Buch lesen: «Deep Secrets»

Chapter One

Trish Wright-Roper stuck the fork tines through the paper napkin, ruining it. Normally, she didn’t mind rolling silverware. It was a mindless activity, really. But on a day like today, when her brain was too busy remembering, it was irritating her beyond reason.

She could hear Milo finishing up in the kitchen. Earlier he’d dropped a steam table pan onto the tile floor and the clang had echoed through the empty café. She’d gone back to investigate and he’d been staring at the pan, his face flushed with anger.

Not at himself. Not at the pan. Not even at her.

For her. Because everyone who knew Trish well knew that four years ago today, Rafe Roper had died and her heart had been broken. And everybody who cared about her, which definitely included Milo, was on edge. No one would admit it, though. Instead, they’d practically turn somersaults to get her to think of something else.

Milo was no different. “What do you say you and me catch a movie in Hamerton tonight?” he asked, coming out of the kitchen. The man’s hair was pulled back from his face in a tight ponytail and it hung practically to the middle of his back. He was an ex-con who’d applied for work just weeks after Rafe’s death. He’d been a lifesaver because she’d been in no shape to work, to hold up her share of the responsibilities.

“You hate movies,” she said. “You think it’s ridiculous to pay ten dollars to see something that you’ll be able to see for nothing in just a couple of months.”

“Yeah, but there’s this one I’ve really been wanting to watch.”

She shook her head. “No, there isn’t. You know that Summer and I usually watch some silly romantic comedy today and you also know that she’s not due back from her honeymoon until tomorrow. You’re filling in.”

He drummed his thumb on the counter, a sure sign that he was frustrated. “She hated that she was going to be gone. I promised her that I had this.”

When her twin sister, Summer, had married handsome Bray Hollister, the love of her life, several months earlier, they’d postponed their honeymoon until Summer’s kids could take a week off school. Bray had made the honeymoon arrangements and Summer hadn’t had the heart to tell him that she wanted to be back in Ravesville a day earlier.

But her twin had felt terrible about it. She and Trish had discussed it. Trish had assured her it was fine. Summer had wisely not mentioned that she intended to draft her own replacement.

“Come on. Your sister is going to be mad at me if I don’t get this right,” Milo said, proving that he was willing to play upon every emotion.

“Are you scared of her or her tough-guy husband?”

“Both.”

She smiled at him. Milo wasn’t afraid of anything. Over the years he’d been at the café, they’d had more than one disruptive customer. It was bound to happen, especially in a café that attracted one-timers, the people driving through on their way somewhere else. In those instances, with a minimum of fuss and mess, Milo would have his arm around the customer, gently pushing him out of the café, with a stern warning not to bother to come back.

He was prepared to defend them. One time when he’d been lying on the kitchen floor, fixing a temperamental fryer, she’d spied an ankle holster. She knew as an ex-con he likely wasn’t supposed to have a gun. She also believed that he carried it purely for protection. For himself. For her and Summer. When he realized that she’d seen the gun, he challenged her. “You have a problem with this?” he said.

She didn’t really like guns. When she’d been married to Rafe, he’d owned one and had insisted that she learn to shoot it. Had said that he wanted her to learn for safety reasons, that if there was a gun in the house, every adult needed to know how to use it safely. She’d gone along with his wishes and had got good enough that she was confident that she wouldn’t shoot her own foot off. So when Milo asked, she’d shaken her head. “No problem here.”

He’d smiled and gone back to fixing the fryer. As she walked past, he muttered, “Always did think she was a smart girl.”

Now she stared at the man who’d become much more friend than employee. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

He studied her. Kept drumming his thumb. The poor digit was going to be bruised. “I suspect Rafe would want you to keep living,” he said finally.

“How do you know? You never met him,” she challenged, her words clipped. She could usually count on Milo not to offer advice. It was always a rare reprieve and it made her mad that even that had changed.

“I...I just think he would. People have to go on. Even when it’s hard.”

