Secrets in a Small Town (2 page)

At the mention of the publisher, Piper shrugged but the kernel of nervousness remained. She couldn’t lose her job. She had big plans. Besides, Owen Garrett could holler all he wanted. It wasn’t going to change the fact that she’d done her due diligence on all of her articles on Big Trees Logging. She studied her fingernail and frowned at the hangnail she saw. She nibbled at the offending skin. “It’s not my fault that I write the stories that put people on the defensive,” she said to Nancy, though the receptionist had already returned to her work, which meant she wasn’t paying much attention to her. Piper exhaled and walked to her office where she’d been doing her research on the aging computer. A spinning rainbow greeted her on the monitor as the computer wheezed through her request without much success. “Damn archaic piece of junk,” she muttered, wondering whether if she gave it a whack like they do in the movies it would miraculously start working. Instead of bitch-slapping her hard drive like she wanted to, she sighed and shut it down so it could reboot.

“Who wants your head this time?” a voice asked behind her. “It must suck to write the stories people love to hate.”

She rolled her eyes before turning to face the owner of the annoyingly snarky tone. “Yes, and it must be tiring to have to be the one to write the stories nobody reads.”

Charlie Yertz, the bane of Piper’s existence, pulled a nasty face but didn’t disappear as she’d hoped. Instead, he tilted his head and regarded her shrewdly, saying, “I think you have an agenda with that Big Trees guy.”

She affected a bored expression. “An agenda? Pray tell.”

“I don’t know yet but I’ll figure it out.”

“You’ve been reading too many conspiracy-theory blogs,” she said, dismissing him and turning her attention to her slowly booting computer. But it was hard to seem absorbed with nothing showing on the screen, so she busied herself with tidying her space. When Charlie remained, she glared. “Can I help you?”

“You’re ambitious,” he stated as if that were a revelation, which it wasn’t. Everyone knew Piper had big dreams of landing a Pulitzer someday.

“Charlie, who knew you had such hard-core investigative skills. Now, go on, shoo. I have work to do.”

“So smug. You didn’t let me finish. You’ve been going after Owen Garrett like a dog with a bone. I can understand one story on the logging hunk. But three? Care to share?”

Charlie thought she had the hots for Owen. If it weren’t so ludicrous, she’d be offended. He was not her type. She preferred her men cultivated, civilized and sophisticated, not rough, big and completely disinterested in protecting the environment. Oh, lord, if she were ever to bring home someone like Owen Garrett, much less the brawny man himself, her parents would wilt.
Oh! Speaking of…
She made a buzzer sound for Charlie’s benefit. “Wrong. However, two points for trying to think outside the box. Oops, actually you didn’t. Not really. It’s not a huge jump to try and draw a line between two single adults with some kind of cockamamie romance theory. Rest your little brain, Chuck. I’m starting to see smoke.”

Charlie’s face reddened and she bit back open laughter. It was just too easy with this guy.

“If I find out you’re moonlighting behind the paper’s back, I’ll take great pleasure in ratting you out.”

She kept her face implacable as she said, “I’m sure your uncle appreciates your loyalty.”

“I am loyal,” he agreed, his gaze hardening. “Unlike some.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and instead, checked her watch. “Oh, look at the time. Gotta go. If you’ll excuse me, I have a lunch date scheduled.”

She moved past Charlie, who was no doubt plotting her death. The irony was that if he managed to pull off the perfect murder, her obituary would end up on his desk and she wasn’t sure she felt comfortable with the idea of Charlie being in charge of her last words printed in the paper.

The funny thing was, for once Charlie had hit the nail on the head, though he was far afield with that romance idea. She was on to something with Owen Garrett and, really, it had nothing to do with his logging operation. She was digging into a bigger, better, far juicer story than the environmental angle her parents were pushing her to pursue.

And Owen Garrett was at the epicenter.

Of course, he was oblivious to the part he was going to play in her master plan—the plan where she busted open a decades-old case involving Owen’s late father and, in the process, earned herself a spot among the greats in journalistic history. Now that she had him good and riled, when she pulled the bait and switch on him, he wouldn’t know what hit him. He’d be so grateful that she was dropping the logging angle, he’d likely tell her whatever she wanted to know about his father.

