The Truth Seeker

  “I know.”

  Lisa forced herself away from the image that had haunted her dreams for days. “Quinn’s being nice. He’s hovering, kind of lost as to what he should do.”

  “I gathered that from the conversations I’ve had with him. Do you know what you want him to do?”

  She wanted a hug but didn’t know how to ask for one. He was kind, and there, and wanted so badly for her not to be hurting anymore. It no longer surprised her that it mattered so much to him. Under the watchfulness he showed the world, he was a man who was as protective of her as her family. “He loaned me his dog.”

  “Did he?”

  Lisa rubbed Old Blue’s ears and heard a dog’s version of a sigh of pleasure. “I think he’s going to want him back,” she remarked regretfully.

  Jen laughed.

  Reality was settling in, and it left an enormous ache in her heart. “The house is gone, the art. All the scrapbooks. It shouldn’t matter so much, it was just stuff.” But it did. She could remember painting the rooms while Jack painted the ceilings, wallpapering the bathroom, rearranging furniture so many times Marcus wanted to strangle her when she said, “No, I like it better where it was, move it back.”

  All the firsts in that house—first dinner party for family, first mortgage payment, first winter snow and shoveling the drive, first flowers in the spring. It was gone, and she was going to have to start over again.

  “It was home.”

  “It was home,” Lisa agreed. The first one she’d ever really had.

  “Marcus said he was dealing with the insurance guy for you?”

  “I faxed him power of attorney. Stephen said he’d help me find and fix up another place.”

  “What’s wrong with Montana?”

  “Jen—”

  “I know Quinn’s heart. He’s the right guy for you.”

  “You’re reading too much into the situation.”

  “I’m not saying marry the guy tomorrow.”

  “Thank you for that. Would you tell me something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you decide to believe because it mattered to Tom?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was the only reason I went to church initially because it was important to him. But I started listening, and after a while I found something there that I wanted for myself.”

  “What was that?”

  “Forgiveness.”

  “The drunk driver who killed your parents.”

  “Living with the bitterness for so long . . . I just wanted to be able to forgive and let it go so I could get on with my life. But I couldn’t do it for myself. I found out that Jesus could do it for me, He could help me forgive.”

  “You believed in Him because you needed Him.”

  “I trust Marcus because I need to, but also because I know he’s trustworthy. Which came first?” Jen asked. “There’s no easy answer, Lizzy. Jesus loves me. He’s helped me forgive a man I hate, helped me into remission with the cancer, worked out things with Tom to make me the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I believe in and love Jesus because He is who He is. He’s worth loving. Which came first? I don’t know. He’s just perfect. And I know Him. That’s the most peaceful reality I’ve ever had in my life.”

  “I prayed for a family and He let adoption papers get ripped away,” Lisa whispered. She’d never told that to Jennifer before.

  “You ended up with the O’Malleys,” Jen finally said, tears choking her voice. “And you make our family complete. Maybe He knew that.”

  Lisa closed her eyes. She wouldn’t trade the O’Malleys for anything.

  “Lizzy? Risk asking Jesus for your deepest need. You’ll find out He’s sufficient.”

  “That’s assuming He’s alive.”

  “You’re not even protesting anymore that the Resurrection’s not possible. You already know He’s alive.”

  Her hand stole across her ribs to touch the scar. “Maybe.”

  “Let’s go back to talking about Quinn.”

  Lisa heard the smile in Jen’s voice. “Are you matchmaking?”

  “I’m married. You wouldn’t believe how great it is. Tom is—”

  “What?”

  “I look into his eyes and he lets me see all the way to his heart. He trusts me to love him.”

  “I always knew he was special,” Lisa replied, having to talk past the emotion that welled up at Jen’s description.

  “He’s going to take me over to the clinic tomorrow and let me be a doctor again for half a day.”

  “Enjoy it, Jen.”

  “I’m going to beat this, the cancer. I know it.”

