Born in the Valley
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Tara Taylor Quinn
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CHAPTER ONE
THE STREETS WERE DARK, but she welcomed the darkness. Welcomed the anonymity that wrapped itself around her, allowing her to run as no one in particular, a generic body passing unidentified through the early March night.
Sweating, heart working overtime, Bonnie Nielson concentrated on her rhythm, picking up speed as she reached her stride.
She knew these roads. Knew which houses gleamed bright and clean beneath a noonday sun, which yards grew beautiful flowers, which were the lucky ones with grass, instead of the more common desert landscaping. She knew every neighborhood, every family. In many cases she even knew the families who’d previously occupied these homes. She knew when the street had been paved. When that light went in. She even remembered when the stop sign was erected at the corner of Sage and Thyme.
She knew that an old man had died in that two-story stucco house she’d just passed. His unmarried son had inherited the place and moved in. She knew that the man living next door was divorced. And the one after that, a widower. Sometime during the past couple of years, she’d started thinking of the strip as bachelors’ row.
And she knew that what was now a big looming shadow was actually an old gray house that bucked the stucco tradition with its aluminum siding.
Growing up in Shelter Valley she’d always known the neighborhoods. Had taken comfort in that knowledge.
It was different now, though. Now the familiarity distressed her, a moment-to-moment reminder of how very small her world was—and always had been. How insignificant a role she played in this tiny, sheltered part of a planet that was drowning in need.
Yet this town also housed what was most important to her. Keith. Katie. Greg and Beth and little Ryan. Her friends. Her home.
So she ran. And when the Bonnie Nielson no one knew was hidden far enough inside her, she jogged toward home.
KEITH NIELSON was used to having the sheriff of Shelter Valley in his family room. Sprawling on Keith’s couch, eating Sunday dinner, baby-sitting three-year-old Katie, Sheriff Greg Richards visited regularly.
But not in uniform.
And never before in an official capacity. There’d been a fire, and Sheriff Greg Richards was there to break the news to his sister.
“She always out this late?” He was standing, hands in his pockets, between the kitchen and the family room—keeping watch on the garage door at one end of the kitchen and the sliding glass door in the family room.
Keith appreciated the look of concern on his brother-in-law’s face. Bonnie and Greg were the only living adult members of the Richards family.
Sitting on the edge of the couch, arms resting on his knees, Keith dropped his head, staring at hands that wouldn’t stay still. Staring at the wedding ring that had been a source of joy to him—until recently.
“Not often,” he said. But the truth was only partially revealed in those words. If he measured the number of times Bonnie had been out late at night during their whole marriage, it wasn’t often. If you measured the number of times she’d been out late since Christmas, it was higher. A lot higher.
Greg leaned back against the wall. “I figured this jogging thing would fade quickly.”
Keith thought about that. “Me, too,” he answered slowly. “Just like the aerobics and weight training did.”
Greg nodded. Glanced toward each door. Keith wished Tuesday was a good TV night. At least then they could pretend to be distracted.
“She’s sure looking great.”
“Yeah.” He’d rather see every one of the twenty pounds Bonnie had lost if he could have back the cheerful woman he’d married almost seven years before.
Keith’s head shot up, eyes trained on the garage door.
He thought he’d heard Bonnie come in. He waited, not looking forward to the moments ahead. Little Spirits Daycare had been Bonnie’s dream since her early teens. How badly was Greg’s news going to affect her? She hadn’t been herself for months as it was.
And how much did Greg know about that? Just because Bonnie hadn’t been open with him didn’t mean she hadn’t gone to her brother.
Or maybe Greg hadn’t noticed anything at all.
Keith listened and waited. For nothing.
“Katie’s sleeping soundly.” Greg hadn’t straightened from the wall.
Keith studied the grain in the hardwood floor. “Bonnie put her down before she went out.”
More silence. More door checking and glancing at watches. She’d been gone twenty minutes longer than her usual hour.
“Ryan’s had two dry nights in a row.”
