The Secret of Cherokee Cove

“If it really happened.”

“If it happened,” he conceded. “But if even a germ of the story is true, then what you’re looking for is a hospital that would treat both indigent and wealthy patients.”

“In other words, not a charity hospital or a low-income care facility.”

“Right. And there’s really only one hospital close that fits that description. Maryville Mercy Hospital.”

“That’s the hospital where Doyle is.”

“That’s right. Good luck.” He hung up the phone.

Good luck, she repeated silently. She had a feeling she was going to need all the luck she could find to cut through the years of rumor and innuendo to get to the truth about her mother’s secret life in Bitterwood.

But Maryville Mercy Hospital was as good a place to start as any.

Chapter Five

Nix walked slowly across the narrow two-lane street that bisected tiny Purgatory, Tennessee, wondering how long Alexander Quinn planned to keep him waiting. He hadn’t even taken his seat in the detectives’ office at the police station when his phone rang, and a low voice informed him that Merritt Cortland had been spotted in Purgatory.

It had been a few years since Nix had spoken to the old spymaster, but even with the man’s voice disguised, there was a certain tone to it that Nix found unforgettable. Many things had changed since the last time they’d met—Nix now carried a badge, not an M-16, and Quinn had recently left the CIA to start his own investigative agency in Purgatory. But Nix had a feeling Quinn would never fully give up his secret-agent ways.

Case in point—luring Nix to Purgatory with an anonymous tip. Nix doubted anyone had spotted Merritt Cortland anywhere near Purgatory. Which meant Quinn wanted him to come to Purgatory for some other reason but didn’t want to approach him directly.

On the other side of the road, Laurel Park was little more than a scenic overlook, a narrow strip of grass and trees that ended about thirty yards off the road where Little Black Creek meandered through the foothills just west of the Smokies. In the late nineteenth century, Purgatory had been a company town for a nearby Tennessee marble quarry, but by the end of the Second World War, the company had gone bankrupt as the demand for less expensive building materials drove most of the state’s marble quarries out of business.

Fortunately, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was in business by then, and Purgatory, like other towns near the park’s border, had made a trade out of tourism for a couple of decades before other towns closer to the park and more easily accessible by interstate highway had lured most of the tourists away.

Now Purgatory was limping along on the back of a large auto parts plant that had opened in Barrowville. Corporate bigwigs at the plant had looked east to Purgatory for land on which to build large homes and estates that would provide them with both an easy commute and the pristine beauty of living in the mountains.

The town’s name was unfortunate, but some folks around Ridge County would argue that it was well-enough earned, since the little town had struggled more than thrived for most of its existence.

Nix settled on a wooden bench to wait for Quinn to make himself known. That he was watching from some hiding place was a given. Nix couldn’t imagine Quinn waiting in the open for someone to approach him first.

A man with long sandy-brown hair strolled slowly toward him. His knee-length hiking shorts, round, red-lensed sunglasses, grimy baseball cap and well-worn backpack were the typical uniform of a section hiker, one of hundreds of thousands who hiked the Appalachian Trail section by section over the course of several years.

Of course, even if Nix hadn’t recognized the long-haired man as the former CIA agent he’d come to see, he’d have been suspicious, since the Appalachian Trail was several miles to the east of Purgatory, winding along the Tennessee/North Carolina state line.

The hiker otherwise known as Alexander Quinn sat at the other end of the bench from Nix and pulled a water bottle from his backpack. “Warm weather’s finally here,” he said with just enough of a hipster vibe to make Nix bite back a laugh.

“That’s a new look for you,” Nix murmured.

“Recycled from about twenty years ago,” Quinn said in his normal accent, a neutral tone that had a chameleon-like ability to sound as if it could originally have come from almost any English-speaking country. “Thanks for coming.”

“Was there really a Merritt Cortland sighting?”

“Actually, there was, although I can’t vouch for it personally,” Quinn answered. His gaze moved lazily from side to side, as if he were just a tourist enjoying the view. But Nix knew the old spymaster never did anything casually.

“Are you expecting company?”

“Expecting? No.” He took another swig from his water bottle, then slipped it into the backpack that sat on the bench between them. “But it never hurts to stay alert.”

“Are you planning to get to the point of my summons?”

Quinn’s eyes met his briefly. “My agency has been looking into Cortland’s disappearance. That’s how we got the tip that someone may have seen him just north of here, near the old marble quarry.”

“How valid a tip?”

“Remains to be seen. But we haven’t come across any proof that Cortland is dead, either. So we have to proceed on the assumption that he could still be alive and kicking. And if so, he’s probably working overtime to solidify his control of his father’s criminal enterprise.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Nix asked.

“Seemed like something you’d want to know.”

“It’s something a lot of people would like to know. The FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service—”

“I hear someone tried to kill your chief of police.” Quinn leaned back, crossing his ankle on top of his knee. The soles of his hiking boots were muddy and well-worn, Nix noticed. When the man donned a disguise, he didn’t miss a beat.

“That’s still under investigation,” Nix said carefully.

Quinn laid his head back, as if enjoying the morning sun that angled through the trees overhead to bathe his face with warm light. “Check with your office. I believe you’ll find the mechanic’s assessment is in.”

Nix stared at Quinn. “I thought you were out of the spy business.”

He shrugged. “I don’t spy for the government anymore.”

“Just for yourself?”

“Let’s just say I haven’t lost the ability to uncover sensitive information when necessary.”

“Do the people you employ know you’re still playing head games?”

“They know me,” Quinn said simply.

Nix supposed that response answered the question about as well as anything would. “So, you’ve told me there may or may not have been a Cortland sighting in the area. A phone call would have sufficed.”