudroom. She kicked off her boots, changed into her sneakers and headed to the café kitchen. Her brothers weren’t home. She’d left messages on their cell phones letting them know that she’d had a slight accident at Four Corners and the police might be stopping by but that they shouldn’t worry.

And why should they worry? If it hadn’t been Bowie O’Rourke in the cemetery, would Sean have bothered to call Jo and Elijah? Would
she
have reacted the way she had?

When she entered the kitchen, Dominique and Beth were there, still working. They’d laid out a dozen chocolate and vanilla cupcakes on the worktable and had piles of assorted decorations and little bowls of icings in different colors.

Beth eased off her high stool. “Yikes, what happened to you?”

“I fell up at Four Corners cemetery. It’s a long story. I just need some ice.” Hannah opened the freezer and grabbed a handful of ice cubes, tucking them in a flour-cloth towel, which she put to her swollen cheek. “You’d think ice is the last thing I’d want after being outside most of the day.”

“Hiking up Cameron Mountain,” Beth said. “We heard. Is that how you hurt yourself? Here, let me take a look.”

“I didn’t get hurt on the mountain.”

“Sean followed you up there,” Dominique said.

Hannah could see that her friends had been kept in the loop, at least up until the incident at the crypt. “Yes, he did,” she said, feeling the cold from the ice penetrate the towel. “A.J. and Elijah were at the lodge when we got back, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to them.”

“Chance?” Beth snorted skeptically. “You mean you got out of there before they could pin you down about what you were up to, hiking up to their dad’s cabin by yourself.”

Hannah smiled. “Yes, that’s what I mean. I stopped at Four Corners to give the McBanes the goodies, and I had a bit of an accident at the cemetery. Bowie was there checking on the culvert. He had some rock and debris piled up….” She noticed that her hands shook. “That’s how I got hurt.”

Beth’s eyes narrowed. “You’re leaving a lot out.” She sighed. “Might want to put some ice on your wrist, too.”

“It doesn’t hurt that much.”

“Not now, maybe. Later it will. Clean it, too.” Beth sighed. “And pour yourself a stiff drink. The Camerons on your case. A fall in a cemetery at dusk. Damn. Pour two drinks, one for me.”

Hannah set the ice pack on the counter and turned to the sink to wash her hands. Her wrist was puffy and turning multiple shades of blue, but she doubted it would bother her for more than a day or two. Beth stood next to her. “Indulge me. You’re so damn stoic, Hannah, you could have a broken wrist and just not notice your pain.”

“Or not want to trouble anyone,” Dominique added quietly behind them.

“Have a look, then.” Hannah leaned back against the sink and let Beth examine her wrist. “Thank you.”

“Sean took a look, too? He’s an EMT.”

“You’re assuming he was at the cemetery.”

“Was he?”

It would be a mistake, Hannah knew, to think that Beth’s good nature meant she wasn’t as sharp, skeptical and relentless as her federal agent sister. “Yes.” Before either Beth or Dominique could respond, Hannah continued. “So, what’s the verdict on my wrist?”

Beth grinned at her. “Bruised. Ice is the best thing.”

Hannah washed her hands and retrieved her ice pack, putting it on her wrist, figuring she could alternate with her bruised cheek. “What’s with all the cupcakes?”

“Myrtle Smith suggested we have New Year’s cupcakes,” Dominique said. “We’re experimenting with designs. She doesn’t know what to do with herself. She’s one of the few reporters left in town but she has a personal stake in the investigation. I suppose we all do.”

“I should tell you,” Hannah said, “Jo might be stopping by. In fact, she probably will be stopping by.”

Beth tapped a fingertip onto a little pile of edible silver stars, three of them sticking; she carefully placed them atop a vanilla cupcake with bright blue icing. “With my sister on the way, does that mean that whatever happened to you could be considered a criminal act?”

Hannah transferred her ice pack to her cheek. “It means what Dominique just said. Everyone’s restless.”

Beth tapped more stars. “And Jo would know something happened at the cemetery because…”

“Sean called Elijah.” Hannah sank onto one of the stools at the worktable. “Cell phone.”

Dominique dumped out chunks of black licorice. “I don’t care for licorice,” she said, then sighed at Hannah. “Will you just tell us what happened?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want anyone to worry, because it was nothing.”

