Dangerous Secrets Page 7

  “Do you have a government-issued picture ID that can prove that?” Keir asked.

  “I’m Jim Leahy. This is my home. Get off my property.”

  “I can insist on seeing identification, sir. I need to know if you have the right to be on these premises. If you are Jim Leahy, why would you object to showing me your driver’s license? I am here to protect your property.”

  The man swore at them with a long line of vulgar insults. He slammed the door. Within moments, he was back with his wallet open. He shoved it in the sheriff’s face. “Here. Are you happy?”

  The sheriff took hold of the wallet, which was opened to reveal a driver’s license under clear plastic. The man did not release it. The sheriff took his time examining the ID. “Thank you, Mr. Leahy.”

  “Get off my land,” Leahy said.

  “Mr. Leahy, one of your neighbors noticed unusual activity around your home and reported it. It is my job to protect the property of all of our residents both year-round and seasonal.”

  Leahy slammed the door in their faces.

  The sheriff radioed the two officers on the other side of the house to return to their vehicle and leave the area. It was a false alarm. The owner was at the house.

  Back in the Jeep, Ridge looked over at the sheriff and voiced the question on both their minds, “What’s his problem?”

  “Something fishy is going on,” the sheriff replied. “Seasonal residents are usually happy to see that we’re keeping a close watch on their property while they’re gone. Something here isn’t right. Something is suspicious. And I’m going to keep an eye on Mr. Leahy.”

  That evening, Ridge felt distinctly out of his element. It was Parents’ Night at Ben’s middle school. Alongside Sylvie and Milo, Ridge was following Ben as he diffidently showed them his homeroom, his desk, and led them to his work on the bulletin boards all around the room where exemplary papers from students were displayed. Ridge didn’t know exactly how to act. A few of the A+ papers belonged to Ben. Should he speak encouragingly or would Ben prefer him to remain silent?

  Then he realized that he didn’t really need to say anything because Milo was doing a very good job with Ben. This did not reassure Ridge. He is my ward. I should be learning how to speak to him. He shoved his frustration aside. And it was so easy to step back and let Milo, who obviously knew how to handle kids, take over. This was not the time or place to decide what to do with Ben or himself for that matter. Besides, it was so pleasant to stand near Sylvie and let Milo and Sylvie ask the right questions.

  Sylvie kept track of Ridge’s taciturn expression. He walked beside her through the narrow aisles around desks in Ben’s classroom. She’d tried to mind her own business in regard to Ridge and Ben. But maybe she was wrong. Maybe God had brought Ridge back to make him face the past once and for all.

  Other parents and family members already clogged the aisles, causing her to walk single file and very close to Ridge. A few times when she had been bumped, she had been forced to grip his shoulder to keep her balance. She was very aware of him tonight in this unusual setting. And she was very aware of several in the room who appeared to take an interest in noticing Ridge was with her. Didn’t her father’s presence tell them that this was a “family” outing?

  Finally, the crowd swelled and she and Ridge found themselves pushed out into the hallway. “Why don’t we get a jump on the crowd and get a cup of coffee and a cookie in the cafeteria now?” he suggested, obviously ready to leave the gathering behind.

  “Let me ask my dad if he and Ben are ready, too.”

  But Milo and Ben had begun talking to Ben’s wood shop teacher and told them to go on ahead. So they walked the polished linoleum floor of the old school where they both had attended. Most of the parents were still in the classrooms and they could hear the rumble of voices as they passed each opened classroom door. Finally she couldn’t stop herself. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

  “Thinking about the case I’m working on and also about going with Keir with the warrant the other day.”

  “Do you mean when the two of you went out to Leahy’s place?”

  “Winfield’s communication grapevine is still in good working order, isn’t it?” His tone was dry.

  She ignored his comment. “There is something else you might want to know about Jim Leahy.”

  “What?”

