She’d been seriously injured the day of the accident. Even so, she hadn’t been able to bear the pity and coddling her family and friends had tried to foist on her when she’d been recovering.
Yes, she’d been hurt. But she’d also been fine.
Fine.
Only Zander wouldn’t be fine at all if he found out that she’d hidden her accident from him. He’d be wounded and angry and rightfully so.
She pressed to her feet.
Zander continued to peer at the grave, his face inscrutable.
“What’re you thinking?” she asked.
“That Frank must have stood on this same spot decades ago and looked down at this very same thing.”
“It’s crazy to think he then decided to become Frank Joseph Pierce.”
“Right. He arrived here James and left here Frank.”
“In an odd way, it’s almost as if he gave this child a chance to grow into a man. Because of your uncle, Frank Pierce lived an adult life.” Britt clasped her hands behind her back. Had they been here long enough? It seemed like long enough.
“Why would he have come to this cemetery?” Zander murmured. “In this town?”
“We know Frank moved to Seattle around the time he changed his identity. Seattle’s only an hour from here.”
“It seems to me that a city kid from Chicago would have made his way straight from one big city to another big city,” Zander said. “Chicago. Seattle. If so, then what was he doing in Enumclaw?”
“And why exactly did he need this boy’s identity?”
Zander looked across his shoulder at her. The blue of his eyes tempted a person to think he might have the ability to see into souls. “I wish I knew,” he said.
“You bet. Good-bye.” Zander ended the call on his cell phone, then set the phone facedown on the desk inside his room at the Inn at Bradfordwood. He’d just finished talking to the last of Frank’s relatives that he’d been able to find.
According to them, Frank had not been involved in their family’s life since around the time he turned twenty. They were aware of his underage drinking arrest. And one sister had heard a rumor of his drunk and disorderly charge. But none were aware that he’d robbed a gas station or been sent to prison. None had a clue why he’d moved to the Pacific Northwest or, indeed, even that hehadmoved to the Pacific Northwest. And, unfortunately, none of them knew why he’d changed his name.
All of the siblings he’d spoken with had agreed that the Ross family’s home life had been extremely difficult. Poverty, alcohol, and arguments had marked their mother’s relationships. Frank’shalf sister had told Zander that Frank hadn’t run away from home so much as he’d simply gotten a job at the age of sixteen and moved out.
Frank’s brother told Zander that Frank had fallen in with a group of rough boys during his freshman year in high school. One of them had been Ricardo Serra, who later became Frank’s partner in crime.“Ricardo was very smart, but slick, you know?”Frank’s brother had said.“He never struck me as somebody who could be trusted.”
Restlessness clawed at Zander as he settled his vision beyond the room’s window toward the spring green forest.
Casey, the soft-spoken man who managed the inn, had served breakfast a few hours before. Zander had decided that he’d spend the time between breakfast and lunch each day working on his manuscript. However, his laptop lay beside him on the desk, shut and cold. Since arriving in Merryweather, he hadn’t yet managed to focus his mind enough to write.
His lack of productivity wasn’t the inn’s fault. In fact, he’d be hard-pressed to think of any place more ideal for writing. The inn had been constructed of stone in the late 1800s in one corner of Bradford’s two-hundred-acre plot. Dense woods hid the structure from the rest of the world. Its own entrance road linked it to the nearest street.
Zander remembered when Britt’s mom, Kathleen, had decided to renovate what had once been the property’s dower house and change it into an inn. He’d walked with Britt and her mom through these rooms back when they’d been covered in dust, as surely as the furniture had been covered in sheets. The bathrooms had been few and far between. The kitchen small, dark, and ancient.
Kathleen had kept the building’s quality and character intact, but she’d added every possible comfort when she’d overhauled the place. The downstairs common room and dining room and the inn’s five guest rooms and their adjoining bathrooms were now on par with what you’d find at a Four Seasons.
As soon as Britt had heard he was returning for Frank’s funeral,she’d insisted he stay here. He hadn’t needed convincing. He was comfortable here, in this inn owned by the family he knew so well. The Bradfords often housed friends and family here free of charge, and though he wasn’t okay with staying here without paying anything—especially because he might be staying for weeks—he knew he’d be able to sweet-talk Kathleen into a payment arrangement later.
So, no. His irritability and wrecked concentration wasn’t the inn’s fault.
Pushing to his feet, he set his hands on his hips.
Maybe he needed a walk? A run? Maybe he should get in his rented Jeep Wrangler and go ... where? He knew for sure he should pray. Too much time had passed since he’d spent a significant amount of time in prayer.
His guilt over that fact only increased his reluctance.