He probably knew something about that. After all, he’d survived prison. “I know you mean well,” she said, her tone kinder than before. “I’ve actually taken that advice,” she added hesitantly.

“How so?”

“I signed up for an online dating site,” she said.

Thumb stopped, head jerked up. “You never said anything about that.”

She hadn’t. To anyone, not even Summer.

“Any matches?” he asked.

“One that looks interesting,” she admitted. “We’ve been emailing back and forth for a couple of weeks.”

“You need to be careful with sites like that,” Milo said, his voice heavy with concern. “Why don’t you give me this guy’s name? I’ll check him out for you.”

She could do that or she could call Chase Hollister, Bray’s brother, who’d taken over the role of Ravesville chief of police recently, and ask him to run a check. “I haven’t said that I’ll meet him yet,” she said. “If I do that, I’ll decide then whether he needs to submit his fingerprints. In triplicate, of course. Maybe give a blood sample.”

He smiled, as much as Milo ever did. “I realize you’re not the foolish type, Trish. But I care about you. A lot of people do.”

“I know. And believe me, it helps. Now, let’s finish up here. I want to go home. It’s been good to have Raney and Nalana Hollister here to help in Summer’s absence, but it’s still been extra work. I just want to go home and take a hot shower and crawl into bed.”

“You’re still planning to take a few days off next week.”

“I am. Payback.”

“Summer will be delighted. You never take time off.”

She rarely did. And on the occasional day that she did play hooky, she generally worked in her yard, which had a never-ending supply of projects. Weeds to pull. Plants to move. Trees to trim.

But this time, she was doing none of that. She felt a little guilty about not confiding in Milo, but he worried way too much about her and Summer.

“Maybe we could go fishing one day,” he said. “I could teach you a few things.”

She held up a hand. “I do not want to hear one more time about that bass you caught.”

He tossed his head and laughed. “It’s not bragging when a man has pictures.”

“I suppose not. I’ll let you know if I’m available to be humiliated,” she added, picking up a fork.

He looked at her pile of silverware. “I’ve got one more load of dishes and then the garbage. Will you be ready in ten minutes?”

When it was just the two of them at the end of the night, he always insisted that they leave together. “You bet,” she said and watched him walk back to the kitchen.

She glanced out the front windows of the Wright Here, Wright Now Café. All the parking spaces in front of the café were empty. The town got quiet fast, even on a pretty spring evening. Tulips had bloomed last week in the flower box in front of the law office across the street, and now they were dancing in the light wind.

Didn’t matter how unbearable the winter was, those flowers always came back. And she had, too. Yes, she’d suffered a great loss. But she had much to be thankful for. A wonderful sister. Her nephew, Keagan, and her sweet little niece, Adie. Her new brother-in-law, who made sure she knew that every one of the Hollisters considered her family.

And now that she was almost thirty-eight years old, it was time to get on with her life.

A soft sob escaped and she looked around the empty café, grateful that no one was there to witness her lapse. Most of the time she was able to fool people. She could laugh and joke with the best of them. Only a precious few knew how much she mourned Rafe, who’d had the bad luck to go on a stupid float trip with his buddies. Only a precious few knew that sometimes she would go to the river and stare at the murky depths, so angry that it had taken her husband from her, not even generous enough to give her back a body to bury.

She rolled the last knife, fork and spoon and gently laid the napkin on the top of the stack. Then she carefully slid the tray of rolled silverware under the counter, where it would be easy to grab in the morning. Tables would fill up fast. She loved it when the place was really busy, when there were customers to wait on, tables to clear and money to take at the cash register. She loved the noise and the energy of people enjoying a good meal.

And while the café had a very different feel at the end of the day, when it was empty and quiet, it was satisfying to sit on a counter stool and look around at the clean floor, the shiny counters, the freshly washed pie case and know that she and Summer had built this from practically nothing.