Keith grinned at his brother-in-law. “That’s great, man!” he said, in a way only two men who were close would do.
Greg nodded, his smile slowly dropping to a frown. “You want to break it to her?” he asked.
“You’re the cop.”
“I figured you’d say that.”
“You’ve known her longer.”
“You’re married to her.”
Slapping a hand against his jean-clad thigh, Keith stood. “Who the hell would’ve done this? I mean, set a fire in a day care.”
“I don’t know, but you can be damn sure I’m going to find out.”
Keith believed him. Against every conceivable probability, Greg had solved a ten-year-old carjacking/murder that past spring. He’d found his father’s murderer.
Keith thought he heard Bonnie in the garage again. Moved into the kitchen. Ran a hand through hair that was straight and blond and a little long.
He peered into the refrigerator. “You want a beer?”
“Yeah.” Greg wandered over to the kitchen sink. “No, not really,” he muttered.
Closing the refrigerator door empty-handed, Keith said, “Me, neither.”
What he wanted was to go to work. Picturing the brand-new bigger studio, his general manager’s office, the monitors and cameras and constant activity, calmed him slightly. At MUTV—the Montford University television station—he was in control.
Or, barring work, he’d like to go to bed with his wife. But only if she’d snuggle her body up to him the way she used to.
He couldn’t just keep standing there, looking at his watch.
When he seriously considered searching the streets for his wife, knowing damn well he’d see her sooner if he just waited for her here, Keith went in to check on his daughter for the third time in an hour. Bonnie didn’t run particular routes. She could be anywhere in town. And unless he got lucky and chose the one street she happened to be on…
Katie was sound asleep, her thumb hanging out of open baby lips, her sweet cheeks plump and red and begging for a kiss. Keith touched the soft curls that were dark like her mother’s but still baby-hair wispy. He pulled pink sheets with little princess crowns up over the three-year-old’s shoulders and quietly left the room. He worried about Katie. Wondered if she was noticing the changes in her mother.
Was anyone else noticing?
Greg certainly hadn’t said anything.
So was it only with Keith that she was different? Was this a marriage thing?
His blood ran cold. God, he hoped it wasn’t. Anything else they could beat. As long as they were fighting it together.
Bonnie, sweaty and breathing heavily, was just coming through the garage door as Keith returned to the kitchen.
“What’s up?” she panted, looking from one man to the other. She frowned. “What’s wrong?” she demanded before either of them had replied to her first question. “It’s not Katie….” She glanced at Keith, who immediately shook his head.
She stared at her brother. “Did something happen to Beth? Or Ryan?”
“No.” Greg shook his head. “They’re fine.”
Keith braced himself as Greg’s hands dropped to Bonnie’s shoulders. “It’s Little Spirits.”
“What about it?”
She looked damned cute standing there in navy sweats with the bottoms hacked off to fit her short legs, and a white T-shirt under the matching hooded navy jacket. Too cute to be the recipient of distressing news.
“There’s been a fire.”
“At the day care?” She was hiding her grief well.
Greg nodded, then looked at Keith as if asking for help. Keith, however, was still waiting for Bonnie’s horrified gasp. “In the back supply closet.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“No.”
Bonnie pulled out a chair, sat down, one arm leaning on the table. “Was there much damage?”
After that initial glance, she had yet to look at Keith, to give him a chance to offer his support.
Dropping into the chair across from her, Greg said, “You lost everything in the closet, but the fire was stopped before it spread any farther.”
Because he was feeling superfluous standing on the other side of the room, Keith joined the two at the kitchen table, pulling out the chair next to his wife.
Bonnie was frowning. “I wonder how on earth a fire got started in that closet. There’s not even an electrical outlet in there.”
“Someone set it.” Keith did the dirty work, after all. This was the part they’d known would upset her the most.
“You mean arson?” She peered back and forth between the two men. “Who would do a thing like that?” Then after a long pause, she added, “And why?”
Keith was still waiting for that gasp. For Bonnie’s usual intensity. For some kind of emotional reaction. Anger. Sadness.
