Grave Risk Read online

  “Whose do you have?” Sherry asked hesitantly, as if she weren’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  “Austin’s, Junior’s, Jed’s and Mary’s, although hers seem incomplete.”

  Sherry dropped her fork. “Edith Potts gave you those records?”

  “They were with some other things Edith wanted me to have. Jonathan was sure she wanted those particular things shared.”

  The years had not destroyed Jill’s ability to read Sherry’s expression. First, there was the incredulity that Edith Potts would ever break the rules. Then there was that same incredulity that Jill would.

  “What’s going on we don’t know about?” Sherry asked.

  “Oh, hush, Sherry,” Doris said. “Edith left some of her personal effects to Jill for some reason. Jill, you should have brought them.”

  “There’s nothing to learn from them.”

  “Well, no, probably not, but we could have done some hilarious things with those silly old files,” Doris said. “For instance, did you read yours? When we were in sixth grade, school kids were given ratings from one to five on things like attractiveness, personal grooming and how well we played with others during recess. Did you know there was actually a repulsiveness rating? If school authorities did anything like that these days, parents would sue the whole school district.”

  “Whatever,” Peggy said. “We need to have a look at those records, Jill.”

  “You can’t do that,” Sherry said. “They’re confidential. No one has a right to read them.”

  “Nonsense.” Doris rose from the table with her plate in her hand. “You have my permission to read anything you want in my files. Anyone want more steak?”

  “We did a good job with Karah Lee and Taylor, didn’t we?” Fawn asked Blaze.

  “That doesn’t mean we oughta start a matchmaking service.”

  Fawn dipped her paddle in the water and thrust it backward. “If I become a professional wedding planner, matchmaking would be good for business.”

  “Why don’t you just focus on college for a few years?”

  “Boring. So you’re saying Austin Barlow and Jill Cooper dated in high school, huh?”

  He groaned. “Don’t go getting any ideas about that. She broke it off when he got involved in some prank that killed a kid.”

  She placed the paddle across the bow of the canoe and stared at Blaze. “He killed someone?”

  “Nobody knows for sure what happened. Ol’ Cecil told me about it. He was the Hideaway High science teacher when all that happened.”

  “Austin Barlow sure gets into messes, doesn’t he? Did he do time or anything?”

  “From what Cecil told me, the sheriff didn’t do much investigating. Austin and the two guys who were suspected with him were all cleared.”

  “You mean a kid died, and nobody got blamed?” Fawn exclaimed.

  “The sheriff was buddies with the parents of the kids. Cecil says that guy didn’t have a right to wear a badge, but he was all Hideaway had at the time.”

  “There were three kids? Who were the other two?”

  “Junior Short—you know him. His boy, Danny, is the biggest bully in Hideaway. He even beat me up once, right after I first came here.”

  “You’re kidding! Didn’t he know you were a bleeder?”

  “Doubt he’d have cared. But I didn’t tell anybody about that when I first came. Anyway, Danny Short didn’t graduate high school, and I think it’s because he’s so mean nobody wanted him there. I hear he’s already been busted for a meth lab over in Mountain Grove.”

  “Who was the other guy?”

  “Jed Marshall. You know, the city clerk? Nice guy. Nothing like Junior or Austin.”

  Wow. “Sheena’s dad?”

  “That’s right.”

  “She’s neat. I’ve been hanging around the spa when she’s working. She’s teaching me some massage techniques.”

  “So now you’re going to be a masseuse as well as a wedding planner and bed-and-breakfast owner? What can’t you do, Fawn Morrison?”

  Fawn wrinkled her nose at him. “So nobody was convicted, and no one knows who was to blame?”

  “That’s right. Nobody knows for sure.”

  “Maybe you’re being too hard on Austin. For an old guy, he’s not bad-looking, and he seems really nice. Maybe Jill would be—”

  Blaze covered his ears. “Have mercy!”