“If it was nothing,” Beth said, “you wouldn’t be sitting here with an ice pack on your face and my sister would be out at the lake with Elijah.”

“Fair point,” Hannah said, relenting. She told her friends the basics of how she’d ended up with a bruised, scraped cheek and wrist.

Dominique shuddered. “You heard someone whispering your name in a
cemetery?
I’d have passed out on the spot.”

“I could have been mistaken.”

“Whatever the case,” Beth said, “Jo probably grabbed Scott and maybe a local guy and went to talk to Bowie first. That gives us a few minutes before she swoops in here in federal agent mode.” Beth added more stars to her blue-iced cupcake, then sat back and assessed her handiwork. “What do you think?”

“Pretty,” Hannah said.

“People might not think the stars are edible,” Beth said.

Dominique added a hunk of the black licorice. “There. That looks real. It’ll cue people everything on the cupcake is edible. Hannah?”

She appreciated their obvious but sincere attempt at normalcy. “I like the sparkle, but not everyone likes licorice…including you.”

Dominique sighed. “All right. Next.”

“Do you think my crazy sister will actually marry Elijah?” Beth was teasing, but there was a note of concern in her voice, too. “He can be called back for some secret mission at any time, and she can’t stay up here forever. What would she do? She’ll have to go back to D.C. or get a new assignment, or quit the Secret Service altogether. There’s no guarantee this’ll work now any more than it did when they were teenagers.”

“Jo’s still wearing the ring he gave her,” Dominique reminded her friend.

The same ring he’d bought at nineteen for her. “A sentimental Cameron,” Hannah said, trying to keep her tone light. “Hard to believe one exists.”

“Deep down, all the Camerons are sentimental.” Beth pointed to the middle row of cupcakes. “Buttercream frosting with gold sprinkles—delicious but not special enough.” She lifted a cupcake with white frosting and a bright red number one, for the first day of the new year. “This one. Oh, my. It’s perfect.” She peeled off the paper wrapper. “Absolutely perfect.”

“Hannah?” Dominique asked.

She nodded. “A series of simple, elegant and delicious cupcakes will go over well.”

“All right, then.” Obviously satisfied, Dominique jumped off her high stool. “I’ll do more designs along these lines. Three should do it.”

Beth took another bite of the cupcake. “All the cops and such hanging out here will love some happy cupcakes. We’ll cheer them up yet.”

Dominique untied her apron. “Hannah, why don’t you take some of these sample cupcakes for Devin and Toby? An occasional treat, especially this time of year, is good for the soul.”

Hannah picked up one of the cupcakes, peeled off the wrapper and bit into the rich, sweet cake and icing. She smiled at her friends, despite her fatigue and dread at having to face Jo Harper. “Who needs ice when there are cupcakes?” She reached for two chocolate ones decorated with white buttercream frosting and sprinkles. “I’ll take these. You can both head on out. I’ll be fine on my own with Jo and whoever else turns up.”

“Scott’s working tonight,” Beth said, peeling off her
canvas apron. “I promised I’d help Jo clean out one of the cabins. She’s tackling them one by one. I think the work helps her process the investigation—and her life. How about you two?”

Hannah set the two cupcakes on a plate. “The Robinsons invited me to dinner, and if Bowie’s up to it, he’s stopping by to take a look at the water in the cellar—”

“Whoa, whoa.” Beth put up a hand. “Bowie? Hannah, what are you doing?”

“He’s a stonemason, Beth. He knows cellar leaks. If you’re worried, which I’m not, Devin and Toby will both be here.”

“All right, I’ll stay out of it. I just hope what happened up at the cemetery was an accident.” Beth grabbed her jacket off a hook by the door. “Have fun at dinner. You and the judge can go off on one of your tangents about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. It’ll take your mind off things. Dom, you want to join Jo and me at the lake?”

“Not tonight, but thanks,” she said.

It was Dominique’s standard response when she was invited anywhere in the evening. She rarely went out after work, saying she preferred to stick close to the little house she was renovating in the village and the café provided most of the social contact she needed. She and Beth left together. Hannah wrapped the rest of the cupcakes, got fresh ice and a fresh towel and locked the café for the night. She went out into the center hall and stared out the side windows at the Christmas lights twinkling on the trees across the street on the common. Dominique was a stickler about keeping decorations fresh. The wreaths, lights and baubles they’d put up in the café would be down by New Year’s Day.

