Dangerous Secrets

“I’ll take care of her.” Ridge pushed Ben farther away. “Go. I’ll handle this. I’ll take care of Sylvie. Go.”

Looking fearfully over his shoulder, Ben fled, letting the outside door slam.

Ridge turned and knelt beside Sylvie. He went through the motions of checking Ginger Johnson’s nonexistent pulse. He lifted her eyelids. Her irises were dilated. But…her eyes were closed. The thought made his insides congeal. Not just for the sorrow death always brought but because that meant…he didn’t want to go there. For so many reasons.

He snapped open his cell phone and punched in the emergency number. He gave the details as simply as possible to the responder. He snapped it shut again. “Sylvie,” he said gently, “help is on the way.”

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Rocking on her knees, Sylvie had wrapped her arms around herself as if she might fly apart.

“It looks like it.” He didn’t mention Ginger’s eyes being closed. It hit him then. This was the second time he and Sylvie had together confronted the body of a relative, lying dead. He felt sick in the pit of his stomach. In spite of himself, he laid a hand on her slender shoulder.

She covered his hand with hers. “Ridge, Ginger must have fallen last night,” she pleaded. “I think I would have heard her fall if…if it happened while I was in the store.” She looked up at him, her woebegone face pale and fringed by her short silvery-blond hair.

He read in her huge blue-violet eyes the silent plea for exoneration. Had this event taken her back in time, too, back to the night Dan had died? “Yes, you’re right. From what I see I think Ginger must have fallen last night.” You didn’t fail your cousin. She was dead before you came to work this morning.

But he didn’t let any of his suspicions about Ginger’s fatal tumble color his tone or expression. If only Ginger’s eyes had been open. How easy everything would have been.

With relief, he heard a police siren. Gently he grasped Sylvie by the upper arms and drew her to her feet. She felt unsteady to him. So one arm under hers, he guided her to the door. “I’m going to ask you to go back into your bookstore. Why don’t you make a new pot of coffee?”

She looked up at him. Her lips were pressed so tightly together they were as white as the swirled frost on the single-pane window behind her. “I want my dad.”

Another sting. She’d said those exact same words to him on that long-ago night, too. “Call Milo. He should be here. Ginger’s mom, Shirley, still lives here year-round in her Victorian, right?”

She nodded. “But she and Tom are away in Arizona for a delayed honeymoon, a break before the tourist season starts in May.” Tears filled her eyes. “I’ll go…I’ll go make the coffee.”

After giving her a heartening squeeze, Ridge nudged her through the doorway. That was all she could do, all anyone could do now. Make coffee for the very long night ahead. He couldn’t help himself; his gaze followed Sylvie’s slender silhouette until she disappeared around the corner at the front.

The long night of investigating the crime scene had finally come to an end. Ridge glanced at his watch, his eyes gritty with fatigue. Nearly three o’clock in the early morning. Sheriff Keir Harding, whom Ridge remembered from high school, faced him at the bottom of the stairwell. Ginger’s body had been taken away hours before.

“I don’t think we can deny that Ginger’s death is suspicious,” Keir said. “But I don’t want to start rumors.”

“Having an autopsy done—people will hear about it and talk,” Ridge said, rubbing his taut forehead. As they stood there talking, the coroner was probably wrapping up the autopsy at the local funeral home.

Keir grimaced. “Ginger was well liked. This will hit everyone hard.”

I couldn’t agree with you more.

“Let’s send Sylvie and her dad home, then.” Keir led Ridge to the door he’d entered hours ago with Sylvie and Ben. “We’ll lock this place up tight and I’ll make sure a deputy checks around here every hour so the crime scene isn’t tampered with.” The sheriff made a sound of exhaustion.

Outside in the silence of the stark, icy night, they walked single file on the path between the waist-high mounds of snow around to the front. Sylvie’s bookstore was still alight on the quiet street of darkened shops and homes.

“I’m so glad you were already in town. This saves me calling for state help.” After delivering these unwelcome words, Keir bid him good-night and headed for his sheriff’s Jeep.