Well, that’s how it played out in her head. Of course, her mother was fond of telling her that she had a terribly overactive imagination, which, coupled with her writing skills, would make her a terrific fiction writer. But she didn’t want to write fiction. She wanted to write the
next big story.
She wanted to rub elbows with the likes of Judith Miller of the
New York Times
and Dan Balz of the
Washington Post.

And Owen Garrett was going to make that possible.

But first she had to choke down a tofu casserole with her parents, when what she really wanted was a triple-decker beef burger with all the trimmings over at Buns and Burgers. She tried not to drool at the thought and resigned herself to a lovely luncheon marred only by the prospect of the menu.

“Piper Sunday,” he spat.

“I read her stuff. She’s good,” Scott said, then quickly added when Owen gave him a dark look, “Well, I mean, as good as any small-town reporter, I guess. So what’s she said that’s upset you so much?”

“She wrote that I’m going forward with the east mountain project with a flawed timber harvest plan, which basically points me out to be some kind of bull-headed jerk who doesn’t give a rip about the environment or the endangered fairy shrimp or whatever damn bug that’s in need of protecting.”

“Well, you are going through with the project, right?” Scott asked for clarification.

“I filed all the necessary paperwork and permits. I’m doing everything by the book. I was given clearance.”

“Of course, but that’s not the point she’s making, right? You’re not going to win with her. You know who her parents are, right?”

“No. Should I?”

Scott chuckled. “Well, they’re only the king and queen of liberal politics, Coral and Jasper Sunday. They love to take on people like you. I can just imagine how they would enjoy vilifying a logger.”

“This is bullshit,” Owen grumbled, raking his hand through his hair, feeling as if he were slipping deeper into a mud pit. “So what are you saying? I’ve got no recourse, because her parents are pushing an agenda and they’re using their daughter to get it done?”

Scott shrugged. “I’m not saying anything. I’m just providing information.” He leaned forward and flicked imaginary lint from his desktop. “Here’s the thing— I’m your lawyer and your friend. As your lawyer, I can drag the newspaper into court and demand a retraction. But in the end, it’ll cost you more than it’s worth and, frankly, it’ll just make you look worse. Hell, maybe that’s what she’s hoping. Of course, as a lawyer billing you for my time, I’ll do whatever you feel is necessary. But as your friend, I say let it go. Don’t let this woman get under your skin. You’re not doing anything wrong, so stop letting her make you feel as if you have.”

“Just let it go?” Owen repeated, not quite sure if he was able to do that, not while he was as mad as he was anyway.

“Well, that’s my advice. But you do what you want. I surely won’t turn away your money if you’re feeling like throwing it down the toilet.”

“I think I need a new lawyer,” Owen growled, but Scott knew he was just blowing steam and simply made a gesture as if to say “you can do what you want” before leaning back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his head. Finally, Owen gave it up. “Fine. I’ll let it go. But so help me, if I run into her on the streets, I might not be able to play nice.”

Scott laughed. “Come on now…she’s not bad-looking, you know. You
ought
to play nice. The saying ‘you catch more flies with honey’ has a certain logic to it. You could do a lot worse.”

Owen barked a short, mirthless laugh in response. “I’d rather bed down with a rattler than pretend to like her just to get her off my back.” With a wry dig at Scott, he added, “Some of us have standards.”

“Suit yourself.” Scott smiled, the insult bouncing right off him without causing a scratch. “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

“No,” Owen answered sullenly, his blood still hot from his encounter with that wretched reporter. “I suppose not if you aren’t interested in helping me sue the newspaper.”

“Perhaps another time,” Scott suggested with an amiable grin. “In the meantime, want to hit the links with me sometime?”

Owen glowered. “I don’t golf. Stop asking.”

“Stop being so stubborn. You might like it.”

“No, thanks. I have work to do. You might try that sometime.”

“I work. And you’ll have evidence of that as soon as you get my bill in the mail.”

Billable hours. He swallowed a sharp retort. As the woman who raised him would say, he had a bee in his bonnet and he needed to chill out. “All right. I’m out of here then. And don’t hurt yourself, okay?” he said, gesturing to the paperwork on Scott’s desk before heading for the door.

“Stay out of trouble,” Scott called out, and Owen waved in response.

Play nice, that was Scott’s advice. Some lawyer he was. Weren’t they all bloodthirsty, bottom-feeders? Apparently, he had the one lawyer on the planet who had a conscience.

