A gunshot echoed. Birds scattered from the treetops into the sky. Joel eyed them, then looked up the road to where Sheriff Dunst had disappeared, then back to Ivy.
“I have to go, Ivy.” His expression was torn. Wanting to stay to protect her, but the obvious need of assisting the sheriff heavy on his conscience.
“I’ll be all right,” Ivy reassured him. But something was off, a dizzy, spinning feeling. Her sight went dark, then cleared, and then Joel’s face blurred.
“Ivy,” he said and gave her a small shake. Her skin felt sickeningly cold. “Ivy.”
Her body started to tremble. No. Not now. Ivy urged her physical reaction of shock away. This wasn’t the time to become a hindrance and detract from the chance to bring Gabriella’s killer to justice.
She jolted as she heard Joel curse under his breath. But as her eyes met his, his face blurred again. Ivy blinked rapidly as it seemed the wind had turned into an icy breath. Shock. She knew her body was reacting to the increase of adrenaline and the sudden reality of being within the grip of safety. Joel’s face cleared again as Ivy squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them.
“I’ll be fine. Please—” she faltered—“go.” Blackness once again crowded her vision, and her knees turned to jelly. She remained standing only by sheer force of her will to push herself up against Joel’s grip on her.
She heard Joel whisper, “Forgive me.” And then his mouth claimed hers in a fierce caress. At her whimper, Joel plunged his fingers through her hair, hungry, as if the years between them had stored his need and now it’d been loosed. Ivy gripped his shirt, knowing in her head he was trying to bring her out of her shock, but in her heart she understood that this moment had been cultivated from years of loss.
Warmth returned to her skin, and for the first time she held on to him.
“Ivy . . .” Joel’s eyes looked haunted, filled with the need for vengeance but also the necessity to be with the one he loved.
Ivy stepped away from him, her legs stable again. “Go, Joel. Get him. For me.” She blinked back tears that hadn’t pooled in her eyes since Andrew’s death. “For Gabriella.”
Chapter 40
Kaine
Foster!” Grant slammed the book in front of Kaine. She jumped, her coffee sloshing over the rim of the styrofoam cup. Patti, the librarian across the room, cleared her throat.
“Look.” Grant pushed the book closer to Kaine.
She grabbed a Kleenex from her purse and dabbed the coffee drips before the librarian could see the mess. “Shh. Patti is giving us dirty looks.”
He slid his chair closer to Kaine and ran his index finger along the image of a newspaper clipping’s headline inserted between paragraphs in a book about Oakwood’s history. “Read this.”
Kaine squeezed the bridge of her nose. Grant was a bloodhound when it came to trying to figure out Ivy’s and Gabriella’s stories. She released her nose and read.
SON OF FOUNDING FAMILY CAPTURED
Kaine frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Keep reading.” Grant rested his elbow on the table, and she caught a whiff of his cinnamon latte as he took a sip.
Yesterday, Sheriff Patrick Dunst, with the aid of Detective Joel Cunningham, apprehended Arnold Foster, member of the founding family and son of Billy and Myrtle Foster. Mr. Foster is being held in question for the murder of the unknown girl found at the base of Foster Hill. No additional details have been provided.
Kaine read the paragraph again. “Arnold Foster was the son of the family run out of town at the end of the Civil War?”
“Mm-hmm.” Grant leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. “Which means the Fosters came back to Oakwood. At least Arnold did.”
“I wonder how they caught him.” Kaine lowered her voice as she caught Patti’s eye. The woman was a gargoyle. “Did he really kill Gabriella?”
Grant lowered his arms, and one of them came to rest on the back of Kaine’s chair. “Therein lies the question.”
“How come no one saw this before?” She found it hard to believe that Gabriella’s death at Foster Hill House had been so cloaked in mystery when a newspaper clipping in an Oakwood historical volume was practically emblazoned with the culprit. “It doesn’t seem as though anyone ever brought up the Fosters as being a part of the mystery.”
Grant checked the book’s copyright date. “This was compiled in the early sixties. Part of a collaborative effort of the town historians to preserve Oakwood’s history.”
“Preserve.” Kaine nodded. “Was it compiled before 1963?”
“Yeah, 1961.”
“Shortly before Ivy’s quilt was stolen from the museum. Remember how Mr. Mason said other items went missing then too? Clippings and such? Our theory of a cover-up? It seems as though people did know a fuller story, but then decades later someone tried to strike it from the books. As if, when this book was published, it stirred up someone who didn’t want the Fosters’ past to come to light.”
“Sounds like a conspiracy theory.” He flipped through the book again, focusing on the pages of photographs. There were no more news clippings, and the pictures were of random items that used to be in Foster Hill House.
Kaine leaned in over the book. “Someone doesn’t want the truth told. They have never wanted it told. And now, my being here is bringing it all back into the light.”
Grant stilled and reached for her hand. “Whatever the reason, we’re going to figure this out.”
Kaine tossed him a doubtful roll of her eyes and pulled her hand back. She was tired. She pushed her chair back and stood, reaching for her purse. “I need some air.” She caught Grant’s concerned expression as she hurried away, avoiding Patti at the main desk by weaving through the maze of library tables and shelves.
She pushed open one of the double doors to the library, and a blast of fresh air met her. Kaine skipped down the flight of stairs and across the sidewalk to a small flower garden with a park bench. The flowers were mere sprouts pushing up from the earth. Kaine set her purse down on the walkway next to them as she plopped onto the bench. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, breathing deeply of the fresh air. So much lost history. Scribbled censuses, incomplete family trees . . . Kaine knew that many people attempted to trace their roots back in time and many historical documents were incorrect, illegible, or confusing. But did the results of that family history carry the same weight that it did in Kaine’s life?
A whiff of cinnamon and coffee met Kaine’s nostrils, and she glanced up to see Grant approaching her. She stared down at her hands, picking some old fingernail polish off her thumbnail.
“When I was kid, I used to come here.” Grant eased onto the bench beside her. He mimicked her position, folding his hands in front of him. “I loved the library.”