Ridge fumed in silence, but his fatigue even dulled this reaction. This was supposed to be just a quick trip home to take care of settling Ben. But Ginger hadn’t gotten herself killed just to trouble him. My problems are nothing compared to Ginger’s family’s.

Now he had to face Sylvie. Ridge stiffened his defenses and walked into the entrance of the bookshop. Visibly despondent, Sylvie was draped over a well-worn tweedy sofa along the wall in the foyer. She glanced up at him, her appealing face drawn.

“Where’s Milo?” he asked, forestalling her questions.

She sat up. “Dad went home hours ago to call his sister, Shirley, and break the news to her about Ginger. He also wanted to make flight arrangements for her and Tom on his computer while they packed to come home.”

He watched her slip her small feet back into her stylish black boots. “Rough.”

Their eyes connected. And he sensed that everything that he wished to conceal from her about Ginger’s death and about everything else that lay between him and Sylvie, she read with ease. His jaw clenched. He tried to relax it. And failed.

A tear trickled down Sylvie’s right cheek. She brushed it away and stood. “I take it I can go home now.”

Ridge nodded, unable to speak. Images from the scene of Dan’s untimely death had slid in and out of his conscious thoughts during the night-long investigation. Bringing Sylvie along with them.

She went to the coatrack and Ridge hurried forward to help her don her plum-colored down coat the second time tonight. In her evident fatigue, she wavered on her feet. He steadied her, a hand on her upper arm.

“I’m fine,” she whispered.

Her frailty belied her words. He admired her nerve. Nothing was fine tonight and nothing would be fine for quite a while. “My car’s out front.”

He escorted her through turning off the foyer lights, locking up, and then out in the winter cold so dry the air almost crackled with static electricity. After helping her into his SUV, he got in and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. He tried again. Not even grinding. Sudden aggravation flamed through him. With his gloved palm, he slapped the steering wheel once. Nothing ever went right for him in Winfield.

“You left your lights on,” Sylvie said, pointing to the dash where sure enough his lights had been switched on and left.

He let out a slow breath. “I’m used to the automatic ones but I must have turned them on manually and forgot.”

“And when you arrived, the street was still lit by shop lights along with the streetlamps. You wouldn’t have noticed you’d left them on. No one did.” She opened her door. “It’s only a few blocks for me. I always walk to work. And your parents’ house is within walking distance. Leave it till morning.”

Not willing to let her out of his sight, he got out and joined her on the sidewalk. The icy temperature nearly took his breath away. It was probably quite safe for her to walk home, but after finding Ginger dead, he didn’t want to leave Sylvie alone at the dark early-morning hour. He would only leave her when she was in her own home safe with her father. “I’ll walk you home first.”

“That’s not necessary. This is Winfield, remember?” She stopped speaking—abruptly.

Her face was turned away from the streetlamp so he couldn’t see her expression, but her sudden silence and immobility told him that Ginger’s death had hit her afresh. Yes, this was Winfield, but Ginger had died, not in faraway Alaska, but here in her hometown of Winfield.

Without mentioning this, he looped Sylvie’s arm around the crook of his and began leading her down the street he knew so well. He didn’t need to ask her where her house was. Walking beside Sylvie made him very sensitive to the stark white of the snow mounds left by the plows. It also made him aware that the cold, along with being in Winfield, was nibbling away at him bit by bit.

After a couple of steps, he adjusted to accommodate her halting gait. This nipped his conscience. He’d been able to walk away from Dan’s accident unscathed. But did every limping step remind Sylvie of the past? If it did, how did she stand it?

“What took the sheriff so long?” she asked. “I mean, why did they spend so much time up in her apartment?”

Uneasiness twitched through him. He didn’t want to face this. No, he did not. They reached the end of the block and started up the next. How to avoid making this damaging revelation?

“Ridge?” she prompted.

“Sylvie, it’s late. We can talk about this tomorrow.”

Sylvie halted. “You’re frightening me. What aren’t you telling me?”

“Come along.” He tugged her.

She resisted. “I’m not moving until you tell me why they took so long up in Ginger’s apartment.”

He’d had it. Why didn’t anything ever go the easy way? Why couldn’t she just accept what he said? “Ginger’s death has been deemed suspicious.”