  “You remember questioning that girl who worked at Ollie’s convenience store? Tanya Hendricks? Jim Leahy’s her stepfather. Or was. Her mother divorced Leahy last year and married someone else, someone more well-heeled than Leahy is. That’s why Tanya is here with Ollie.” The two of them turned a corner, leaving the noise behind them. “The new stepfather didn’t want a package deal, so Tanya was sent back here to Ollie, her grandfather.”

  “Why do you mention this sad story to me?”

  “Because I know you had questioned Tanya in connection with Ginger buying groceries at Ollie’s the night she arrived in Winfield.” Their footsteps fell quietly in the empty hallway.

  “Is everyone keeping as close a track on this investigation as you are or is it just because this is about your cousin?” he asked, sounding peeved.

  His tone prodded her like a pointed stick. “I don’t know. But I do know it is painfully important to me to find out who killed my cousin and why. And more to the point, if it was planned or just an accident.” She pulled a little way from him.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t being very sensitive.” He touched her arm and then let go.

  “That’s okay.” She realized that, as a law officer, he saw things differently than she did. “Nothing has been going right for anyone this year.” She shrugged. “Or sometimes that’s how it feels.”

  “You’re right, nothing has been going well. I don’t mean to take it out on you. But being here, back in that house…” He turned half away from her.

  She took courage from his mentioning his father and mother. Maybe this was the opening to speak of the past. “They’ve never gotten over losing Dan. Do you know why? I’ve always wondered.”

  Evidently seeking privacy, he pulled her just inside an empty classroom. “If we’re asking questions,” he said, “why haven’t you ever had your hip operated on, corrected?”

  She sighed over his maneuvering her away from his parents’ dilemma. She settled onto the nearby teacher’s wooden desktop. “When I was younger, they wanted to fuse my hip but I didn’t want that. And when hip replacements became a possibility, the doctors told me I must wait until I couldn’t walk at all.”

  “Why?”

  “Because hip and knee replacements both have plastic sockets, which wear down within fifteen to at most twenty years. If I’d had a hip replacement a decade ago, then I would’ve had to have three or more hip replacements to make it through a normal lifetime.” She was weary of explaining this. “And the doctor said a person could really only have it done twice.”

  “But don’t they have metal-on-metal replacements now? One of my department’s retirees just had that done last year.” After glancing around the room, he sat down on the top of the student’s desk opposite her.

  “Yes, they can last thirty-five to forty years. But I don’t have health insurance.” The voices still buzzed in the distance. “And even if I got health insurance, it probably wouldn’t cover my preexisting condition.”

  “Why don’t you have health insurance?” His voice resonated with deep concern.

  That only intensified her awareness of him. “For the reason I’ve just named. I’m self-employed, as is my father, and we would have to take out private insurance, which is expensive.”

  “I didn’t realize that.”

  “It’s just a fact of life for many self-employed people.” He was so close to her. They were, for once, alone. Awareness of him lapped over her like warm summer waves. “Fortunately, I’m healthy in every other way.” She scrambled for another topic.

  Ridge did it for her. “I’m trying to do what’s best for Ben. I’ve alrea
dy told you I was not a good choice of a guardian. His parents evidently didn’t have many reliable relatives. But I work in Madison. And Ben is adjusting well here in Winfield—”

  “But he’s your responsibility, right?”

  “Yes, he is my responsibility.” Ridge sounded uncertain. Unusual for him.

  “You’re afraid,” she said, feeling her way through this, “he won’t want to go back with you after spending the school year and the summer here?”

  “Exactly. But how can I fault you and Milo? You’ve been all that is kind and good.”

  “I wish I had the answer for you, Ridge,” she said softly. She slid off her desk, thinking that they should leave this room with its temptation. Here alone with him, she felt she could say things that she’d felt for many years but had never revealed to anyone. Even to Ridge.

  He slid off at the same moment and they came together, face-to-face.

  The sudden nearness stunned her into silence. But this silence was rich with emotion and increased consciousness. This was Ridge Matthews, whom she had loved so long ago. She wanted to leave. But she could not move. She could not speak.