Wasn’t he the lucky one. Yeah…lucky wasn’t what he was feeling right at the moment.

“Yes, Coral,” she answered dutifully. That was another thing about her parents, she’d never called them “Mom” and “Dad,” instead always referring to them by their given names as they believed it was unnecessary to cling to archaic traditions. Her friends used to think it was wild that she was treated like an adult when she was ten, but secretly, Piper had wished she had a bit more of that “tradition” her parents shied away from. It wasn’t easy being the only kid in class with parents like Coral and Jasper. She took a bite of the casserole for her mother’s sake. It wasn’t terrible, the spices helped; but it wasn’t beef and that’s what she wanted at the moment. “Actually,” she said around the hot bite, “I had a visitor at the paper earlier this morning and, boy, was he mad.”

Jasper grinned above his own heaping plateful of casserole. “The owner of Big Trees Logging came down to rail at you, huh? How’d that go?”

“As well as can be expected,” Piper said with a shrug.
Mad
was an understatement. If fire could’ve shot from his eyeballs, she’d have been reduced to a smoldering pile of ash. “He’s pretty ticked off. He threatened to sue the paper.”

“That’s so like a conservative,” Jasper growled, and Coral nodded in agreement. “Censor the press so that the message is muffled. Don’t worry, sweetheart, the truth is on your side.”

She wasn’t entirely sure of that. She felt a twinge of regret for having to railroad Owen Garrett, but she was playing both sides against the middle for a bigger cause. Sure, she was helping her parents further their own agenda of protecting the marbled murrelet, but in her heart burned a secret desire for bigger things than their little slice of heaven could provide. “Did you know that Big Trees was awarded a green certification for their environmentally sound and sustainable logging practices?” she asked her mother, who only scowled in response.

“Political designation, kickbacks, there’s all sorts of terrible things that go on at the expense of the environment, honey.” Coral seated herself and dug into her casserole with relish. “Logging disrupts the natural order of things, creates sediment that kills the fish and erosion that causes a landslide hazard. We are stewards of the land, honey, and it’s time people remember that fact.”

“It also provides lumber that’s used to build homes,” Piper countered, unable to help herself. “And jobs, so that people can feed their families. And Garrett’s company actually improved the Chileaut watershed.”

Coral blinked in surprise. “Piper, you know there are plenty of alternative building products out there that are just as good, if not better, than timber for building homes. If we don’t make people change, they never will. And who’s to say that the Chileaut watershed was improved?” Piper opened her mouth to answer but Coral continued with a knowing expression that Piper found particularly annoying, saying, “Just because some report by some independent water group claims that the watershed quality has improved, doesn’t make it so. We don’t know if money changed hands.”

Piper had a difficult time imagining Owen paying someone off just to get what he wanted. There was something…noble about the man, even though he did scare her a little with that intense stare of his. It was as if he could zero in on her most intimate thoughts with unerring accuracy. She suppressed a shiver. Her mother was still ranting. The fleeting thought came to her to try and set Coral straight with some facts, but she realized in her mother’s current frame of mind the effort would be useless.

She adored her parents, but sometimes they were…well, zealots, and she didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon listening to them tag team her in a one-sided discussion. It was best to nod and agree and then disagree privately. Piper choked down another bite and smiled, ready to switch subjects.

“Do you remember that case involving the Aryan Coalition?”

Jasper paused, his next forkful nearly to his mouth. “You mean, the massacre at Red Meadows? Why would you want to know about that? It’s an embarrassing chapter in the town’s history, best left alone.”

Coral agreed resolutely, her gaze darting. “I was so glad we didn’t have a television. I heard you couldn’t turn the channel without something being on about it. Your father is right, the memory is best forgotten.”

Oh, Piper heartily disagreed. How something so dark and scandalous could lurk in the shadows of the town’s history without piquing at least some kind of outside interest baffled her. When she’d found the details, she’d nearly fallen from her chair in her shock and excitement. It wasn’t every day you found the ticket to the big time just waiting for you to discover it. The second coup had been when she’d discovered that the local recluse, William Dearborn, had actually been at Red Meadows when it all went down. It’d been like stumbling across a buried treasure, only the loot had been in plain sight the whole time.

“Well, when I was doing background research on Big Trees Logging, I stumbled across the information that Owen Garrett was at the massacre. In fact, it was his father who was the leader of the Aryan Coalition.”