As if on cue, Jo Harper’s car angled into a parking spot in front of the building and she and Elijah got out. Hannah wondered if they could see her standing there in the hall or
if she could run upstairs and lock herself in her apartment and refuse to talk to them.

Best to get this done, she thought, setting the plate of cupcakes on the curving stairs to the second floor. She held her ice pack in one hand and opened the front door. “Elijah, Jo,” she said as the pair mounted the stone steps. “I’ve been expecting you. Beth and Dominique have gone home. We can talk in the café.”

Even as a senior in high school, when Hannah was a freshman, Jo Harper, the eldest of the town police chief’s three children, had been direct and uncompromising. Her one weakness had been the man across the café table from her now—bad-boy Elijah. Their days holed up together in a cabin on the lake were probably her only departure from the straight-and-narrow.

Fate in the form of the sixteen-year-old son of the vice president of the United States had brought her to Black Falls in November. While assigned to protect Marissa Neal, the eldest of Preston and Holly Neal’s five children, Jo had become the victim of one of Charlie Neal’s infamous pranks. Charlie was the youngest and the only boy. He’d hosted an airsoft battle at the vice president’s residence. Jo believed one of the guns was in fact real and jumped into the teenage fray, intercepting what turned out to be a barrage of airsoft pellets.

The incident, captured on video by one of the boys, ended up on YouTube. The subsequent media sensation and Jo’s disgruntled boss had landed her back in her hometown until things settled down.

Hannah had heard rumors that Charlie, who had a genius IQ, had played a role in discovering the existence of the network of killers-for-hire. It wasn’t anything Jo was willing to discuss.

Regardless, Jo had always had a knack for rubbing Hannah the wrong way.

Elijah had walked over to a riverside window while Jo stepped behind the glass case and poured herself a mug of coffee as if she owned the place. She brought her mug to a small table overlooking Elm Street and pulled out a chair. Her jacket was open, a black scarf hanging from her neck.

She nodded to Hannah. “Have a seat.”

Hannah tried not to bristle and sat opposite Jo, her back to the street window. She reminded herself that Jo was in a difficult position and she and Elijah had saved Devin’s life. Devin had said she’d been good to him on the mountain, careful with him, putting herself at risk to make sure he and Nora Asher were as safe as possible when the bullets had started flying. Jo had stood up to the pressure of a life-threatening situation and hadn’t taken care of just herself.

“Can I get you anything else?” Hannah asked. “Soup, a sandwich—cupcakes?”

“Not for me. Help yourself if you want anything.”

Hannah understood that Jo was indicating this wasn’t a casual conversation among friends. “I just had a cupcake, thanks. I assume you’ve already talked to Sean and Bowie.”

Jo nodded. “Sean’s still up at the cemetery. Scott Thorne and I went out to Bowie’s place and talked to him.”

“How are his injuries?”

“He says fine. He was on his way to see about some work he’s doing for the Whittakers. How’re your injuries?”

“Nothing ice and a hot bath later tonight won’t cure.”

Elijah turned from the window and walked over to their table, his deep, clear blue eyes fastening on Hannah for a half beat, but he said nothing and sat next to Jo.

Stifling a surge of self-consciousness, Hannah kept her attention on the federal agent across from her. “It makes sense you’d want to check out what happened in the cemetery.
Even if you weren’t in the middle of a major investigation, that was weird.”

Jo drank some of her coffee, holding the evergreen mug in both hands. “Tell us what happened.”

Hannah gave her account as thoroughly and objectively as she could, leaving out as much emotion and speculating as she could manage. Neither Jo nor Elijah interrupted.

When Hannah finished, Jo set her mug on the table and looked out the window at the dark, quiet street. “We’ve been tracking Melanie Kendall’s and Kyle Rigby’s movements. We know for sure they were in Black Falls in April and again in November. Melanie met Thomas Asher here in the café in April.” Jo sat back in her chair. “Did you see Kyle then?”

Hannah shook her head. “No, but he stopped by in November before he went up Cameron Mountain to look for Nora. You know that, Jo. He interviewed all of us. Dominique, Beth, me. He said he was a mountain rescuer.”

“He wanted us to believe Devin was a troubled teenager,” Jo said. “Money turned up missing at the lodge, at Nora’s apartment and here at the café.”