“How can I help you?” Mary Lou walked over to the counter, which acted as a partition between the waiting area and the inner office. “Do you want me to call Mr. Cox? Unfortunately, he’s with a client at the moment, but I can let him know you’re here.”

“Thanks, but that won’t be necessary,” Rosie told her. “I came to meet Cecilia Randall.”

“Oh, sure,” Mary Lou said. “I’ll get her right away.”

“Cecilia’s on her break,” a woman Rosie didn’t recognize announced from her desk. There’d been a number of changes in the office that she knew nothing about. She and Zach had often discussed office politics, but that had been BJ—before Janice.

“You can go on back to the break room, if you like,” Mary Lou suggested.

That was perfect as far as Rosie was concerned. She didn’t want to interrupt Cecilia while she was on the job. Her purpose was to thank her for everything she’d done for Allison.

Rosie was as familiar with the layout of the office as she was her own home—or what had, at one time, been the home she’d lived in with Zach. These days…well, that was territory she didn’t want to enter.

Just as Mary Lou had told her, Rosie found a young woman sitting at a table, reading a magazine and sipping coffee. An older woman sat at a separate table, chatting on a cell phone. Cecilia had dark curly hair that hung just above her shoulders and she didn’t look more than seventeen. She glanced up when Rosie walked in.

“Hello.” Rosie smiled. “I’m Allison’s mom.”

“Oh, hi,” Cecilia said, smiling back. “She talks about you a lot.”

Rosie pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. She was astounded that her daughter had mentioned her at all. “I just came to introduce myself and to thank you for being Allison’s friend.”

“I enjoy working with her.”

Rosie was sure she hadn’t felt that way in the beginning. “I wanted you to know how much I appreciate your patience with her. She’s going through a rough time, and you’ve made a tremendous impression on her.”

“I appreciate your telling me that.”

“It’s true,” Rosie said. “Just working with you has made a real difference to Allison.”

“Spending time with her has helped me, too,” Cecilia said. “I was only ten when my parents divorced and I remember thinking the breakup was my fault….”

Rosie was immediately concerned. She’d repeatedly talked to both children about this very thing, but Allison and Eddie had dismissed her questions, and after a while she’d let the matter drop. Surely, Rosie prayed, her children hadn’t taken on any blame for a problem that was clearly between her and Zach.

“Did Allison tell you she blames herself for what happened?” Rosie burst out. “Because that simply isn’t true.”

“No, no,” Cecilia assured her, and held up one hand. “I just meant that talking about what happened when my parents split has helped me realize I had nothing to do with their divorce. So you see, it’s been a real advantage to me to look back at that episode in my own life.”

“I see,” Rosie murmured, relieved. In retrospect, she wished she’d handled so many things differently, not only with the divorce, but her marriage, too. She tried not to think about the last twelve months. What was done was done. Indulging in regrets left her feeling depressed, and she was working hard to get past those negative emotions.

“I hope you don’t mind my coming by like this, but I did want to thank you,” Rosie said.

“It’s really sweet of you to do that.” Cecilia closed her magazine. “Did you enjoy your dinner with Allison?”

Rosie nodded. “It was great, although I almost needed a translator. Words like wicked and righteous and mad don’t seem to mean what I thought they did.”

Cecilia smiled. “I know. Teenagers have their own way of expressing things, don’t they?”

“That they do.” It was important Rosie leave before her daughter arrived for work. She got up, ready to head back to the front office, when Mary Lou approached her.

“Mr. Cox said he’d like to see you,” she said, sounding apologetic as she stepped aside and allowed Rosie to pass.

Zach’s door was open. When Rosie walked into his office, she immediately noticed that the family photograph was no longer on the credenza, but he’d displayed one of Allison and Eddie. He stood when she entered, frowning darkly. Without a word, he moved from behind his desk and shut the door, a little harder than he needed to.

Ah, so that was how it was going to be. Rosie tried not to let him intimidate her, but that was difficult.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

She didn’t understand his anger and suppressed the urge to respond in kind. “I came to talk to Cecilia. I wanted to thank her—”

“That’s a convenient excuse and we both know it.” He was back on the other side of his desk, his expression furious.

“Excuse for what?” she asked, equally angry.

“Finding out about Janice.”

Now she understood. Zach didn’t want her to know that his “girlfriend” had left the company. From the little Allison had said, she knew Janice’s departure hadn’t been amicable.

“My visit had nothing to do with Janice and everything to do with our daughter,” Rosie insisted.

“So you say.”

“Let’s agree to disagree. I’m sorry if my being here is an embarrassment. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Eager to escape, she turned to leave.

Zach crossed his arms over his chest and slowly exhaled. “Did you learn what you wanted to know?” he asked.

