Baked Alaska (20 page)

“Got it,” Breanna said, hooking her arm through Sadie’s and pushing her through the door. Pete followed as though worried Sadie might try to run back inside. Which she might have done if she thought she’d make it or if she had any idea what she’d do once she got back in.

Sadie tried to argue, but before she knew it, they were on the streets of Skagway. Breanna received a text, presumably from Maggie, and showed it to Pete, who nodded and pulled out his phone before typing a text of his own. Sadie had all these arguments she wanted to make but it was as though the words were tripping over one another on their way to her mouth. She could feel her heart racing similar to a panic attack except that she wasn’t anxious, she was just mad and scared. But Pete was distrustful of her because of her emotions, which meant she had to find a way not to show them right now if she wanted to be of any help to her son.>

“’Kay, Mom. Let’s go back to the ship.”

“That’s silly,” Sadie said, trying to keep her voice reasonable. Pete had slipped back into the police station, so Sadie turned her focus on Breanna. If she could convince Breanna that she was up to this, Breanna could talk to Pete. “I don’t need to go back to the ship. I can go to breakfast with Pete and Maggie.”

“Have you noticed that, like, every store here sells popcorn?”

“What?” Sadie asked, thrown off her train of thought. She looked around and realized they were back on Skagway’s main street, which was called Broadway. It looked like something from an old Western movie set, except with brighter paint jobs. There were boardwalks instead of sidewalks and hand-painted signs hanging above the covered doorways of the different facades.

“Seriously,” Breanna said, pointing across the street to a window display featuring at least six different types of popcorn. “That one has caramel and raspberry, and is that lime, do you think? It’s green—they wouldn’t make mint popcorn, would they?”

“You’re trying to distract me,” Sadie pointed out, and yet she couldn’t help but wonder if it was indeed mint-flavored popcorn. She looked farther down the street and saw at least three more shops with popcorn displays in the window.

“We should buy some,” Breanna said, pulling Sadie across the street. “I wonder if the caramel corn is as good as Aunt Carrie’s.”

Sadie had a strange relationship with her sister-in-law these days, and they had never been particularly close, despite living next door to one another for more than twenty years. Even on days when Sadie was annoyed with her brother’s wife, she couldn’t deny the fact that Carrie made the most amazing caramel popcorn. Dry rather than chewy, it never got stuck in your teeth or made your fingers sticky. And it had just the right blend of butter and brown sugar.

“Well, I guess we could buy a bag.”

“Two,” Breanna said. “One caramel—to compare with Aunt Carrie’s—and then the green kind.”

They entered the store a few minutes later, and the teenage boy behind the counter scrambled to help the pretty lady wanting two bags of popcorn at ten in the morning. Even with only a few minutes to get ready that morning, Breanna’s natural beauty shone through. Everyone saw it, except maybe her.

Sadie inhaled the scent of caramelizing sugars, and now that she was removed enough from the situation at the police station, she could admit that she had perhaps overreacted. Well, maybe not overreacted—her son
was
at the police station—but he hadn’t been arrested and he wasn’t guilty and Sadie
did
believe in the judicial process, most of the time. She knew Pete would take good care of him and that he’d get whatever information from Maggie he could, whereas Sadie might be too intense right now to be effective.

Breanna handed Sadie the bag of caramel corn and set about opening the bag of green popcorn she was holding. They exited the shop and headed back to the pier.

“Lime,” Breanna said as she held out the open bag of green popcorn to Sadie. “I win.”

“I didn’t know we were competing,” Sadie said, shifting her bag of caramel corn in order to take a handful of green kernels. It was good. Sadie had a recipe for fruity popcorn in her Little Black Recipe Book—it used Jell-O.

“We weren’t competing, but I thought lime first, then mint as a second possibility, so I won by choosing correctly the first time.”

Sadie eyed her daughter while Breanna took another handful of popcorn. “Why are you so calm about what’s happening with Shawn?”

Breanna looked at her with a serious expression. “Because my mom has told me all my life that
I
am in charge of
me
. Shawn knows that too, and I think he’s handling this rather well—talking to the police and all that. You need to have faith in him and calm the heck down enough to be helpful ’cause
you’re
in charge of
you
too. And right now you’re making yourself look bad.”

Sadie felt herself flush under the reprimand, but she also took the words to heart. She was in charge of her own reactions, just as Shawn was responsible for his. She knew he was innocent, so why was she so scared?

“Do you think he said those horrible things in the e-mails? You read them; did they sound like him?”

Breanna took another handful of the lime popcorn while thinking over her answer. Finally, she met Sadie’s eyes. “I don’t know, Mom. I don’t want to think he did, it’s not like him, but sometimes we find ourselves feeling things and doing things that are out of character.”

Sadie didn’t like that answer and looked down the street of colorful shops that were slowly filling up with tourists. A second cruise ship was maneuvering into the port, and a third could be seen a half a mile or so away, likely waiting its turn to dock.

“But Shawn’s in charge of Shawn,” Breanna continued. “And
if
he wrote those e-mails, it’s okay for him to be accountable for it. You should want him to be.”