They had purchased the café more than five years earlier. The previous owners had let the place get run-down and business had dwindled. Once she and Summer had signed on the dotted line, they’d had to close the place for a month just to get it ready to open again. Walls had been painted, floors and counters replaced, booths and tables repaired and all new dishes acquired. Then they’d tackled the kitchen. A new grill had been installed, the walk-in refrigerator scrubbed from top to bottom, and best of all, they’d purchased a new dishwasher.

Summer wanted the day shift to be home with her kids at night. That had been just fine with Trish. She’d always been a bit of a night owl. They’d hired a small staff and opened their doors to the grateful appreciation of all the other business owners on Main Street. The small downtown had been in danger of going the way that most small towns had, with empty storefronts and dilapidated buildings. There were high hopes for the Wright Here, Wright Now Café.

Summer and Trish Wright had grown up in Ravesville and people were willing to give the place a try. Word spread quickly that the service and food were top-notch and business had grown rapidly.

Four months after they’d opened, Trish had been just about to lock the doors the night that Rafe had blown into town. Literally. It had been a hot summer day and the weather forecasters had droned on about the possibility of tornadoes. At nine o’clock, like every night, she’d hung the Closed sign in the window. Had been grateful that the restaurant had cleared out by eight thirty. She had already sent Daisy, her night cook, home, because the woman was deathly afraid of storms.

She’d been walking back to the kitchen, to do one final sweep of the space, when pounding on the front door got her attention. She’d turned, locked eyes with the handsome stranger and, as crazy as it seemed, realized immediately that her life was about to experience a fundamental shift.

She’d unlocked the door just as the Ravesville tornado sirens started ringing. The stranger had smiled at her. “I think it’s about to get interesting,” he’d said.

She’d had no idea.

The café didn’t have a basement, so she and the man had ridden out the storm sitting on the floor in the small space between the back wall and the counter, protected from the possibility of flying glass. They’d each had two pieces of banana cream pie because he’d convinced her if they were both about to die, there was no sense worrying about calories.

The café had survived the storm, and when he’d said goodbye, he’d touched her cheek. She’d thought she’d seen the last of her mysterious stranger, that he’d been a one-timer, but then two nights later, he was back, asking her to dinner. By the following weekend, they’d been lovers.

Neither one of them were kids. She’d been thirty-three and he was just a year older. She hadn’t been especially interested in marriage. She was well aware of how miserable Summer was with her husband, Gary Blake, and she didn’t have any interest in making a similar mistake. When Rafe asked her to move in with him after six weeks of dating, she said no. She liked her independence and didn’t see a need to give it up.

But Rafe Roper knew how to wear a girl down. He was an amazing lover but it was more than that. He was different than the other men that she’d dated. Most important, he made her laugh. Every day. And he remembered all the little things. She’d get up in the morning and there would be chocolate doughnuts on her front porch. He’d have dropped them by early on his way to Hamerton, where he was part of the construction crew building the new mall. He would send her flowers. Never roses, because she’d mentioned just once that they weren’t her favorites. He sent lilies. Always lilies.

He was a fabulous cook and could make all her favorites, including eggplant parmigiana and shrimp scampi. He’d teased her mercilessly about owning a café and being barely capable of boiling water.

She and Summer still had work to do on the café and he was always willing to lend a hand, to fix a door or paint a wall. She could still see Summer standing near the pie case, telling Trish that she’d be a fool to let him get away.

And Trish knew she was right. So when Rafe asked her to marry him after they’d been dating for three months, she didn’t hesitate to say yes. And he didn’t give her time to think about her decision. They were married just two weeks later. Then they bought a house together, too big for just the two of them, but she’d started dreaming about babies to fill the empty rooms. Babies with dark eyes and an amazing smile, just like their daddy.

And life was pretty darn near perfect.

Nine months later, he was dead. He’d gone back east to visit a friend who was sick. She’d assumed it was a dear friend because when he’d returned, she’d sensed that he was still upset. When he’d left the next day on a float trip with his buddies on the construction crew, she’d hoped it would cheer him up.