Bonnie was perplexed.
And that was all.
“I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on who might’ve done this,” Greg told her, taking a notepad from his pocket.
Bonnie didn’t know.
They talked for half an hour, considering and dismissing one possibility after another. No matter what angle Greg took, Bonnie had nothing for him to go on, no leads to pursue. She gave her attention to the matter, answering every question thoughtfully, but with an almost unnerving calm.
Where in hell was Keith’s emotionally exuberant wife?
Greg finished. Eventually left. And Bonnie went in to shower.
Keith stood at the kitchen window, replaying the past hour in his mind, trying to make sense of a world he no longer recognized.
Bonnie, his protective, mother-hen wife, had just had one of her life’s dreams vandalized and had shown not the least bit of outrage—or hurt.
It was as though she didn’t care at all.
EVERYTHING WAS WET and charred, and there was a choking stench in the air. Bonnie pulled out a mop she’d used the week before to clean up an orange-juice accident in the classroom for the three-year-olds, while Alice, their teacher, had wiped off the children who’d been caught in the fray. The mop was wet again, but no longer white or orange-stained. Its synthetic fibers were more than half gone, the remaining strands dark gray and smeared with soot. One side of the long handle—the side that’d been burned—was splintery and coal-black.
She held it carefully.
“I can help with that.”
Her back to the door, Bonnie turned when she heard the voice of the landscaper and handyman. Shane Bellows was employed by the owner of the building in which she leased space.
“Hi, Shane,” she greeted the man who’d once made her teenaged heart throb—before he’d shattered that heart.
Shane might still look like the high-school quarterback who’d broken up with her their senior year because she was too nurturing and “not enough fun.” But the dark-haired man taking the mop from her wasn’t even a shadow of the boy he’d been.
The skiing accident that had changed Shane’s life forever had left him brain-damaged. His memory was somewhat impaired, and he’d become unable to process more than one thing at a time—which made it difficult for him to make decisions. Or to figure out little everyday details, such as the nuances in people’s words or facial expressions.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here last night to clean up for you.” Her emotions were touched by the little-boy tone of voice. He wanted so badly to please. “I’m sorry it had to stay like this all day.”
She handed him some crusty metal hangers to put in the industrial-size trash can she’d wheeled up to the door of the supply closet. “At least it’s out here, away from the kids’ rooms,” she told him. Her tennis shoes sloshed through puddles on the slippery floor as she stepped forward to clear the bigger pieces of melted plastic that had, the day before, been storage bins, from the now-warped metal shelving unit. “We were able to have school as usual today.”
Shane carefully took the plastic, turning completely, holding it over the container before dropping it in—as though making sure he’d aimed right.
“Besides,” she added, “it’s not your responsibility to clean up my messes.”
“I know.” He nodded, frowning slightly as he surveyed the charred remains and started on a shelf that was too high for her to reach without the discolored and misshapen stepstool next to the shelving unit. “I just want to help.”
“You are helping,” she told him, going to work on a lower shelf. “A lot.” She wasn’t even sure what exactly she was clearing away. There’d been a foot-high metal cabinet with twenty or thirty plastic drawers for screws and picture hangers and other little essentials. The drawers were melted shut. Bonnie tossed the whole thing.
“And, anyway,” she told Shane, “no one was allowed in here until the investigators finished up their work this afternoon.”
“Okay.”
They worked silently until the shelving unit was nearly empty. Having Shane around calmed her. She didn’t have to keep up appearances with him.
And being with her seemed to calm him, too.
“This is going much more quickly than I expected, thanks to you.”
He grunted, looking embarrassed, and then slowly smiled. “I’m glad I can help you.”
Bonnie turned back to the job at hand with a twinge of guilt.
Keith had offered to come and help with clean-up duty after work. Beth had said she’d take Katie home with her and Ryan. Wednesday night was macaroni-and-cheese night, and Katie loved it almost as much as Ryan did. Bonnie had sent Katie home with Keith, instead. The little girl had missed her bath the night before and had had a long day.
