Stranger in a Small Town
by Margaret Watson

     “Damn it!”

     The muscles in Seth Anderson’s leg spasmed, cramping into hard knots of pain.  Trying to ease the pain, he straightened his knee, but the movement only made it worse,

     “Seth?  You okay?”  The man in the next cubicle peered around the corner.

     “Fine,” Seth said between his teeth.  “Thanks.”

     “Yell if you need anything.”  The other agent scooted his desk chair back into his own space.

     Yell.  Seth closed his eyes.  He was doing his damnedest not to yell.

     The cramp finally released and Seth slumped back in the chair, waiting for the waves of pain to recede.  When he was sure he could stand, he grabbed the cane next to his desk and lurched to his feet.  With grim satisfaction, he walked down the corridor to the water fountain.

     He might be slow, he might be unsteady, but he was walking.

     The doctors had told him he’d never walk again.

     By the time he returned to his desk, sweat ran down his back and his leg was trembling.  But he’d managed to get his own glass of water without having to ask anyone to get it for him.  Progress.

     “Hey, Seth.”  Brian Carlson, the section supervisor, appeared in the door of his cubicle.  “How’s it going?”

     “Good.  I’m good.”

     Brian dropped into the chair next to Seth’s desk and nodded at the folders spread out in front of him.  “Find anything for me?”

     Seth had braced for a question about his leg.  Relieved, he shook his head.  “Not a thing.  So far it looks as if your agents have covered all the bases.”

     “I know you don’t want to be here,” Brian said, drumming his fingers on the desk.  “That you want to get back to the protection detail.”  Brian didn’t repeat what the doctors had told him, that Seth would never be healthy enough for the prized Secret Service assignment, but Seth could see it in the other man’s eyes.  Brian cleared his throat.  “You’re a good fit for us, Anderson.  You have a lot of experience with counterfeiting cases, and I don’t have time to review all of them.”  He tossed several more folders onto the pile.  “Here are the new ones.  Let me know if anything jumps out at you.”

     “Will do.”

     Seth closed his eyes as Carlson walked away.  The supervisor was hinting that he’d be a permanent part of this group.

     Seth dropped the folders on the floor and pushed away from the desk.  No way was he going to sit in a cubicle for the rest of his life, dying inch by inch.  He’d made it this far.  He’d make it back to the protection detail no matter what it took.

     Following a brutal two-hour physical therapy session, Seth limped back into his office and eased into his chair.  He grimaced as he realized someone had picked up the files from the floor and stacked them neatly on his desk.  He might not like the pity he saw in everyone’s eyes, but he was glad he didn’t have to pick the folders off the floor.  He wasn’t sure he’d have made it.

     He reached for the top file and scanned it.  There was nothing special about the case.  Nothing the field agents couldn’t handle.

     He’d dismissed the other four cases that Carlson had just given him and was ready to toss the last folder on the pile when he saw the name of the town.

     Sturgeon Falls, Wisconsin.

     His hand tightened.  He wasn’t certain, but he thought that was where his so-called ‘daughter’ was living.  He’d gotten a letter from an adoption agency, right before he was injured, telling him that he’d been named the father of a kid.  Someone was adopting the girl.  The adoption agency would be sending him more information, it said.

     Seth hadn’t heard anything more before the gunshot that had destroyed his leg and his career.  And he sure as hell hadn’t been thinking about it while he’d been lying in a bed at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

     “What are you still doing here, man?  It’s five thirty.”  The young man in the cubicle next to his leaned over the partition.  “Need some help getting your stuff to your car?”

     “I’ve got it,” Seth said. “But thanks.”

     Seth stood up and shoved the file into his briefcase. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he headed down the corridor, trying his hardest not to limp.

     By the time he walked into his apartment, his leg was on fire.  Pouring himself a glass of scotch, he eyed the pile of mail he’d ignored since he got home from the hospital.  The follow-up letter from the adoption agency must be somewhere in that mess.  Finally, with a groan, he began sorting through it.

     He found it at the bottom of the stack.  The return address was an adoption agency in Sturgeon Falls, Wisconsin.  The papers looked genuine.  They wanted him to sign away parental rights for a girl named Regan Sloane.  Her mother, a woman named Holly Sloane, had already signed away her rights and had asked that Katriona Macauley adopt the child.

     Who the hell was Holly Sloane?  Why had she named him as the father?  And why did she want this Macauley woman to adopt her kid?

     He picked up the phone and called the adoption agency, but he got a recording reciting their office hours and a number to call for emergencies.  As he slid the phone back into his pocket, he stared at the papers with a frisson of unease.

     He didn’t remember dating anyone named Holly Sloane.  And he never had unprotected sex.  So why had this unknown woman claimed he was the father of her child?

     He fumbled in his briefcase for the folder he’d brought home and scanned the information.  Counterfeit hundred dollar bills had started showing up in Door County, Wisconsin.  There had been one or two found in a number of different stores, but the bulk of them had come from a doctor’s office in Sturgeon Falls.  He stilled when he saw the name of the doctor.

     Katriona Macauley.

     The same woman who wanted to adopt this girl.

     Was this part of some bizarre scheme to hide Macauley’s involvement in the counterfeiting?  Had she known he was a Secret Service agent?  Is that why Holly Sloane had named him as the father?

     What was going on?  What was the connection?

     There had to be one.  As far as Seth was concerned, there was no such thing as coincidence.  Two things connecting him to a tiny town in northern Wisconsin was one too many to be believed.

