The notebook was gone. All her secrets were gone.
Sitting back on her heels, she stared at the empty space for a moment before she finally rose and moved back to the window. She couldn’t see Adam. He was probably already climbing up the embankment. He would remain invisible until he reached the top. She could picture him out there now, scaling the steep slope in a few long strides. He wouldn’t need vines to pull himself up. He wouldn’t slip and slide and clutch at dead branches the way Nikki had.
Dropping once more to the floor, she flattened herself facedown so she could reach deeper into the niche. Her fingertips touched a smooth surface. Whatever was in there had been pushed back just beyond her reach.
She pressed her cheek to the floor and angled the flashlight beam into the cavity. Something gold glinted.
Stretching as far as she could reach, she managed to scoot the object toward her until she could wrap her fingers around it. A moment later, she removed a green wooden box with a small gold crown on the top.
She blew dust from the lid and then opened it. The watch inside was large, iconic, and looked to be solid gold. Carefully, she removed the band from the holder and held the crystal face up to the light. Her heart hammered by this time and a cold sweat beaded on her forehead. Still hunkering next to the hidey-hole, she turned over the watch, focusing the flashlight beam on the back of the case until she could make out the engraved initials: C.N.
Charles Nance.
Nikki had never seen Dr. Nance wear this particular watch—he preferred a more practical timepiece for everyday use—but she had no doubt it was his. The expensive watch had been a gift from his late wife, Audrey, and he only wore it on special occasions. When not in use, it remained safely tucked away in the green box and was given a place of honor on the fireplace mantel in Dr. Nance’s study, along with a framed wedding photograph of his beloved wife. Nikki only knew about the gift and its history because Dr. Nance’s housekeeper, Dessie Dupre, had once given her a peek when Nikki had helped dust Dr. Nance’s study. The shrine of items had fascinated Nikki, so Dessie had carefully removed the box from the mantel and opened the lid with reverence.
She was already dying when she gave it to him, poor thing. Now he wears it every year on their anniversary. That’s how special it is to him. The rest of the time it sits right here in this pretty green box.
Is it gold, Miss Dessie?
Solid gold, child. Worth a pretty penny, too. But you can’t put a price tag on a memory like that.
So how had Dr. Nance’s gold watch ended up in Nikki’s secret hiding place?
Someone had put it there some time ago, judging by the thick layer of dust on the box and the undisturbed cobwebs in the cubby.
The same someone who had removed her journal?
Chapter Four
The watch was a puzzle, seemingly unconnected to Dr. Nance’s death, if one believed in coincidences. Nikki wasn’t sure that she did, but she also couldn’t deny the evidence of dust and cobwebs that suggested the box had been placed beneath the floorboard long before Dr. Nance had died.
She fretted about that watch and her missing journal as she lay in bed that night, unable to sleep. She thought about Dr. Nance all alone on the lake, realizing he was in trouble but powerless to save himself. Had she missed an important clue the last time she spoke with him? Had he been distracted and paranoid, perhaps even delusional, and she’d been too caught up in her own life to even notice?
After everything he’d done for her, Nikki hated to think that she’d let him down when he’d needed her most, that he had turned to a stranger for help instead of her. But then, Adam Thayer hadn’t been a stranger to Dr. Nance. Maybe not to her, either, if she could just place him.
As she was dozing off, recognition finally came to her. She almost bolted upright at the memory.
It hadn’t been at the Ruins after all. Not her first glimpse of him. She’d spied him on the bridge one day as she trudged down from the road. She hadn’t known his name then, but she could tell even from a distance that he was one of them. Those popular, privileged few who seemed to glide through life bathed in a golden light.
Bronzed and broad-shouldered, skin glistening in the hot sun, he’d hovered at the very edge of the bridge deck before executing a near-perfect backflip into the water. Hidden by the lush vegetation on the embankment, Nikki had watched from afar, fascinated by the stranger in spite of herself.
He’d looked very different back then, too. His hair had been long enough to touch his shoulders, dark, thick and carelessly tousled. Nikki remembered the way he had come up out of the water, slinging droplets from that glorious mop before striking out for the bank.
His clipped hair now revealed too much. Not just the scar across his scalp, but the lines of pain around his mouth and the deep shadows of distrust and cynicism in his eyes. Those shadows made Nikki wonder again about the shooting, about his past.
The image of a young Adam Thayer kept her awake for a very long time. Her alarm roused her at seven with a shrill jolt. Exhausted, she dragged herself out of bed and gulped coffee on her way to the lab.
Like every day, she spent the morning performing autopsies, and then she and her colleagues convened in the consultation room after lunch to go over the results. Fridays were always a rush, and normally, Dr. Nance’s autopsy would have been pushed to Monday since the Northeast Texas Forensic Science Center