And Bonnie had needed a break from them.
She would rather die than have Keith know she was dissatisfied with the life they’d built together—a feeling that had been oddly exacerbated by the events of the past twenty-four hours.
She just needed a little time to get herself back in line.
“Do you know who started the fire?” Shane asked, each word spoken deliberately.
Shaking her head, Bonnie shrugged. “People from the sheriff’s office said somebody threw a book of lit matches in through that vent up there.” She pointed to the outside wall of the closet.
Shane stared blankly toward the ceiling. “How do they know that?”
“Because it landed on the wet mop and didn’t completely burn.”
He took a full minute to process that. Then, “Do they know who did it?”
She felt a surge of pity at the obvious struggle he was having. Conversation was difficult for him.
“No,” she said. “I guess there was too much fire and water damage for fingerprinting. It was probably just kids, playing a prank.”
“Why would someone play a prank on you, Bonnie?”
“After looking at things today, my brother, Greg—who’s the sheriff now—doesn’t think they were going after me. There’s not much chance they knew that the vent led into the Little Spirits supply closet.”
“Oh.”
Yeah, and an even bigger “oh” was the fact that Bonnie had been a tiny bit disappointed that Greg hadn’t seen the fire as a premeditated act aimed at her. She’d almost had an excuse to move on.
Bonnie stopped, shaking, hands on the edge of the garbage can she was peering sightlessly into.
An excuse to move on? Where on earth had that thought come from?
She had nothing to move on to. Nowhere she wanted to go.
She loved her husband to distraction. Would give up her life for her daughter. Little Spirits had been a far greater success than she’d ever dared hope.
And still, she was consumed with a nebulous need for more. It made no sense to her.
How could she suddenly resent the very things she’d spent her life dreaming of, praying for, building?
“Are you okay?” Shane’s words pulled her back.
“No,” she told him, walking back to the closet.
She couldn’t prevaricate with Shane. It would be too cruel to this man who was trying so hard to make sense of an already bewildering world. And she didn’t need to pretend with him. In Shane’s mind, what was, was. He wanted predictability, craved patterns and rules, but there was no analysis of motivation, no judgmental thought, no opinion of what should be. Only an acceptance of the environment around him.
Most importantly, her confusion wouldn’t hurt Shane.
“People were talking to you today like you were sad. I saw them when I was waxing floors.”
“I know they were.” They were standing, one on either side of the mangled shelving unit, tilting it to get it out the closet door. “You may not remember, but Little Spirits is something I’ve talked about my whole life and I’ve worked really hard to make it successful. Most of the people in this town know that. So they think it would be really disturbing for me to have it intentionally vandalized. Or even damaged by accident.”
He stopped, stared at her, his gaze intent. The brown depths of his eyes had always been compelling.
“I remember.”
Bonnie didn’t know how to respond. When Shane had suddenly reappeared in her life a couple of months before—her new handyman, instead of the high-powered financier she’d heard he was in Chicago—she’d immediately accepted the man he’d become. Never probing for traces of the man he’d been.
Beyond acknowledging to her landlord that they knew each other, they’d never once referred to their personal past.
The two of them deposited the ruined unit by the emergency exit door.
“What do you remember?”
“That you always wanted to take care of people.”
Yeah. He was right about that. Was that all he remembered?
“And now you don’t?”
Breaking eye contact, she shrugged, dipped back into the closet to start clearing rubbish from the corner. “Of course I do.”
He was hauling out what was left of the vacuum cleaner Beth and Greg had bought her for Christmas.
Bonnie scratched her cheek, felt the slimy wetness of soot from her fingers and wiped her face with her shoulder. She’d brought sweats and a T-shirt with her to work that morning to wear for closet gutting. She was glad she had. She’d probably be throwing them away when she got home that night, because of their smell alone.
“What’s wrong, Bonnie?”
She piled a few more pieces of unidentifiable trash on her outstretched arm.
“I don’t know,” she said, sighing as she dumped it into the rapidly filling can. “I love this place. It just…doesn’t excite me like it used to. I’m feeling differently about a lot of things lately, and that kind of scares me.”
