Banana Split (4 page)

“Sadie?”

“Oh, yes, I’m here,” Sadie said. “Um, did you ask me something?”

“I offered to get you a plane ticket home.”

“I promised Tanya I’d stay through the twenty-second, and Gayle’s already bought her ticket to come visit for the last week.”

“You didn’t tell either of them what’s happened, though, did you?” Pete said. “If you did, I’ve no doubt they’d both understand why you need to come home right now. Gayle would be the first one to tell you so, and Tanya can hire someone else to clean the condos, like she did before you got there.”

Sadie didn’t know what to say. He was right, they would understand, but she didn’t want to go home yet and didn’t know how to say it. They were both silent for a full five seconds until Pete spoke again. “Unless there’s another reason you don’t want to leave. Are you involving yourself in the investigation?”

“No,” Sadie said quickly, a little horrified by the idea. “Not one bit. I haven’t talked to the police since giving my statement, and I want nothing to do with it. I just . . . I don’t feel like myself, Pete,” she admitted, embarrassed to say it out loud but remembering what Dr. McKay had said about using the support system she had. “And the thought of living the life I used to live is a little overwhelming.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when it happened, Sadie?” he asked in a soft and vulnerable tone. He was no longer Detective Cunningham. He was just Pete—the man who loved her.

Sadie felt tears well up in her eyes, and she leaned back against the bamboo chair she’d pulled next to the kitchen counter when she’d answered the phone. “I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“I’ve worried about you every day since I took you to the airport,” Pete said. “And I’ve
missed
you every day. Come home to me, Sadie. Let’s go about this another way. I know a good therapist, she can help you—”

“I’m already seeing a therapist,” Sadie interrupted. “I have appointments with him up until I leave.”

“How’s it going?”

“Okay, I guess,” she said, shrugging despite being alone. “It’s strange. It’s not just about what happened last week that’s giving me trouble, it’s everything. Boston. Miami. The . . . the threat.”

“To have . . .
this
happen on top of everything else has got to be . . . awful.”

His tenderness triggered more emotion which Sadie continued to push down. She was touched by his validation, and his understanding encouraged her to be even more open. “I really want to return home
better
than this, Pete. I think Dr. McKay can help me with that if I finish my stay here.”

“Okay,” he said. His tender voice washed through her. “Then what
can
I do to help?”

“I don’t know,” Sadie said, grateful to know she had him in her corner. “Pray for me?”

Pete managed a dry laugh. “Of course. What else?”

“I really don’t know,” she said. “This feels like something I have to fix, and I’m trying, I really am.” But was she? Yes, she’d kept her appointment with Dr. McKay today, but she hadn’t been as forthcoming with him as she could have been. She’d come to Kaua’i to heal in the first place, but she hadn’t been healing. She’d been hiding and marinating in all that had happened leading up to this. Would she have kept doing that if not for having become entangled—literally—with the body beneath the dock?

“Can we talk like this every day?” Pete asked. “Open and honest. I’m not going to judge you, Sadie, but I want to feel like we trust one another.”

“Yes,” Sadie said, touched by his sincere concern for her. “And I do trust you, Pete. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “Everyone hits a wall, so to speak, when they’re dealing with things like what you’re going through. I’ve seen it over and over again within the departments where I’ve worked. I’ve taken administrative leave myself when things were just too much. I also know how easy it is to get stuck in it, and I want to make sure you know I’m here for you.”

“I know that,” Sadie said. “I’ll write it on a sticky note and put it on the fridge in case I ever forget again.”

Pete chuckled, then went quiet. “Do you want to talk about the body you found?”

Whatever warm feelings had developed between them ran cold. “No,” Sadie said. “I really don’t.” Since Pete had talked to the Kaua’i police, he likely knew more than she did, but she wasn’t the tiniest bit tempted to ask him for details.

“If you ever do want to talk about it, I’m here, alright?”

“I know,” Sadie said. “And I’ll keep going to my therapy appointments. I expect to be doing a lot better by the time I get home.”

“I’m glad Gayle’s coming to see you—is it next week?”

“Yes,” Sadie said. “A week from Saturday. We have the same flight home on the twenty-second.”

“But you haven’t talked to her about what happened?”

Sadie squirmed, and when she didn’t answer, Pete continued. “You need to talk to her. I ran into her a couple of days ago, and she said you hadn’t been returning her calls either.”

The heavy feeling of regret and embarrassment increased in Sadie’s belly. She felt horrible about making things hard for the people she loved. Gayle had arranged her vacation time from work to come to Kaua’i, and yet she had no idea what she’d be walking into when she arrived.

“I’ll talk to her,” Sadie said.

“Good. I’m sorry this happened to you, Sadie. I know homicide detectives who haven’t dealt with as many bodies as you have in the last year and a half.” He laughed, but the humor was lost on Sadie as the comment struck a tender cord.

Magnet for Murder,
flashed through Sadie’s mind, and she wondered, not for the first time, if she attracted these horrible things. If so, was she somehow to blame for them happening in the first place?

For a while she’d actually felt she had some kind of divine gift—that God had somehow placed her on a path to help solve these cases. But there was no way to know if the truth would have been discovered another way. And then Boston changed everything.

