Liz stepped out of the car and into Lauren’s waiting arms. How long would she have to stay before she could return to her hunt in Anchorage? She felt bad already looking to form an escape plan, especially since Lauren seemed so happy to see here.
“I’m so excited you’re here!” her friend squealed. “It just hasn’t been the same since Scarlett moved back to the city. It’s so lonely, Shane and I are even talking about starting a family.”
Well, this was unexpected, and something easy to latch onto. Lauren didn’t have to know about the call from Sofia or Liz’s plan to return to the city by tomorrow morning. While she was here, she could play the part of the good friend. Normally, she wouldn’t have to pretend. She liked Lauren, but she just didn’t have any more pieces of herself left to give.
“Oh my gosh! Are you?” Liz let her hand fall to Lauren’s belly, but her friend batted it away with a laugh.
“No, and I better not look it, either!”
“So tell me everything. Have you…?” Liz’s enthusiasm was waning already. She felt terrible about not being here fully for her friend. Why couldn’t she enjoy anything anymore? Would she ever be able to enjoy her life again?
Lauren kept on talking. “Not yet. I want to get through at least one more Iditarod before having to take a year off. Pregnancy and extreme sports don’t exactly mix, you know?”
Liz nodded. “Well, yeah, of course, but that’s so exciting.” She tried to make her voice go up at the end, but her words and the way she said them clashed terribly.
Still, Lauren smiled, a woman content with her life and place in the world—a woman very much unlike Liz. “Anyway, that’s enough about me,” her friend said, her voice taking on a more serious tone, telling Liz exactly what would come next. “What was that all about? Some creepy guy?”
Here it was, an easy out. “Were you eavesdropping?”
“No, but you asked me to take the dogs and I overheard. Besides, Scarlett may have called and told me everything.”
“What? I’ll kill her.” Scarlett had found a way to ruin her plans all the way from Texas. There was no way Lauren would let Liz slip away now, and the last thing she needed was a friend following her into a possibly dangerous situation.
Lauren frowned as if maybe she regretted making this revelation. “She just wants you to be safe and, based on what I’ve heard, she’s right to worry.”
“Well, I’m out here now. Safe and sound in Puffin Ridge where no one can ever hurt me.” Or tell me the truths about my own life, she mentally added, trying so hard not to scowl.
“Are they trying to hurt you back in Anchorage? What was that call about? New information?”
“Let’s just go inside and have some cocoa or something,” Liz suggested, heading toward the door, but Lauren stepped into her path, cutting her off.
“You can talk to me, Liz. I know we’re both closer to Scarlett than to each other, but I’d love for us to be like sisters, too. And besides.” She let out a wry smile. “I can relate to what you’re going through in a way Scar can’t. I’m a member of the fathers with secret pasts club, too. Remember?”
How could Liz forget? It was Lauren’s own mystery that had brought her up from the lower forty-eight and led her straight to her now husband, Shane. Liz only wished her mystery could wrap up so neatly, leaving everyone happy and fulfilled the way Lauren’s had—but she already knew that wouldn’t be the case. How could it be with all the willful deceit that had already spanned years?
“Tell me,” Lauren goaded, bouncing up and down at her knees. “Tell me. Tell me, tell me!”
“Okay, okay.” Liz laughed, but it didn’t lighten her stress at all. “This guy, Warwick, he came looking for me at the store and stuck around for quite a while apparently. My boss, Sofia, she grabbed a picture of him.”
“May I?” Lauren asked as she reached for the phone Liz still held clutched in her fist.
“Yeah, sure. I guess.”
Lauren made a face as she opened the text message. “This him?” She shifted the phone toward Liz.
“Yeah, that’s him, all right.” She still felt funny whenever she saw this man who was a stranger but also wasn’t. What was she supposed to feel? Love? Fear? Something else entirely?
Lauren began typing furiously on Liz’s phone.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Liz asked, trying to look over the taller woman’s shoulder, but Lauren used her body as a shield until she’d finished typing.
“Bingo,” she said with a triumphant smile as she handed the phone back to Liz.
“I don’t get it. What are you doing?”
“Look.” Lauren’s eyes widened as she waited for Liz to glance down at the phone.
“You did a reverse image search. Don’t you think I already searched for him?”
“But by his name, right? What if he’s using an alias? And that’s not just an image search—it’s facial recognition, baby.”
Liz was afraid to look. All she had done was seek answers these past couple weeks. What if they were finally here and all she needed to do was glance down to learn everything?
“Look at the results,” Lauren urged. “Do any of those look like your guy?”
Liz shivered as she scrolled through the images as the cold began to seep into her bones.
Lauren watched at her side while the dogs ran back and forth in the front yard—thankfully fenced off from the kennels out back so they couldn’t rile up Lauren and Shane’s sled dogs.
“Wait, go back!” Lauren shouted all of a sudden. “That could be him without the beard and like thirty years younger, right?”
Liz scrolled back up and clicked on the grainy black and white image. The screen opened up to a newspaper archive for Charleston’s Daily Register.
She zoomed in on the face. It definitely belonged to a younger Warwick, and beside him stood a little girl who couldn’t have been more than two or three years old.
She wore her hair in high pigtails and clutched on to a stuffed horse.
Liz remembered that horse.
Its name was Mr. Hooves, and it had once belonged to her.