Blackberry Crumble (10 page)

The thought actually brought tears to her eyes. She may never have expected to have her reputation questioned, but she’d unconsciously assumed that the people she knew and loved, the people she had served with for so many years, would reach out to her and lift her up rather than avoid her, ignore her, or talk about her behind her back. For the first time
ever,
Sadie felt as though she didn’t fit here, that she was a liability rather than an asset to this group of women.

Discussion filled the room on how they would execute the quilting project. Sadie waited until a few ladies stood to get dessert, then she blended in with them, picked up her mostly untouched appetizer—no one wanted crab dip now that the desserts were ready—and headed through the doors, not looking back. She was sure her exit didn’t go unnoticed. Bertie, especially, would love that Sadie had left early, but Sadie didn’t care about that as much as she did about the need to get away.

She turned on the car, and a gust of musty air blew out of the vents as the air conditioner came to life. She looked at the church in front of her, at the melting crab dip on the passenger seat, and at her own eyes in the rearview mirror. The last forty-eight hours of her life had not been enjoyable in the least. Tomorrow was Monday, the start of a new week. Would Jane run another article? Would Eric do another interview? Would she keep smiling as though none of this bothered her? Or would she step out of her self-pity and do something?

She was a proactive woman, and she needed to be as proactive as she could. Maybe she couldn’t make this go away, but maybe she could make it better.

Take the job
, a voice inside her head said. It might have been her own voice, she didn’t rule that out, but she absorbed the possibility. If she took the job, she’d have something to distract her from the muckraking. She’d also physically remove herself from the situation, which would be a relief in itself. More than both those reasons, however, was the chance to prove that she didn’t simply get in the way of serious work. Helping to solve those other cases hadn’t happened by accident. She’d put together clues the police had missed, uncovered family secrets, and righted wrongs that had gone on for years and years without resolution. May was offering Sadie her first actual job as an investigator. If Sadie took May up on her offer, and if she solved this case as she had the others, maybe she could redeem a little bit of her tarnished reputation.

The idea filled her stomach with butterflies. It was such a
big
decision, yet the fact that she was considering it—and considering it strongly—meant it wasn’t
too
big. She didn’t know anything about the case, so there was a very real possibility that she was jumping the gun by even thinking about it so much. She took a deep breath and blew it out, trying not to get ahead of herself. There was only one person she could think of who could help her with this decision; one person she trusted to help her determine what her next step should be.

But that simply doubled the swarm of butterflies already wreaking havoc in her digestive organs.

What would Pete think?

Annie’s Triple-Berry Summer Salad

3⁄4 cup candied walnuts

1⁄3 cup sugar

Salt

5 cups (6 to 8 ounces) baby spinach

2 cups fresh berries of your choice (blackberries, boysenberries, blueberries, sliced strawberries, etc.)

1⁄2 cup red onion, sliced thin (Jack likes lots of onions on his salad)

1 cup of your favorite sweet dressing (poppy seed, raspberry vinaigrette, etc.)

To candy walnuts, preheat frying pan on medium-low heat. Add walnuts and cook for about 3 minutes, until you start to smell them, stirring constantly. Sprinkle sugar and a dash of salt over the nuts. Continue to stir quickly until the sugar melts. Toss nuts until sugar is no longer grainy and nuts are coated in the melted sugar; about five minutes. (A little smoke is normal, but be careful not to burn them.) Once the nuts are coated, spread them out on a sheet of wax paper and let cool while you assemble the rest of the salad.*

For the salad, toss together all ingredients except the dressing. Add cooled walnuts and dressing. Toss to coat salad. Serve immediately. Serves 6 to 8.

*Gayle insists that candied walnuts are impossible to make at home, so she uses walnuts straight from the bag.

Chapter 12

Sadie?” Pete’s eyebrows went up in genuine surprise when she stood on his doorstep ten minutes later. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve got a situation and I could use your advice,” she said, eager to get the words out. What a blessing it was to be able to talk about these things with him! “Remember that redhead we saw come into the gym before you went to help with the punch on Friday? Well . . .” It took her about ninety seconds to fill in all the details, carefully scrutinizing every word to make sure she didn’t miss anything. “So I have her number and need to call her, but I don’t know if I should take the job or not.” She took a deep breath, nearly lightheaded from the rush of words she’d just delivered.

Only then did she realize that Pete seemed rather tense and distracted. They were silent for a few beats. Sadie waited for him to ask a question or make a comment or . . . something.

“Is everything okay?” she asked when he didn’t respond immediately.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, flashing her a smile before his eyebrows pulled together. He looked past her shoulder. Sadie craned her neck to see what he was looking at, but nothing stood out to her.

“Can I come in?” she asked. Despite it being almost five o’clock, it was easily eighty-seven degrees, and she was in full-sweat zone. She worried that her dress was starting to smell bad. The car had just started to cool off when she’d turned into Pete’s driveway. The crab dip would be a loss.

“Um . . .” Pete glanced into the house.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, starting to wonder why he was acting so strange.

“Nothing,” Pete said, forcing a smile that Sadie knew was fake. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Then can I come in?” She knew she was sounding pushy, but her radar was up. She also identified the smell of lasagna in the air. Pete was cooking?

Pete looked past her to the street again, and she realized he had been expecting someone. Someone who wasn’t Sadie. Her heart dropped. She looked past him and noticed that the dining room table was set—for two. Her eyes snapped back to his. “Who’s coming over?”