“Different about what things?”
She dumped and gathered more mostly unrecognizable residue. What the fire hadn’t destroyed, the sprinkler system had. “My life, my work, my marriage, Shelter Valley.” She rattled on as she worked. “It used to be that those things filled my every waking thought. They gave me strength and incentive.” Now it almost felt as if they were holding her back.
“I think you wanted to be married and stay in Shelter Valley and take care of people.”
His words were slow, deliberate. His work, focused on one task—cleaning everything out of the closet—with no decisions to be made, was quick and efficient.
“I think I did, too.”
“Do you like being married?”
“Yes, very much.”
“Do you like your husband?” His back was turned as he asked the question.
Staring at those broad shoulders, Bonnie thought of the hundreds of times she’d wanted to tell Shane Bellows what a great man she’d found after he’d left her.
Like the realization of her lifelong dreams, the fulfillment of that wish was hollow.
“I adore him.”
Which was why she was finding all this so hard. How could she possibly need more than Keith and the life they’d built together?
Pulling a rag from his back pocket, Shane wrapped it around the sharp edge of a broken jar of buttons she’d forgotten was in there.
“You love the kids,” he said after disposing of the jar. “I see you laugh with them a lot.”
Those big hands picking up tiny little buttons gave her pause.
“You’re right. I do.”
“Then are you okay now?”
“I think I’m just tired.” Shaking her head, Bonnie tossed some spare floor tile she’d found behind the shelves they’d removed. “I never thought I’d start to resent this place.”
“I never thought I’d be a blue-collar worker.” Shane’s tongue dragged around the last word.
He stopped on one side of the closet, facing her as she stood on the other. The space between them was almost empty, but not quite.
These times, when he seemed as clear-minded as she, disconcerted her. She didn’t know how to respond.
“I used to be powerful,” he told her, his voice sounding at that moment as though he were still the man handling fortunes bigger than Bonnie would ever dream of having.
“I know.”
“I remember it,” he said. “I remember Chicago.”
Her heart ached as she listened to him. She couldn’t imagine the hell his life must be. And felt miniscule and petty as she stood there, discontented with her own.
“What do you remember best?” she asked, hoping the question was okay, that it wouldn’t distress or confuse him.
“All of it.”
A more typical nonanswer. Because he couldn’t sift through the memories and make a decision?
“I remember going to work,” he said, his words slow again. “I remember my office, how I could understand and fix anything that came in. I was really good,” he told her with that strange combination of the intelligent and successful man he used to be and the more childlike creature he’d become.
“I know you were. We used to hear about the great things you were doing.”
“I still look at the stock reports and know what they mean,” he told her. “I even play the market.”
Bonnie frowned. “Is that a good idea, Shane? You don’t want to blow your savings.”
“Now that I can’t earn as much?” he asked. He didn’t sound bitter. Instead, he sounded like a little boy who’d just been told he couldn’t go on the big camp-out. Disappointed. Sad.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” Bonnie broke off.
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice switching back to that of the man he’d once been. These sudden changes were disturbing, even after months of getting used to them. “I got some insurance money from my accident.” The voice was still deep, but with the tenor of a little boy again. “I just kept some of it for me and most of it my friend in Chicago is handling for me.”
Bonnie hoped to God his friend was honest and taking good care of Shane.
“So how’ve you done with the money you kept yourself?” she asked, smiling at him.
Bonnie’s heart lightened when Shane grinned back. “Good,” he told her. “I’ve tripled it so far.”
“No kidding!” She stepped closer, laying a hand on his forearm. “I’m proud of you.”
“That makes me happy, Bonnie.”
“I’m glad.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “You know I’m here if you need anything, right?”
“Yeah.” Bowing his head, he almost mumbled. “You talk to me, Bonnie. Like I’m a real guy…”
Bonnie replayed their conversation over and over as she drove home more than an hour later. She’d helped Shane, made a difference. And that felt damn good.