  “I believe you.”

  “No you don’t, not yet, but that’s okay. I understand why. I’ve seen the lab work too. I’m just telling you now so I can say I told you so later on.”

  Lisa had to laugh, and then she turned serious. “Jen, if there’s anything at all that I can do to help—I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “I’ve got too much life to enjoy before I’m ready to think about heaven. Would you be willing though to do me a favor?”

  “If I can.”

  “I want you to be able to believe. So whatever your doubts, face them, talk to Quinn if you need to, just don’t push them aside for another day.”

  “Why don’t you ask me to do something easy?”

  “Sometimes the best things are never easy, or simple.”

  Thinking about Quinn, Lisa had to agree. “It’s late your time. I’d better let you go.”

  “Will you call me tomorrow?”

  “Sure. I want to hear how your patients like your new doctor’s chair.”

  “My partners cringed when I moved it into the kids’ waiting room. It’s fabulous. Tom bought me a Polaroid camera so I can take pictures of kids in the chair to take with them.”

  “Have Tom take one of you in the chair and send it to me. I can start a scrapbook with it.”

  Jen tried to keep her voice light but failed. “Deal.”

  “Jen—” Lisa found it hard to put the emotions into words. “I love you.”

  “I love you too. And you’re making me bawl here.”

  Lisa wiped her eyes as they laughed together. “Do you really think he won’t mind the scars?”

  “Does my husband seem to care that I don’t have hair?”

  “Point taken. Thank you.”

  “I want to be your matron of honor.”

  “Well shoot,” Lisa joked. “I kind of liked Kate’s idea of eloping.”

  “Be really glad you’re half a continent away at the moment.”

  “He looks really good in a tux and boots.”

  Old Blue rolled over under her hand. She turned to glance down at him and froze. Quinn was leaning against the study doorjamb watching her—comfortable, boots crossed, smiling. He hadn’t just arrived.

  “Jen, I’ll call you tomorrow.” She abruptly ended the conversation, hung up the phone, feeling heat rise across her face.

  Quinn crossed the room and set the extra mug he carried down onto the end table. “Your style of coffee.” She started to sit up only to get sidetracked when he slid his hands under her ankles and sat down at the other end of the couch, her feet in his lap. “Tux, huh?”

  She pulled a pillow over to cover her hot face.

  “Eavesdropping doesn’t normally reveal such nice compliments.”

  He was laughing at her. “Quit tickling my foot.”

  “Honey?”

  “That’s not my name.”

  “We’ll change it for a while.”

  “As long as I don’t have to answer to it.”

  “I’m going to have to kiss you before long.”

  “That is something you had to tell me.”

  “Anticipation is half the enjoyment.”

  She lowered the pillow slightly because she just had to see his face. He was smiling at her, he was gorgeous, and . . . “I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”
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  His amusement turned serious and his hand rubbed her ankle. “Why not?”

  “I don’t kiss all that great,” she muttered. He was going to anticipate it and she would just disappoint him.

  His expression turned tender . . . and just a bit too delighted for her comfort. “Practice helps.”

  “You really should have let me know you were there.”

  “I know.” He squeezed her ankle. “Lizzy?”

  “What?”

  “She was right, you know, about the scars. I won’t mind.”

  “You should. They’re ugly.”

  “I’ve got my own, unfortunately at about the same place too. I got gored by a bull back in my rodeo days.”

  She didn’t say anything, couldn’t.

  “I got hung up and came down in front of him. He caught me between the seventh and eighth ribs, tossed me across the ring, and then nearly hooked the rodeo clowns who risked their lives to distract him.”

  “How bad?”

  “I recovered. So will you.”

  She turned her foot in toward his ribs. “About there?” She’d guessed correctly. He was ticklish.

  She was at a distinct disadvantage in the ensuing minutes. “Uncle! I give!” She was going to split open from laughing so hard. He finally relented and stopped tickling her feet.