His raft had overturned and his body had never been recovered.

Then it was not just the rooms of her house that were empty.

Her heart. Her soul.

Her spirit.

She’d wished she was dead, too. But she’d lived. And somehow, someway, had managed to crawl her way back. Didn’t expect to ever feel full again but had developed an odd contentment with the emptiness. Except for nights like this, when it became unbearable.

She’d expected to feel blue today. That was probably why earlier in the week she’d jumped at something Mary Ann Fikus had said. M.A., as everyone called her, worked at the bank and ate lunch almost every day at the café. She was just back from a week in the Ozarks. She’d been going on about the cottage where she’d stayed.

Trish had been to the Ozarks, the lake-filled, mountainous area in southwest Missouri, several times and had even stayed at the particular lake that M.A. had visited. It was a lovely area.

And when M.A. described the cottage, it had sounded like the perfect place to rest and read books and maybe, just maybe, fish. Thinking there was little chance it would be available at such late notice, Trish had called the owner and been pleasantly surprised that it was. She’d assumed they would want a credit card to hold it, but Bernie Wilberts had told her that she could simply leave a check on the table when she left. She’d been very careful to explain that she would arrive on Sunday, but he’d told her it didn’t matter, that the cottage was empty. He’d given her the combination code for the lock on the door.

If Summer had been around, Trish would have told her about her plans. She’d thought about telling Milo, but given his propensity to worry about her, she’d thought better of it. She’d tell him just before she left town.

She turned to walk back to the kitchen and stopped abruptly when there was intense pounding on the door. Her heart leaped in her chest. It was like that night so long ago. She turned.

And through the glass, she saw Keagan, her fourteen-year-old nephew. With five-year-old Adie next to him. Summer and Bray were a little slower to get out of the SUV.

She opened the door and the four of them tumbled in. “What are you doing home?” she asked, hugging each of the kids. Then Bray. Finally, her sister. She hung on an extra minute. She knew why her sister was here. “You shouldn’t have,” she whispered.

Summer shook her head. “When I told Bray what today was,” she said, grabbing her new husband’s hand, “he changed our flight so that we could get back. He insisted.”

She rolled her eyes in her brother-in-law’s direction. “I guess I do understand why she loves you,” she said.

Bray winked at her and focused on Adie, who had found her favorite seat at the counter and was whirling on the stool at warp speed.

“How are you feeling?” Trish asked, looking at Summer’s still-flat stomach.

“Fine. But anything that went in circles at Disney World was Bray’s domain. I stood on the sidelines and ate orange Popsicles.”

It was unbelievable that Summer and Bray would be adding to their family in just seven more months. More proof that life really did go on. She drew in a breath and smiled. “Well, Milo was insisting on a movie tonight. I guess you’re all excited to see Pretty Woman one more time.”

“How did you know that was my favorite movie?” Bray asked with a straight face.

Summer lightly punched her husband’s biceps before turning back to Trish. “I’m sure you’re glad that you’re not holding down the fort alone any longer. Next week, I want you to rest up. You will take a couple of days off, right?”

“I think I will,” Trish said.

“Where’s Milo?” Summer asked, moving quickly to the next topic.

She could tell them both about her plans. “Taking out the garbage. I’ll get him.”

Trish went through the swinging door that connected the dining room to the kitchen. No Milo. The back door was open just a fraction of an inch, letting the cool spring air blow in. The light near the back door was on.

“Milo,” she called, walking toward the door. “Summer and Bray are—”

She opened the back door and almost tripped. On a body.

Milo. Oh my God. “What happened?” she asked, dropping to her knees.

There was blood everywhere. On his body, on the pavement, running out of the side of his mouth. “Milo,” she cried, reaching to lift his head off the cold, hard ground.

“Trish,” he said, his breaths raspy. “Tell Rafe they know.”

He closed his eyes and she started to scream.