     Seth pulled out his phone again and pressed a button.  “Brian, this is Anderson,” he said when he got voicemail.  “I’ve found something interesting with this case in Wisconsin.  I think it needs a little undercover work, and it turns out I’m the perfect guy to do it.”

Sturgeon Falls, Wisconsin

     “It’s okay, baby,” Kat crooned, sitting in the front seat of her car, rocking a crying Regan in her arms.  Wind whipped the pewter clouds above her house into a churning mass and the rain started again.  “Grandpa Gus and Grandma Frances will come to Grandparent’s day at your school.  Okay?”

     “They’re not my real grandparents,” Regan said, hiccupping around a sob.

     Kat brushed the tears away, then kissed her damp, warm cheek.  “Your real Grandma and Grandpa are in heaven with your mom.  Do you want to look at the pictures of them?”

     “No.  I want a real Grandma and Grandpa like Ellen and Ginny.  How come other kids have real grandparents and I don’t?”

     Because life wasn’t fair.  “God wanted your mom and grandma and grandpa to be with him.  He needed them.”

     “I need them more.”

     “I know.”  She kissed Regan again, then slid her onto the seat of the car.  “Let’s go into the house.  It’s going to rain again.”

     Regan grabbed her backpack and got out of the car.  Kat ran to the door of the house and unlocked it, then opened it for Regan.  But she was crouched on the sidewalk, peering at a worm.

     “What are you doing, honey?” Kat asked.

     “There are worms on the sidewalk,” Regan answered.

     “I know.  They come out when it rains.”

     “I have to move them,” Regan said.  “They’ll die if they stay on the sidewalk.”

     “Who told you that?”

     “One of the boys in my class.  He brought a worm into show and tell.  He knew all about worms.”

     Regan picked up the worm and carried it to the middle of the lawn.  Then she picked up another one and moved it, too.  The rain started to fall harder.

     “We need to get inside or we’re going to get soaked,” Kat said.

     “I need to move all the worms first.”  Regan’s eyes were dark with worry.  “I don’t want them to die.”

     Kat’s heart constricted and she bit her lip, her tears blending with the rain.  “I’ll help you, honey,” she said, moving to crouch next to Regan.  “Show me how I should pick them up.”

     By the time she’d gotten Regan to sleep that evening, Kat was exhausted.  She glanced at the stack of patient records waiting for her on her desk.  There was at least an hour of work in that pile of file folders.  Work she had to finish tonight.

     Because tomorrow she’d have another stack of patient files to write up.

     Instead of sitting down and digging in, she headed into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine.  It had been a rough day.

     She’d sent one frightened mother and her young son to the hospital for blood tests.  The woman’s face had become more pinched, more terrified as Kat had explained the possible causes of her child’s recurring tonsillitis.

     Another young patient had gone to the hospital with a broken arm, an injury that had been accompanied by bruises on her back and leg.  Bruises that hadn’t looked accidental to Kat.  She’d left a message for Sheriff Godfrey, and he’d be by to talk to her in the morning.

     And then Regan had left school with the note about Grandparent’s day.

     Sinking into her desk chair, Kat took a drink of the red wine and closed her eyes.  As a family practice physician, she’d treated plenty of parents and their children.  She’d been confident that she knew all about the bond between parent and child, understood what being a parent meant.

     She’d understood nothing.

     She’d told Holly that she loved Regan, promised that she’d take good care of her.  But she’d had no idea what love meant.  The word was far too weak to describe the fierce, all-consuming emotion she felt for Regan now .  And she was terrified that she was failing Regan.  Not giving her what she needed.  Not knowing the right thing to say or do.

     Not being able to fill the empty spaces in the child’s heart.

     She and Regan both had been seeing a therapist.  But Kat still felt completely inadequate.  What did she know about being a parent?  Especially to a grieving child.  She felt as if she was fumbling through each day, making mistakes.  Hurting the child she adored.

     Taking another sip of wine, she set the glass aside and tried to set her fears aside as well.  She had work to do.  She used to write up her records at her office, staying late, savoring the quiet after everyone had gone home.  Now, in order to pick up Regan at a reasonable time, she brought the files home with her and dealt with them after Regan was in bed.

     She needed to sleep herself, but instead she opened the first folder.  After a moment, she picked up her pen and began writing.

     She’d closed the last file and poured herself another glass of wine when she heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel driveway.  Setting the wine on the coffee table, she slid back the curtain and peered out the window.

     A man was walking slowly up the drive, a man she didn’t recognize.  Probably selling something, she thought with a grimace of irritation.  She didn’t want to deal with any salesmen tonight.

     But as she watched him, the woman in her couldn’t help the flash of appreciation.  He was tall and rangy, with a face that was tough rather than handsome.

     As he got closer, she noticed that he moved too carefully.  Stiff, as if in pain.  The physician in her watched with sudden interest.  Had he recently been injured?

     It didn’t matter, she thought impatiently.  The mother in her was too tired to deal with a salesman.  She wouldn’t even answer the door.

     As she turned away, he stopped and glanced at the front door.  Then he looked down at something in his hand.

     He was checking her address.  Unease slid through her.  Door to door solicitors didn’t check addresses before they approached a house.  Clearly, this man was looking for her specifically.

     He rang the doorbell, and she studied him for a moment through the peephole.  When he stared back, she realized that he’d seen her looking.

     Making sure the screen door was locked, she opened the door.  “Can I help you?”

     The man studied her with dark brown eyes, his gaze intense and focused, and she felt a chill.  “Are you Katriona Macauley?”

     “Yes.  Who are you?”

     “I’m Seth Anderson.  I’m looking for my daughter.”

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