At Hidden Falls (Angel's Bay Novel) by Barbara Freethy Read Free Book Online

There’s a young woman at church who’s also pregnant, and Annie has spoken to her a few times after service. Her name is Kim Swanson. I called over there, but no one was home.”
    “I’ll follow up with her,” Joe said with a nod. “Anyone else?”
    “There is the baby’s father,” Charlotte said.
    Joe’s gaze turned to her. “But you don’t know who he is, do you?”
    She hesitated, and when she didn’t reply right away, her mother cut in sharply, “Charlotte, is there something you haven’t told me?”
    She debated breaking the promise she’d made to Annie several weeks ago. She didn’t have a choice; Annie had been gone too long. “I know that he’s one of five men,” she said finally.
    Her mother’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “What are you talking about, Charlotte?”
    She winced at the storm brewing in her mother’s eyes. She would pay for this secret, even though it wasn’t her own. “Annie told me that the father is one of the men who’s trying to adopt the baby. He doesn’t want his wife to know he had an affair, and his solution is for Annie to give the baby to him without saying anything.”
    Her mother tightened her lips. “Why didn’t you tell me? I had a right to know. I let Annie live in my house. I could have helped her figure out what to do.”
    “She made me promise. She wanted to make her own decisions. I had to respect that.”
    “I can’t believe she didn’t confide in me! I thought we were close,” her mother muttered with an irritated shake of her head.
    “I’ll need a list of the men,” Joe said.
    She was happy not to see any judgment in his eyes. But then, he turned on a switch when he was on duty. She supposed she did the same when she was with her patients, and she was happy for his objectivity now. “I have the information. I got it out of Annie’s room earlier.” She retrieved the files from the desk, then spread them out on the coffee table.
    Attached to the front of each folder was a photo. There was Dan McCarthy, a fireman, married to Erin, who worked at the quilt store. Steve Baker, a dentist, married to Victoria Hartley Baker, who ran the community theater with her parents. Adam Goldman, a lawyer, married to Louise Jennings Goldman, a nurse at the medical center. Mitch Lowell, a contractor, married to Corinne Lowell, a bank teller, formerly of Angel’s Bay but currently residing in Montgomery. And Kevin Holt, a fisherman, married to Donna Holt, a florist.
    “It could be any one of these guys,” Charlotte said, lifting her gaze to meet Joe’s. “I know several of them, none of whom I would suspect of being unfaithful to his wife. What do we do, just start talking to them?”
    Before Joe could answer, the doorbell rang again. Her mother got up to answer it. When she returned to the room, Andrew Schilling was with her, an expression of concern on his face.
    Andrew was an attractive man with golden blond hair and light blue eyes. He’d been Charlotte’s most serious high school boyfriend, but their teenage relationship had ended in disaster, and they hadn’t seen each other for more than a decade until Andrew had returned to town several months earlier—ironically, as the minister hired to replace her father.
    Since Andrew’s return, they’d been dancing around the possibility of dating. Andrew had broken her heart once, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go down that path again. But Andrew was trying to persuade her to give him another chance. It was quite the turnaround: she’d been the one after him when they were in high school, and it gave her some pleasure to have him doing the pursuing now.
    But right now, the main concern was Annie. Andrew had been acting as a liaison between Annie and the prospective adoptive parents, and while Charlotte was happy to have his help, Andrew and Joe seemed to rub each other the wrong way whenever they were in a room together, especially if she was present.
    “How can I help, Charlie?” he asked as he