  Fawn chuckled and splashed him again. “Good, then you’ll help me connect her with Dr. Rex.”

  “I’m not gonna help you with nothin’.”

  “Language, Blaze. Watch the language. I know you weren’t brought up like that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Rex sat with the phone to his ear, watching the sunset over the far shore of the lake. The trees at the top of the ridge formed a dark lace pattern against the mauve, purple and pink of the sky.

  When had it become his job to be whipping boy for his ex-wife every time she broke up with a boyfriend? How long would this diatribe last?

  And yet, he had to take it. If verbal abuse could pave the way for him to see his boys, then he’d take it gladly.

  “Margret, of course I’m not gloating—”

  “Did you know Tyler has decided he’s going to leave home and live with you?” The anger was tinged with a characteristic tone of defeat. She’d been that way a lot lately, especially since her latest breakup. She must have really cared about the guy, because this split seemed to have hit her harder than the others—harder even than their divorce.

  “The boys have always loved you, Margret. You’ll always be their mother.” She needed his prayers and compassion, not his arguments or reminders that the decision she’d made had changed not only her life, but his and the lives of the children.

  “You must have heard I had to go back to work,” she said.

  “I hadn’t heard.”

  “I’m surprised Tyler didn’t tell you. He’s reminded me at least twice a day that it’s all my fault.”

  Yes, more than his own sense of loss, Rex hated seeing what his stepsons endured.

  “Are you enjoying the work?” he asked.

  “I’m a bank teller.” She sounded resentful.

  “You’ve always loved working with numbers.” He could hear from the tone of her voice that she somehow blamed him for her situation. And yet, how could she? The divorce settlement had been more than generous in lieu of alimony. A few wise investments, along with the child support she was receiving for Tyler and Jason, should have kept her comfortable. But what was comfortable for her, and what was comfortable for others were an ice age apart.

  She was obviously unhappy. At this point, however, the kids were taking the hardest hits. It was always more difficult to be a helpless victim with no control.

  Not that Rex had any influence over her decisions, either.

  “The boys don’t listen to anything I tell them,” she said. “All they do is complain, and if I hear one more time about how great you are, I’m going to—”

  “I’m sorry,” Rex said. “I don’t put them up to it, but I’m sorry you have to hear it. If you want me to come back to Kansas City and have a talk with them—”

  “What I want is for you to leave them alone. Give me a chance to be their mother without your interference. You call them and stir up their hopes that we’re going to mend a destroyed marriage. It isn’t going to happen, and they need to stop being disappointed.”

  “They need to know I love them. How do you think they’re going to feel if the person to whom they have turned for a father figure suddenly abandons them?”

  “And how would you feel if your own children told you that they wanted someone else to be their parent?” she shot back, voice cracking. For a moment, there was silence over the line.

  “Maybe we should stick to how this is affecting them, Margret.”

  There was a long silence, and then she said, “I’m sorry, Rex. I know you feel that you don’t have the rights of fatherhood you seem
to think you deserve—”

  “I didn’t say that, I simply wanted time with—”

  “I want you to stay away from Tyler and Jason.”

  “You want me to cut off my relationship with the boys?”

  “You’re a distraction. They treat you like an authority figure and me like a flunky. I don’t want to deal with that any longer, Rex.”

  “I’d be glad to help you deal with them,” he said. “A united front not only keeps the peace, but gives them a sense of stability.”

  “I don’t want your help at all,” she snapped. “Can’t you get that? What I need is for you to get a life of your own and stop nosing around in mine.”

  He gritted his teeth. “I’m not thinking about my own life right now, I’m thinking about Tyler and Jason. Maybe you should try that, yourself.” For once in your life.

  Unfortunately, his unspoken thought reached her with clarity. “So now you’re the all-mature man who thinks he’s God’s answer to a teenager’s prayer. Where were you when Tyler broke his arm in soccer practice? Or what about when Jason got beat up by Billy Watson in eighth grade?”

