Met Her Match (Summer Hill 2)

“Kit’s son.”

Frank gave such a loud sigh of being pleased that Nate rolled his eyes.

Rowan was waiting for them at the open apartment door. He was fully dressed in a crisply ironed shirt, trousers with a crease down the front and Italian loafers.

Frank looked from him to Nate in his T-shirt that said “Shhh... I’m dreaming of beer,” jeans and ugly black sandals, then back again. “You the son Kit wanted Stacy Hartman to meet?”

“I am,” Rowan said.

“Smart man, your father.”

Behind him, Nate glared, and Rowan suppressed a laugh.

Frank finally let go of the cart. “You two kids get busy reading. I drove all night to get here so I’m going to bed.” He looked at Rowan in expectation.

“Both beds have been slept in. I can change the sheets, or—”

“Show me to your bed,” Frank growled, then followed Rowan down the hall. He paused at the doorway. “He made up his bed,” he said loudly, meant for Nate to hear. “A real gentleman.” Frank went into the bedroom and firmly shut the door behind him.

When Rowan got back to the livi

ng room, he looked at Nate and laughed.

“I’m glad you think it’s funny. I told you the whole town hates me.” Nate was taking the boxes off the cart and stacking them on the dining table.

“I’m astonished that he even let you touch the files.”

“Don’t rub it in.” Nate pulled the lid off the box marked Leslie. There were file folders inside, all of them worn from what looked to be years of use. Inside were newspaper clippings, pages with old-fashioned typing and some handwritten papers that had been torn from spiral notebooks. There were lots of photographs.

When Rowan picked up a folder, he caught three photos before they fell out. He looked at the stack of boxes, then at Nate. When he spoke, it was with the voice of an FBI agent, not a cousin. “Put that cart in the hall, then help me move the long couch. We need to clear a wall so we can put all this up where we can see it.”

Chapter 18

Hunger woke Frank, but he didn’t get out of the bed immediately. He didn’t know what kind of sheets were on the bed but they sure beat the close-out-sale kind on his bed. There were nice curtains on the windows and he could see a line of sunlight between them.

Yesterday when the text from Nate came through, Frank had wanted to throw his phone down and stomp on it. That boy had turned the whole town upside down! The mayor was angry, Brody was furious, Elaine had been crying and little Stacy Hartman looked so mad he was afraid she’d take a bulldozer to the Thorndyke house.

The mayor called to ask if Nathaniel Taggert could be forever denied entry into the town. Frank said, “Wish I could but ol’ Thomas Jefferson said I couldn’t do that.”

By the time the text from Nate appeared, Frank was ready to turn in his badge. “Like hell I’ll send those files to that bastard,” he mumbled.

But an hour later, he changed his mind. This was his chance to have someone look into his files on Leslie. He well knew that no one else would look at them. Not anyone in Summer Hill, not any other law enforcement people he knew, no lawyer, no one. Their opinion was that she ran off with a lover and disappeared. The end. That no record of her could be found before she arrived was proof of what a lowlife she was.

Frank had known Leslie. She was a kind, sweet young woman. She was what he needed since Jake thought his little brother was a waste. In one of his many belittling gestures, he’d hung a pair of handcuffs on the wall over his desk. “Having them here will save the sheriff some time since he arrests you about three times a week.”

It was Leslie who never lost faith in him. He never told anyone but he used to spend afternoons with her and the baby. Between her housework, baby care and helping with lake business, she was overwhelmed. He got good at diaper changing. And Leslie used to listen to him bellyache about his brother, about how he didn’t know what to do with his life.

After the storm and Leslie went missing, Frank told Sheriff Chazen that he didn’t believe that damned note she supposedly left behind. He didn’t believe she had a lover. “I was at her house one or two afternoons a week,” Frank said. “She wouldn’t—”

“Are you telling me you were one of her lovers?” the sheriff said.

“No! I never touched her. I helped with the baby.”

Chazen sneered. “Unless you want me to tell people you’re involved in this, I suggest you get the hell out of here.”

Frank didn’t walk out the door, he ran. It was the most cowardly moment of his life and he’d regretted it every day since.

Wanting to overcome his cowardice of that moment, needing to take away the shame he felt, had been the driving force of his life. He’d thought that if he became the sheriff, he would have the resources to investigate Leslie’s disappearance.