  She curled her toes. “Where’s my sock?” She’d lost it sometime during the preceding minutes.

  He closed his hand around her toes, his hand warm and solid, leaned over to pick up the sock from the floor, then paused. “Sorry, it looks like I’ll have to buy you another pair.”

  She found the energy to raise her head from the arm of the couch. “That has got to taste horrible.” Old Blue was having a good time taking the sock apart.

  Quinn eased her feet aside so he could get up and rescue what was left of the sock before the dog made himself sick.

  Lisa pushed herself to sit up, reached for the coffee mug he had brought her, and found it had cooled off. “Warm up the coffee, and let’s get to work.”

  “You need some sleep first.”

  “Later.”

  He accepted the mug. “It was good to hear you laugh, Lizzy.”

  She smiled back at him. “It felt good. Go.”

  “I still think the water is significant.”

  “Part of his signature?”

  Lisa absently nodded. She turned the page of the notepad, started thinking through another idea.

  Amy. She drew a circle around the name, drew a link from that circle to Quinn’s dad, and marked it with a question mark. They still didn’t know for certain if Amy’s disappearance the same day Quinn’s father was killed were connected.

  Amy had known Rita.

  Lisa wrote down Rita’s name and circled it, then linked Amy and Rita. She could see them now in her mind. Two teens, sixteen—camera; boy; and horse-crazy. Happy.

  Amy missing; Rita dead.

  The picture on the pad of paper was grim.

  Grant had been convicted of killing Rita.

  She added him to the page, hesitated, then dotted a line from Grant to Amy. “We have to find some way to place Amy back in Chicago.”

  “It’s not there, Lizzy.”

  “I think it is. We just don’t know the right question to ask.” She drew a circle around the name Marla. Connected it to the circle of her house fire because of the hummingbird note—and felt the focus click in.

  Egan.

  She wrote the name down and just stared at the page.

  It fit, but why?

  That fire had been an accident; Jack didn’t miss arson.

  No more glimmers of an idea appeared. She shifted her attention back to Grant. Christopher had worked part-time for Grant at the stable, had blackmailed payment from him to keep quiet about Grant and Rita being together that last day, had later testified at the trial. It was enough information for her to add Christopher’s name to the page and circle it.

  She drew a line from Christopher to Grant, then drew another from Christopher to Rita. It was a moment of epiphany. Christopher had known Rita. It was obvious. He’d known who she was when he saw Grant and Rita together.

  When had Christopher started to work for Grant? She scrambled to find the right file.

  “What?”

  “Just a minute.”

  She finally found the answer on a note Lincoln had made during his background investigation. Christopher had started to work for Grant when he was seventeen, in 1978. She was startled at that answer. He’d been working for Grant at the stables when Rita had first begun to come around at the age of sixteen.

  She looked at the date, then back at her picture. Her hand shaking slightly, she drew a line from Christopher to Amy. If the girls had been hanging out at the stables, they would have certainly met a guy their own age working there.

  Two teens, sixteen—camera; boy; and horse-crazy. They would have been flirting with Christopher.

  The picture spoke for itself. From Grant, lines to Rita and Amy. From Christopher, lines to Rita and Amy. And Rita’s body had been buried at the stable.

  She felt a chill. “Quinn, what if it was Christopher who killed Rita, not Grant?” she whispered.

  It fit.

  Christopher had been there the day Rita went missing.

  He had known Rita when she was sixteen and he was eighteen. Rita had chosen to date Grant, not him. Christopher had a temper. How many murders had she investigated over the years motivated precisely by that fact?

  “Talk to me.” Quinn had set aside his notes, was watching her.

  “Christopher knew Rita. He was working at Grant’s stables part-time when he was eighteen. He was there when Rita started coming around at age sixteen. He was there the day Rita disappeared. He had access to the site where she was buried. He had a temper. If he was jealous Rita had chosen Grant instead of him . . . ”

  “The blackmail?”