  Now she was complaining because he’d missed soccer practice one day? And he specifically remembered rushing to the ER when Jason’s nose was broken. But it wouldn’t be wise to respond.

  Margret had complained a lot about his long hours at the hospital, which was one reason he had taken steps to change that. Then, when he started this new business and their income dropped initially, she decided she didn’t want him around that much, after all. Or perhaps the damage had already been done.

  “Rex, I mean it. I don’t want you to contact my children again. Is that understood?” she said quietly.

  His gaze remained on the darkening sky as shock and anger filled him. Stay cool. She’ll get over it.

  “Rex?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “This time I mean it. I want you to leave us alone.”

  In the background over the phone, there was a shout of outrage from Tyler, and then the call ended.

  Rex resisted the powerful urge to redial and force the issue further. He had no legal right to do so. Love was apparently not a firm enough foundation for him to stand on.

  He wanted to pack an overnight case and drive to Kansas City tonight. Right now. He wanted to see those boys, and he couldn’t help feeling they needed to see him.

  Margret’s initial defection, her infidelity, had been a shock more painful than anything he had ever experienced, and the divorce proceedings had been emotional torture, in spite of the lack of overt hostility. His and Margret’s fiercest battle had been over the children. He had known he would lose before he even began, but losing those boys had been the cruelest blow.

  Even after three years, he missed his stepsons with the pain of lingering grief, and the times Margret had allowed him to see them were determined by her mood or her situation in a relationship. If she needed someone to spend time with the boys so she could spend more time with her current boyfriend without feeling guilty, Rex suddenly became a popular addition to her sons’ lives for a few months.

  Then her relationship would end, and she’d want her boys to herself again. The boys were tired of it, and so was Rex, but he had no legal recourse. She was their mother. He was simply a man who obviously made poor relationship choices.

  It would do no good to harbor regrets about past choices. It would also do no good to harbor resentment over others’ choices—or their lifestyles.

  But there was no way he could simply accept Margret’s actions—not with the boys involved.

  So what could he do?

  Fawn crossed the dark street to the general store, relieved to see the lights still on. Cecil usually closed up before dark; he had trouble seeing his way home after the sun went down. But Bertie needed five dozen eggs for the breakfast bar tomorrow, and Fawn was in the mood for a short walk up the block…or another quick canoe trip across the river to the boys’ ranch.

  The ranch always had extra eggs, and now that she and Blaze were back on speaking terms, she enjoyed his company again.

  Poor Blaze. No wonder he was in such a bad mood lately. Austin Barlow and his son had caused Blaze more trouble when he first arrived at the ranch than even his own mother had caused him when she’d blamed him unfairly for starting a fire. And now Austin was back in town, making nice with everybody except Blaze—the one he had hurt the most.

  “I don’t like that man,” she muttered. “He’s still a bigot.”

  As she neared the store, she saw that good ol’ Cecil had the lights on and the door unlocked. This was unusual for Cecil.

  How the old man would make it home in the dark, Fawn didn’t know. He’d quit driving three years ago because his eyesight just wasn’t what it used to be.

  She’d probably have to walk him home. That would be okay with her, because he lived only five blocks away, at the edge of town. Cecil always told the best jokes—over and over again.

  Still, he was funny. Or at least he had been until Edith’s death last week. It was probably really hard to be old, to see so many friends die, then be surrounded by a bunch of people who were too young to understand why you liked the old-time songs during church worship, or moved so slowly on the sidewalk, or no longer drove.

  Fawn had tried to spend extra time with Cecil lately, in spite of her full schedule. She loved old people. They reminded her of her Great-Grandma June, who’d loved her more than anyone else.

  Like Great-Grandma used to say, old people weren’t any better than anyone else, they’d just had more opportunities to allow the years to sculpt them into works of art.