Rosie turned back from the door. “What I wanted to know?” she repeated. Then she realized her ex-husband was worried that she’d find out what great pains he’d taken to hide the truth from her all these weeks. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

Zach’s jaw went white. “What happened between Janice and me—”

“I learned that Cecilia Randall is a warm, generous woman who has been a wonderful friend to our daughter,” she said, interrupting him. “And I also learned that my exhusband can be a real jerk.” She offered him a quavering smile, which under the circumstances was the best she could do. “No surprise there, however.”

She walked out the door.

Twenty-One

Bob Beldon was puttering around in his wood shop in the garage, cleaning tools and putting them away, when he noticed the sheriff’s vehicle in the distance. The green car was making its way along Cranberry Point; Bob wondered if Sheriff Davis was headed in his direction and what it meant if he was.

It’d been a year since the John Doe had checked into Thyme and Tide and promptly gone to meet his Maker. So much of that night remained a blur in Bob’s mind. Of one thing he was sure: the man, whoever he was, had evoked the recurring nightmare. As the years passed, the dream had come less and less frequently. But it had returned that night. When he woke, he’d had the same sensation he always felt following the nightmare. He’d been badly shaken; discovering their guest dead in the downstairs bedroom had heightened his anxiety beyond anything he’d experienced in years.

Considering the number of times Sheriff Davis had stopped by since that fateful morning, Bob couldn’t help feeling he was somehow a suspect. It was Davis’s last visit that had led him to contact Roy McAfee. He’d half expected an arrest warrant. He needed to talk to someone he trusted, someone who could help him, so—at Pastor Flemming’s suggestion—he’d gone to Roy.

Retelling the story of that day in a Vietnam jungle hadn’t been easy. Peggy was the only one he’d ever told. Bob didn’t know what would’ve happened to him if not for his wife, who’d held him and wept with him as he relived those terrible memories. Since then—until now—they’d never spoken of the incident again.

He peered out at the road again. Sure enough, the sheriff’s car drove through the wrought-iron gate that marked the driveway to Thyme and Tide. He recognized Troy Davis at the wheel. Bob reached in his rear pocket for a clean rag and wiped his hands free of sawdust and grime.

Davis parked in back and climbed out, nodding in Bob’s direction.

“Sheriff,” Bob said, coming out to meet him. He extended his hand, which Troy Davis shook, all the while looking him full in the face. That was encouraging. If Davis planned to arrest him, he figured there’d be some sign. Thus far, he hadn’t seen any.

“How’s it going, Bob?” Troy asked.

“All right.”

“Peggy around?”

“She’s inside baking. She’s probably almost done. Cookies, I think. Do you want to come in the house?”

Sheriff Davis nodded. “I’d like to talk to you both.”

Bob led the way through the back door off the kitchen. As he’d predicted, Peggy’s cookies were cooling on wire racks and the lingering scent of oatmeal and raisins filled the room. She must’ve seen Troy pull into the driveway because she’d already placed three mugs on the table and had the coffee poured. She’d set aside a plate of cookies, too.

Silently they each took a seat at the round oak table in the alcove next to the kitchen, then reached for a mug.

“You have news?” Peggy asked.

Bob admired the fact that she got straight to the point. He assumed the sheriff had learned something. The fact that he was here in uniform told Bob this wasn’t a social call.

“We have the identity of our John Doe,” Sheriff Davis said. He paused as if he expected Bob to provide the name.

Peggy gasped. “You know who it is?”

“Maxwell Russell.” Once again, the sheriff looked at Bob.

“Max?” Bob repeated slowly. Roy had wondered about that possibility. A chill raced down his spine, and he closed his eyes as the face of his old army buddy came to him. The room felt as if it were buckling beneath his chair. In the back of his mind, for whatever reason, he’d known that the man who’d died was somehow connected to his past.

“You remember him?” Davis asked, but it was clear he already knew the answer.

“We were in the army together—that was years ago.”

Davis nodded as if waiting for more.

“Why didn’t he identify himself?” Bob asked. They hadn’t seen each other in nearly forty years. Max hadn’t arrived on his doorstep that night by accident. He’d come for a reason—and died before he could tell Bob what it was.

“I was hoping you could give me the answer to that,” the sheriff murmured.

Bob couldn’t. He’d never been particularly good friends with Max. They were in Vietnam together, in the jungle…in the village. Afterward all four men had gone their separate ways, desperate to put the past behind them, to forget. No one wanted a reminder of what they’d done. Least of all Bob.

After the war, Bob had stayed away from Cedar Cove simply because Dan had chosen to return to their hometown. Bob did eventually move back, but the two men rarely spoke. It was as if they were strangers now, although in their youth they’d been close friends.