Carrie’s Crunchy Caramel Popcorn

8 cups popped popcorn

1 cup brown sugar

1/2> cup butter

1/4cup light corn syrup

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Put popped popcorn in large bowl (the bigger the better) and set aside.

Combine sugar, butter, corn syrup, and salt in medium-sized saucepan. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Decrease temperature to medium-low, and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. (If mixture begins to scorch,remove from heat and lower temperature before returning to the stove top.)

Remove from heat, and add baking soda and vanilla. Mix well.

Pour sauce over popcorn. Use a spatula coated with a nonstick spray to stir the popcorn, being careful not to crush the kernels. Spread coated popcorn on a cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

If made in the oven, it may overflow the pan as it bakes; line your oven, just in case.

Note: You can also make this recipe in a large electric roaster oven. Put popped popcorn in roaster oven with heat turned off. Add sauce and turn on heat to 200 degrees. Stir popcorn every couple of minutes for about 20 minutes or until caramel has coated and hardened onto kernels. Turn off heat before you stop stirring.

Note: This recipe doubles well!

Fruity Popcorn

8 cups popped popcorn

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 (3-ounce) package Jell-O, any flavor

Put popped popcorn in large bowl (the bigger the better) and set aside.

Combine sugar, butter, corn syrup, and salt in medium-sized saucepan. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil. Decrease temperature to medium-low, simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly. (If mixture begins to scorch, remove from heat and lower temperature before returning to the stove top.)

Add Jell-O, mix well, and simmer 1 minute or until gelatin is dissolved. (Mixture will be thick.) Remove from heat and pour over popcorn. Stir to coat the kernels, being careful not to crush kernels. Work quickly as syrup will harden as it cools. Let popcorn sit in bowl for 10 minutes or until cooled. Break into large chunks. Store leftovers in large, zip-top plastic bag.

Chapter 23

Sadie felt her mind clearing in response to Breanna’s wisdom. Shawn was responsible for himself. If he wrote those e-mails—so help him—he had to make that right. If he didn’t write them, then he needed to clarify that with the police so they could move on.

She thought back to Maggie’s original opinion of Sadie:
super-controlling, would freak if she knew the truth.
Sadie was not that woman. She would prove it by not freaking out and by letting Shawn handle this. He was innocent; Sadie needed to show her faith in him by not being defensive. She wondered why the officers had asked him about other cruises. This was the first one he’d been on since his high school graduation when the three of them had cruised the western Caribbean.

“There’s Maggie,” Breanna said, pointing ahead of them. Maggie was wearing a bright purple top, white jeans, and cute purple leopard-print heels. She was texting on her phone while she walked and hadn’t seen them yet.

Sadie grabbed Breanna’s arm and pulled her into a gift shop, not wanting to get in the way of Pete and Maggie’s meeting now that she’d accepted that Pete was right about her backing off a little. Breanna went along with the unexpected detour, and Sadie had purchased two Christmas ornaments, a magnet, and a bright pink jacket with “Alaska” embroidered on the front before they went back out to Broadway. Maggie was nowhere in sight by then, but Sadie spotted the sign for the restaurant where Pete said he’d meet her. She wasn’t going to be a super-controlling-freak-out-mom, but she did wish she could be a fly on the wall and listen to their conversation.

“Can we go to the ship now?” Breanna said. “I’m actually getting hungry, which I wasn’t sure was possible since I feel like all we’ve done is eat since we left Seattle.”

Really?
Sadie felt like all she’d done was worry since leaving Seattle. “Breakfast does sound good,” she said.

But Sadie still wanted to help her boy. So, what could she do without taking things too far?

Shawn had said he hadn’t sent the e-mails last night because the Internet was down and the computer center was closed when he returned. Sadie could possibly verify that information. She was also supposed to meet with security to tell them what she knew about the gift tag. Maybe she could even learn more about the man who’d died last night. Mary Anne hadn’t seemed to think it was strange for someone to die on the cruise; maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she could find enough information to either alleviate her worries about a connection between his death and Lorraina’s poisoning, or to support those concerns. Either way she’d feel better, more confident, because she’d be making an informed decision rather than jumping to an emotionally driven conclusion.

Knowing there was something she could do gave her a sense of purpose and immediately Sadie felt better.

She had direction.

Breanna’s phone chimed. She handed Sadie the bag of lime popcorn and dug her phone out of her back pocket; Breanna hated purses. She frowned at her phone and stopped walking. Sadie stopped too, holding a bag of popcorn in each arm.

“What? Is it Pete? Did Maggie admit to something?”

“It’s not Pete,” Breanna said without glancing up from her phone. “It’s Liam. We talked earlier, and he said he was going to talk to his mom about the cake.”

“Did it not go well?”

“I am so sick of this
stupid
wedding,” Breanna said with uncharacteristic bitterness. She started typing a response. “Apparently, his mom broke into tears.” She paused, sighed, and then turned to Sadie. “What do I do?” She shook her head without waiting for an answer. “I’m sorry. It’s stupid to be worried about a cake with everything else going on.” She waved a hand toward the police station.