  And then his hand slowly moved up until it cupped her right cheek.

  Now she couldn’t breathe. His hand, so large and rough, was touching her so tenderly.

  “Why didn’t that night change you?” he murmured with wonder in his voice. “My parents are dead except for one fact alone—they’re still breathing. But you were there that awful night Dan died. Soon after, you lost your mother. And now you have lost one of your dearest friends, your cousin Ginger. Why aren’t you bitter?”

  She couldn’t find the words. Because with each word he spoke his face had drawn closer and now his lips hovered over hers. She drew in a quarter teaspoon of air but couldn’t find room for even that in her lungs.

  Then his lips brushed hers once, twice.

  She exhaled the tiny breath of air she possessed and moved her lips forward the last fraction. Her upper lip touched his.

  “Sylvie…sorry,” her father said from the doorway. He shrugged and turned away. “Come on, Ben, we’ll just go on to the cafeteria for those cookies.”

  SIX

  Absolutely and painfully silent in the backseat of Ridge’s SUV, Sylvie sat with her hands pressed together and clamped between her knees to hold in her embarrassment. Also in the darkened car, her father sat in front with Ridge. Unaware, Ben fidgeted happily beside her, chatting away with Milo and Ridge about his teacher, his classmates and the cookies in the school cafeteria. After the near kiss she’d shared with Ridge, she was grateful for the darkness on their way home. Her face was warm and she knew she must be glowing bright red.

  To Sylvie, enduring those minutes in the cafeteria had been an ordeal. She’d sipped dishwater coffee and munched a dry, tasteless cookie while trying to remain unnoticed. Instead, she’d felt as though a blazing spotlight had been turned toward her and Ridge and everyone had been staring at them. But of course, it had been just her imagination that people were watching her and Ridge.

  Finally, Ridge pulled up in front of Milo’s. In spite of the chilly darkness, he insisted on accompanying them up to the door. There, with a good-night wave, Sylvie hurried inside and went with Ben to his bedroom. And then on to her own. Her ears had strained to hear what the two men were saying in the other room.

  She didn’t come out of her bedroom until she had heard the outer door close, signifying Ridge must have left. She sighed at the sound. She could put this behind her now. Crawl into bed and let sleep help her forget.

  But her father stopped in her doorway. “Come with me. The Northern Lights are brilliant tonight. Didn’t you notice them when we got out of Ridge’s car?”

  She couldn’t decline. So in their darkened apartment, she followed him to the front windows where indeed the Northern Lights—in brilliant neon green with flashes of red—were lilting, dancing above the sleeping giant, the vast ice-ringed Lake Superior. Several minutes of silence passed.

  Then her father spoke, “It’s good to have Ridge back in Winfield.”

  She didn’t answer, couldn’t trust her voice. Had her father been surprised by what happened between her and Ridge tonight? She folded her arms around herself and gazed intently at the natural fireworks before her.

  “I’m hoping that Ben can pull Ridge out of the funk he’s been in since that night Dan and you were exploring the lighthouse when you both should have been in bed.”

  In the past, she had spoken of that night with her father. But she couldn’t now, not tonight. Again, she made no comment, biting her lower lip.

  “You and Dan were just doing what kids do—taking unthinking, dangerous risks. It was tragic that Dan fell to his death while you fell right beside him but lived.”

  After carrying a burden of guilt for many years, Sylvie had come to the conclusion that she wasn’t responsible for what had happened to Dan. She had allowed God to take away her guilt over her immature argument with Dan—their pushing and shoving—at the top of the old lighthouse. She couldn’t have foreseen what the outcome would be or have stopped what happened. After all, she had only been twelve years old, just like Dan.

  “I have never understood why Ridge,” her father continued in his soothing, rumbly voice, “has always felt that he was responsible in some way for Dan’s death. Perhaps because he was the oldest brother. And maybe his parents, not so much in words, but with their attitudes and expressions, blamed him. Just because he was convenient. Not because he carried any real responsibility.”