Pete was talking again, but she’d missed what he was saying and mentally returned in time to hear him promise to call her tomorrow. “I’m in North Carolina for the rest of the week.”

“Oh, right, you have that gun conference.”

“Ballistics and forensic technology,” Pete clarified.

“That’s what I meant.”

Pete laughed. “I won’t be available all the time, but call me if you need anything. If I can answer, I will; if I don’t, leave a message, and I’ll call you back as soon as I can, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And charge your cell phone,” he said.

“I will,” Sadie agreed with a nod.
Where is my cell phone?

“And Sadie?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “You must,” Sadie said, emotion rendering her voice a whisper. “I love you too.”

“Everything will be okay,” he said. “I’m counting the days until I see you again, okay?”

“Thank you,” Sadie said, pushing back her emotions. Any emotion was too much right now, even the good kind.

They finished the call, and Sadie sat in her dim apartment, pondering what he’d said and what she’d realized. In less than three weeks, she would
have
to go back home. Healed or not. She needed to use that time to get better.

Following her decisive thoughts, Sadie went on a search for her cell phone and found it in a bathroom drawer. Who knew what it was doing there. She plugged her phone into the charger, then went to the sliding glass door facing the common courtyard shared by all the condominiums. She opened the vertical blinds, squinting at the bright sunshine. She’d been in Hawai’i of all places for three full months, but she was as pale as though she’d made it through another Rocky Mountain winter. Wasn’t vitamin D important for neurological health?

“Sunshine every day,” she said out loud, then turned to find some paper so she could make a list of her newly realized goals. Her gaze landed on the half-eaten burrito she’d called lunch, and it brought to mind a second goal. “Fruit every day.” She hadn’t had so much as a banana in more than a week. She wrote down the first two goals and added a third: “Talk to Pete every day.” It was only three things—three small things—but writing them down made her feel empowered and gave her a new focus. She smiled.

She tore the paper out of the notebook and secured it to the fridge with a magnet shaped like the sun, which seemed apropos.

Doing her own grocery shopping would be a step in the right direction, but she felt unable to take on that task right away, so she called the local market and placed an order for mangos and a pineapple to be delivered along with her prescriptions. On a whim, she also ordered a brownie mix, then felt overwhelmed by the thought of having so much preparation-needy food in the house.

Baby steps,
she told herself, taking a breath and recognizing that after three months of waiting for change,
making
change happen wouldn’t be easy. But she had Dr. McKay and Pete and brownies. She was heading in the right direction.

Then there was a knock at her door and all of her self-assurance disappeared. Her hand went to her throat, she forgot to breathe, and the first thought that immediately came to mind was that she should hide.

Chapter 4

Sadie approached the door on her tiptoes, careful not to make a sound. There was no way the delivery from the market had arrived already. Konnie was the only other person who ever came to her condo, but she knocked four times in a quick rhythm. Plus Konnie had already checked in on Sadie today.

It could be one of the renters for the other condos, but why knock on Sadie’s door? The rental company that supervised the condos preferred e-mail communication, which was fine with her. Now and then she would see one of the renters in the common area, but they assumed she was renting too and weren’t looking to make lifelong friends while on vacation.

When Sadie reached the door, she pressed her eye against the peephole, glad that she’d kept the curtains closed over the front windows. She could see the small square porch and the sandalwood shrub dotted with pink blossoms on the left side. Whoever was out there was standing too far to the right for her to get a full view of them. Was that on purpose?

If her visitor didn’t have the courtesy to stand in the center of the porch, she couldn’t be expected to open the door, right? As she justified her silence, she saw an arm raise up. She watched the entire movement but still jumped when it knocked on the door again. Pulling back, she shook her head at her reaction but didn’t open the door. Instead she pressed her eye against the peephole one more time. The visitor had shifted, and she could see it was a child. A young boy—maybe twelve years old. He had big brown eyes, and his long black hair was pulled into a messy ponytail at the base of his head. He didn’t have native features, exactly, and was therefore probably
hapa
—mixed race. He kept looking over his shoulder.

It was one thing to hide from a salesperson, but a little boy? After taking a deep breath, Sadie latched the swing bolt and pulled open the door so that she could look out through the four-inch gap. The boy immediately straightened up when he saw her.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Aloha,” he said, managing a slight wave before wiping his hand on the side of his shorts. He wore red flip-flops—what they called rubber slippahs on the island. “Um, I’m looking for Sadie Hoff-miller.”

“Why?”

“I need to talk to her.”

“About what?”

“Um, is she there?”

“I’m Sadie,” she said, wondering why he hadn’t assumed as much.

“You are?” he asked in disbelief. “You’re so old.”

It took work to keep her tone even. “What can I help you with?” Sadie said.

“Oh, um—” He looked over his shoulder. Was he hiding from someone? Sadie could relate to that fear. “Can I come in? I won’t take anything.”

Take anything? That right there should have been a bright red flag, waving back and forth in front of her face, and yet, despite all the reasons not to, she told him to hang on a minute. She closed the door, undid the latch, and opened the door all the way to allow him entry.