  “Why not frame Grant? Extort money to keep quiet about the fact Grant and Rita had been together that day. Bury Rita somewhere that would point to Grant. Testify at the trial and put Grant at the scene. Christopher set him up.”

  She looked at Quinn as he thought it through. “Lincoln poking into the trial past would have spooked Christopher,” Quinn said quietly.

  “You said someone started following you while I was still in the hospital. This could explain that too. When you started asking about Amy and Rita . . . Christopher is safe as long as no one comes forward to say he and Rita knew each other for years. If Lincoln or you discovered that Christopher had as much a motive for killing Rita as Grant did . . . ”

  “Christopher knows where you live; he helped Walter plant the tree.”

  “Would he be the type of guy that would set a fire?”

  “I think so,” Quinn replied grimly. “The note. Go away. Someone is very desperate to see you stop probing into Rita’s death . . . and the others’.”

  “We were thinking it would take a career like a builder for someone to cover the geographic area of the murders, be around long enough to learn their routines. Working for his uncle at Nakomi Nurseries, doing landscaping—Christopher would have had that flexibility.”

  “Lincoln has the records for the customers Nakomi Nurseries worked with in the Knolls Park area. If Christopher was in the area at the time Marla disappeared, we should be able to prove it.”

  “Emily has been working to figure out Grant’s whereabouts on the days the women disappeared. Ask her to do the same for Christopher.”

  Quinn reached for the phone. “Is there any way to connect Christopher to Amy?” he asked as he dialed.

  Lisa looked back at her page of circles. That two-week visit to Chicago.

  She shifted around the boxes to find the pictures Amy had taken. “I need a picture of Christopher as a young man.” She had met him in his late thirties at the trial, but she wasn’t sure she would recognize him at age eighteen. Amy had liked to take pictures of friends, and there were several dozen peo
ple they had yet to identify in the pictures.

  Quinn passed on the idea to Lincoln and they talked for a few minutes. Quinn reached over and hung up the phone. “Lincoln will find out where Christopher has been, check the Nakomi Nurseries’ records.”

  “Let’s hope he finds something.”

  “Lisa, it’s a good idea.”

  “There’s not enough evidence to prove anything.”

  “It fits. We haven’t had that before. If the evidence is there, we’ll find it.”

  “Someone burned down my house. At least this way it’s one person who committed all the crimes.”

  “Walter said he and Christopher were working on a job a good two hours away when your house burned.”

  “You said yourself Walter protected Christopher over the gambling. Protecting him over a suspicious fire . . . ”

  “Walter knows more than he is saying.”

  “Let’s find something conclusive that suggests Christopher is guilty before we accuse Walter of lying.”

  “Pass me Lincoln’s notes.”

  She found them and complied.

  Lisa looked at her sketch of circles. They needed to prove the motive that Christopher had not only known Rita but had possibly even dated her. “Was there anything in Rita’s diary about a Chris or a Christopher?”

  “I don’t know that I would have recognized it as significant. You’d better review those that we have to make sure.”

  Lisa found the first diary.

  She heard a soft rumble. She looked up and grinned. “That is your stomach growling.”

  “It’s Old Blue’s.”

  “Sure it is.”

  Quinn got to his feet. “I’ll prove it to you. I’ll go get a sandwich, and you can listen to Old Blue.”

  She chuckled. “Do that.”

  “You want something?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  She was asleep on the couch. Quinn paused in the doorway, late coming back, having been sidetracked by a conversation with his ranch manager. He moved quietly into the room. The diary was cradled against Lisa’s chest with one hand, a stack of old pictures resting in her lap. Her other hand rested on Old Blue’s side. His dog was sleeping too. Quinn had a feeling he’d lost his dog’s loyalty forever.

  He thought about moving her. Thought about it and instead just settled into the chair opposite her, resting his chin on his fist. She was gorgeous as she slept.