  Bringing up Ridge’s false guilt finally gave Sylvie something to say. And she found she could draw breath. “Is there anything that we can do to put an end to that?”

  “No.” Her father’s simple negative made her turn and look into his shadowed face.

  Would there be no comfort at all for Ridge? “So he will always carry a false guilt?”

  “Only God can free us from guilt, both true and false. And only if Ridge will allow God to free him. No words of ours can bring this about. Not the way I see it. We need to ask God to heal Ridge.” He put his sinewy arm around her shoulders. “You can love him, Sylvie. But you can’t save him.” Not giving her a chance to say anything, her father kissed her cheek and then went into his bedroom and quietly shut the door.

  For several seconds, she could feel the impression of her father’s sweet kiss on her cheek. When Ridge had kissed her, she’d been so embarrassed. But this new attraction growing between them and what others might think of it were secondary to a larger issue. How like her father not to mention the obvious, but to bring up the real, the essence of the matter.

  March 14

  The next morning, a lazy snow was falling as Sylvie walked up the steps to her bookshop to begin another day of work. As she unlocked the door, she wondered why she didn’t remember pulling down the blind on the entrance door the night before when she closed up. She opened the door. Then she knew she hadn’t pulled down the shade.

  Someone had pulled it down to conceal their breaking into and ransacking her shop. Books, open and closed, lying facedown and faceup, littered the floor of the foyer of the shop. Her desk near the back of the foyer had been pillaged, too.

  Shock tingled through her. For long moments, she stood petrified. A scream swelled inside her, but she clamped her lips shut, holding it at bay. She stepped backward and yanked the door shut. With trembling fingers, she punched in the emergency number on her cell phone and told the sheriff’s department what she’d found.

  Then she sat down on the cold top step and wept. How much more could she—all of them—take?

  A few minutes later at the curb in front of Sylvie’s bookshop, Ridge slammed on his brakes. He saw her immediately. Sylvie sat on the top step of her shop, crying. The urge to run to her and pull her into his arms nearly overwhelmed him. He shoved open his door. The approaching wail of the sheriff’s siren was all that stopped him.

  Ridge got out of his vehicle and waited for Keir to
join him. It was safer that way. In what he could only describe as a fit of temporary insanity, he had kissed Sylvie only the night before. It wasn’t that Sylvie wasn’t eminently kissable. Because she was.

  But he was leaving Winfield as soon as this case was solved. He’d decided last night that he would let Ben spend part of the summer with Milo. But then he would still send Ben to camp. And in the fall, Ben would go to the boarding school. Winfield was not Ridge’s home anymore. And it could not be Ben’s. But the troubling question was—how to get this knotty case solved so he could get out of town? And now they faced another crime scene to investigate. He hoped the murderer had left a clue here.

  “I was afraid of this!” Keir called to Ridge as he came abreast of him. “I’ve had deputies patrolling this street every hour since the last break-in.”

  Ridge pointed to the lowered shade on the front door and to the sun shield lowered inside the large front bay window. “A penlight pointed down wouldn’t have shown through that.”

  Keir hustled up the steps, but Ridge stayed a step behind the sheriff. They halted in front of Sylvie, who was trying to wipe her eyes. Put on a brave front.

  Ridge couldn’t stop himself. He reached down and helped her to her feet. Her gloved hands trembled within his grasp. She let go as soon as she was steady on her feet. Out of his slacks pocket, he pulled a white handkerchief and handed it to her.

  She took it with obvious care, making sure her fingers did not come near his. His gut tightened at her caution. “I’m sorry I broke down like that,” she said, his handkerchief muffling her voice, concealing her face, “but it was the shock.”

  “Finding that a place of our own has been burglarized always comes as a shock,” the sheriff said soothingly.

  She nodded bravely, still hiding behind the handkerchief.

  Ridge felt his face stiffen. And it sure didn’t help if your cousin was murdered a little over a week ago. That’s why Sylvie was crying. Every incident brought back her grief over the loss. Ridge’s mood dropped another notch.