Guilt flashed behind his eyes, and Sadie winced inside. This was not happening! When Pete didn’t answer, she spun on her heel and headed down the steps, her mind in a whirl. First an article that put everything she stood for into question, and now Pete was seeing someone else? In the months they’d been dating, she’d never been past the foyer in his home—they always spent time at Sadie’s. She hadn’t minded much; she had better food at her house. But she minded now—a lot—but didn’t know what to do about it.

Pete called her name, but Sadie didn’t look back. Who was he seeing? That blonde police officer she knew had a crush on him? Or maybe Mona Lennar, who lived down the street and brought him cinnamon rolls the first day of every month. She caught her breath.
Not Gayle,
she prayed.
Please not that.

Moments later he caught up with her on the sidewalk and stepped in front of her, forcing her to stop. “It’s not what you think,” he said quickly, putting his hands out, palms facing her. He reached for her hand, but she put them both behind her back. She looked up into his face, for once hoping her hurt and anger were showing as keenly as she was feeling them.

“Usually when people say something isn’t what it looks like, it’s
exactly
what it looks like,” she said. She was instantly reminded of the article and clamped her mouth shut. The article didn’t count; and it didn’t change her feelings, it only made her feel more foolish. “Are you seeing someone else?”

Pete’s eyebrows shot up. “No,” he said, shaking his head as though to further convince her.

“But someone’s coming over,” Sadie said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You . . . cooked.”

Pete took a breath, then let it out slowly. “My daughter Brooke is coming in from Fort Collins for dinner—just the two of us. I heated up a frozen lasagna.”

Sadie felt mildly sheepish until Pete glanced at the street again. She frowned. “You don’t want her to see me here, do you?”

“Look,” he said in a gentle tone. He reached out and placed a hand on her arm, creating sparks along her skin. She ignored those sparks with everything she had. “It’s been less than three years since Pat . . . died. The kids have had a hard time. Surely you can understand that.”

Sadie was almost offended that he would insinuate that she wouldn’t understand what it was like to heal from such a loss. However, she latched onto something else. “You haven’t told your kids we’re dating?”

A slight pink lit up his cheeks as he shook his head and dropped his hand back to his side. “I’ve been trying to ease them into it, but then the article came out and . . . ”

That was the one part of the article that hadn’t given Sadie ulcers—the part about her and Pete dating. She’d had confidence in that
one
detail—but apparently she was the only one.

Pete continued. “Jared and I talked on the phone this morning.” Jared, Pete’s only son, lived in Massachusetts. The girls, Brooke and Michelle, were both in Fort Collins. “I’m meeting Michelle for breakfast tomorrow morning.”

Sadie blinked. She suddenly felt like the other woman; it was a horrible feeling.

She looked past Pete at the sound of a car engine approaching. A gold minivan began slowing down as it approached the house. The sun reflected off the windshield, but Sadie could see a brown-haired woman in the front seat wearing sunglasses. Brooke.

Sadie tried to decide how to react. She understood the complexities of their relationship, and though she respected Pete’s need to handle things carefully with his children, they had been dating for
nine months.
Sadie’s children were asking her when she was going to set a wedding date, and Sadie was waiting for him to verbalize his feelings for her. Pete, on the other hand, hadn’t even told his children about her yet. Was that why Sadie had never spent time at his house? Had Pete been hiding her from his family all this time? Keeping her at arm’s length from the rest of his life? The disappointment was sharp and brittle in her chest. Apparently their relationship hadn’t moved forward as much as she’d thought.

The minivan pulled into the driveway, and Pete closed his eyes. There was always the option of playing out the brokenhearted girlfriend and throwing a tantrum. Or she could march up to Brooke and force an introduction. But neither of those options were in Sadie’s nature. Pete hadn’t tried to hurt her.

“I’m sorry for making things so hard,” she whispered under her breath.

“It’s not that,” Pete said, but Sadie could feel the hyperawareness of his daughter opening the car door behind him.

“I’ll follow your lead. You can introduce us, or I can just go. What do you want me to do?” Sadie whispered again.

Pete vacillated, but it was obvious he couldn’t just have Sadie leave now that Brooke was here. He nodded and turned toward the van, putting his professional detective smile on his face.

Sadie prepared herself for an awkward introduction, quickly smoothing her hair behind her ears. Moments before Brooke stepped out of the car, however, Sadie leaned toward Pete and whispered, “I came here to make a decision about that case—thanks for your help. I’m going to take it.”

His head snapped to the side, his eyebrows pinched together. “What?” he asked in a tight whisper.

Sadie forced her most sincere smile as Brooke approached them, a look of polite discomfort on her face. Sadie ignored how hurtful it felt to be looked at that way and put out her hand. “You must be Brooke,” she said, feeling like an idiot for so many reasons. “I’m not staying, but wanted to say hello.”

Chapter 13

As it turned out,
making
the decision to take the case was harder than executing the choice, which Sadie took as a sign that this was what she was supposed to do. As soon as she returned home, she called May.

“Mrs. Hoffmiller?” May said as soon as she answered the phone. “I’ve been praying you would call.”

Sadie felt a rush of . . . anxiety, eagerness, maybe anticipation, wash through her at the other woman’s excitement. “Well, uh, I guess it’s good that I called then, isn’t it?”

“It’s wonderful!” May said. “But maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. Are you going to accept my offer? Are you going to help me?”

Sadie took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Yes, I’m ready to help.”

There was silence on the other end of the line and then a slight sniffling. “Oh, Mrs. Hoffmiller, you have no idea what this means to me.”

Instantly, Sadie felt calmer than she had in three days. This was the right thing for her to do, she was sure of it. This woman needed her help, and circumstances had come together for her to find Sadie. “I’m glad to be a part of this,” Sadie said. “And I’m committed to helping you uncover the truth.”