“That’s right. I’d forgotten,” Jasper said, returning to his paper. “He was just a kid then, about ten or so?”

“Eleven, actually,” she corrected her father. “What a terrible thing to have lived through.”

“Yes,” Coral hastened to agree, but it was plain that the topic unnerved her, which was saying something because Coral wasn’t easily bothered. She often viewed most awkward, volatile or embarrassing situations as an excellent opportunity to study human behavior within the constraints of a working civilized society. “It’s probably a blessing he was sent to live with his aunt on the east coast. No telling how twisted he might’ve grown up to be if he’d remained here after everything he went through with that father of his.”

“You knew them?” she asked, unable to contain her delight at this unexpected nugget of information.

Coral looked to Jasper, but quickly shook her head. “Of course not, Piper. It’s not as if we ran in the same circles. I’m just saying, the leader of a racist cult is hardly what I’d call a candidate for Father of the Year. You never know what he was teaching that boy.” Then she added with a mutter, “I’m shocked Owen returned.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Piper murmured, her mind moving rapidly. Her parents had definitely shared a conspiratorial look. What did that mean? Dare she ask? Would they tell the truth? Piper decided to sit on those questions for the moment.

“Piper, you’ve hardly touched your tofu casserole. Are you feeling all right? Are you taking your elderberry? Springtime is notorious for being cold season. You need to bolster your immunity. Oh, that reminds me, are you coming to the planting on Sunday at the farm?”

The annual community garden planting was something her parents orchestrated as part of the sustainable-society project they started when she’d been born. It had turned into a community of like-minded individuals who operated a co-op of sorts. They all shared in the work and then when harvest time came, they enjoyed the bounty equally. “Of course,” she answered, swallowing a sigh. Sometimes she felt she lived two lives. One life was for Piper Sunday, reporter, meat-eater, and quite possibly a closet conservative; the other life was for Piper Morning Dew Sunday, vegetarian, environmentalist, love child who was raised on a commune with slightly odd parents. She used to slide quite easily between both lives but lately, she found more in common with reporter Piper than environmentalist Piper and she didn’t know how to reconcile that fact. The idea of spending a full day with her former “community” didn’t thrill her. She’d come to appreciate the uses of deodorant and razors, two things the women in particular eschewed because it wasn’t “natural.”

In answer to her mother’s question, she took another bite and then pushed away her plate. “I’m stuffed. I had a big breakfast at the office this morning,” she explained, planning to fudge the actual contents of her breakfast, which had consisted of doughnuts and coffee. “I had one of those veggie burritos and it just filled me up. I might not even eat dinner.”

Coral nodded in understanding. “Sometimes I cut one in half to share with your father. Would you like me to put some of this casserole in a container for you to take home?”

“No, that’s okay,” she said, offering a different suggestion. “Why don’t you share it with Tia and Rhonda?”

“That’s an excellent suggestion, sweetheart,” Coral said with a reflective nod. “I should’ve thought of it myself.”

Tia and Rhonda were life partners on the farm who had just adopted a baby together and were struggling with the sleeplessness that came as an accessory with the new kid.

Piper prepared to put her exit strategy in motion when her dad piped in, asking about her love life. “Any prospects?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

“Jasper, stop pestering her,” Coral admonished, but Piper could tell she was just as curious. “I’m sure if Piper had something to tell us, she would.” She looked to Piper for assurance. “Right?”

“Of course. Nothing to report. I’m too focused on my work to worry about dating.”

“You know, Farley was asking about you the other day while we were harvesting the seedlings at the greenhouse. He’s a great young man. He makes a mean tofu parmigiana.”

Blech.
The thought turned her stomach more than the idea of dating Farley did.

“A man with shared values who can also cook—you don’t find that too often,” Coral added, as if sharing a trade secret of some kind.

“Not according to eHarmony.com,” Piper quipped, earning a confused look on her parents’ part. No television, no computer. All her best jokes lately had been falling on fallow ground. “Never mind. I was kidding. Forget it. Anyway, gotta go.” She rose and pressed a kiss to both their cheeks. “Thanks for the grub. It was great.”

“See you on Sunday, lil Miss Sunday,” her father said with a wink.

“Can’t wait,” Piper said with a private sigh.