  She’d said not all old people were works of art, because some were pieces of work. The way she said it didn’t make it sound like a good thing.

  Some were grumpy and some were whiney, and some older folks just didn’t like teenagers. It was like they’d just never grown up, Great-Grandma used to say. They’d gone from being shallow and spoiled kids to shallow and spoiled adults, and age didn’t soften the edges, but made them sharper.

  Fawn agreed. But she figured she’d probably have a bad temper sometimes, too, if she had sore feet and couldn’t get around, or if her hands hurt all the time from arthritis, or if she watched too many loved ones die. Maybe the deaths she’d seen lately were what it took for her to grow up. She hated that.

  Bertie Meyer was one of the beautiful people, and Edith had been, too. Cecil was.

  Some folks thought Fawn was weird because she would rather spend time with the older people than with kids her own age—but not Blaze.

  Blaze understood why she liked old people. He liked them, too. Especially Cecil.

  She shoved open the door and stepped inside. “Cecil, you here?”

  This general store wasn’t exactly a supermarket, but it was bigger than it looked on the outside. Cecil told her that Dane Gideon had purchased two properties—an old restaurant and a hardware store that had gone out of business—then knocked out the wall between them.

  Tourists loved the great selection of groceries and dry goods they found along these aisles, from paint and farm supplies to milk and bread—even some organic produce in the refrigerated section.

  Dane Gideon knew how to meet the needs of Hideaway—and especially the needs of his good friend, Bertie Meyer. He kept the store supplied with everything she needed for her breakfast bar so she wouldn’t have to go out of town for anything.

  “Cecil? Hello? Got any eggs tonight? Bertie’s got enough for waffles tomorrow, but you know how the church crowd loves omelets and fried eggs.”

  She scanned one aisle, then turned and searched down the next. She should probably get some onions and peppers. Karah Lee was trying to lose weight, and she could only restrain herself from chowing down on Bertie’s black walnut waffles if there were omelets with plenty of grilled onions and peppers and Canadian bacon.

  Without the low-carb choices, Karah Lee wouldn’t fit into her wedding dress come the day of the
wedding. She was already pushing it, eating too many crullers for breakfast.

  Cecil was nowhere to be found.

  “Cecil? It’s me. Fawn. What’s up?”

  He might be in the back. He was hard of hearing lately. Blaze said he needed his ears cleaned out. Fawn thought the poor old guy just got tired of listening sometimes.

  She gave up looking for him and went to the dairy section. Good, there were plenty of eggs. While she was at it, she grabbed some vanilla bean and oat bran for a recipe she’d been working on in the kitchen when Bertie wasn’t looking.

  She grabbed the onions and peppers, took her armload of purchases to the counter and called for Cecil again. Still no answer.

  She frowned. This wasn’t like him. He never left the front of the store unattended.

  Suddenly, the silence of this place bothered her. She’d never been here alone. She was seldom afraid of the dark—after all she’d seen and been through in her life, she knew it wasn’t the dark she had to fear. Something about the hovering stillness bugged her, though.

  There was always music playing from the speakers overhead, and Cecil usually whistled or hummed along with the music—mostly old country songs, which were his favorites. And typically there were other shoppers in the store. It was a busy place.

  Tonight there was nothing.

  Could Cecil have forgotten to turn off the lights and lock the front doors?

  Fawn walked along the front of the store, checking each aisle, then went to the back and pushed open the swinging door that led to the storeroom and office.

  She hesitated in the doorway. It was darker back here. Even more silent. Isolated.

  She glanced at the wall beside her. Two of the switches were off. Cecil and his helpers often did this when they weren’t stocking or using this area.

  A quick flip of those switches lit the room, driving the shadows back, but not extinguishing the tension that suddenly made her stomach clench for no reason.

  Then she saw a good reason. A large can of tomatoes was on its side on the floor next to the metal shelves. A can of soup and two cans of mushrooms had rolled beneath the shelf.