Rocky Road (6 page)

“Tomorrow, then,” Tess said to Lori half an hour later, after the fruit had been properly stored and the dressing mixed together for the next day.

“I’ll let you know when I know what time I can meet,” Lori said as the four of them came to a stop in a loose circle near the glass front doors of the church. After learning about the photos, she’d wanted to see them for herself. It would have to wait for the next day because Lori needed to get back to her kids, who were with Dr. Hendricks’s parents at the hotel where they were staying.

“Perfect,” Tess said, giving Lori a hug and then hurrying back down the hall to say goodbye to Nikki. “Call me when you know when you can get away.”

“And I need the little girls’ room,” Caro said, pointing over her shoulder in the direction they’d just come from. “I’ll be right back.”

Lori and Sadie were left in the foyer of the building, a large open space with a purple floral couch, some matching wingback chairs, and a painting of Jesus on the wall that Sadie had admired when they entered. Seeing His face made Sadie think about what Caro had said about hiding lights under bushels. Would He approve of what I’m doing? she wondered. It was too big a question to expect an answer to, and Sadie had struggled with her faith in such things these last couple of years. Her own mortality had come into question very strongly following a case where one of those bushels had caught on fire, as she’d mentioned to Caro. She looked away from the painting.

Lori began moving toward the front doors—she’d barely made eye contact with Sadie since Tess had announced that Sadie had been questioning her.

“It wasn’t my intent to question you,” Sadie said to Lori’s back. Lori stopped, her hand on the large glass door, and then she turned to face Sadie. Her facial expression was cautious.

“I have to hand it to you—you’re very smooth,” Lori said as she, too, surveyed the foyer, possibly as an excuse not to meet Sadie’s eyes. “I had no idea you were trying to get information out of me.”

Sadie felt her face heat up. “When we started talking, that’s all it was—talking. Conversation.”

“But you had an agenda.” Now she did meet Sadie’s gaze.

Sadie shifted her weight. Agenda was such a strong word. “I’d already explained to Tess and Caro that this is a police investigation, not something we should pursue. I wasn’t trying to get anything from you.” Oh, she wasn’t explaining this well, and it frustrated her. She wanted the fact that she hadn’t entered the kitchen with expectations of gathering information to offer some kind of defense, but maybe she was being unfair in trying to justify herself.

“But you did get information from me,” Lori reminded her. “And you’re an investigator.” Her expression was hard, and Sadie continued searching for a way to make this right. There was only one way to earn back this woman’s trust—complete honesty. Come what may.

“I used to be a private investigator,” Sadie said, dropping her shoulders in surrender to the truth. “In recent years, I’ve helped solve several investigations. Caro and Tess found the discrepancy with the photos before I got into town and came up with a plan to try to figure out why Dr. Hendricks’s car wasn’t where it should have been. When they told me about it, I told them we couldn’t interfere. Then I ended up in the kitchen with you, and you were so kind and open and ... I guess I got carried away. It began to feel important, not like a story that was so far away from me.” It wasn’t the first time Sadie had stepped over the line she herself had drawn. She feared it wouldn’t be the last.

“So, then, now that you know my ‘take’ on things, what do you think?” Lori was still guarded, but her expression showed enough interest that Sadie thought she might be thawing a little bit.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I told you all about my marriage and what I know of Trent’s life and disappearance. Did it change your mind about being willing to investigate?”

“I’d be lying if I said talking to you didn’t make me feel more invested, but I still believe the police are the ones who should be finding the answers to the questions I have now. They have access to more information than I do. They see a bigger picture.” And yet Sadie also knew that the big picture often distracted people from the small details that could change everything. “But they haven’t contacted us yet. Probably tomorrow. Until then, I feel that trying to make some connections would be a good thing.”

“The police never talked to me other than getting my alibi for that weekend—which was solid if you’re thinking I had something to do with Trent’s disappearance.”

“I don’t think that,” Sadie said quickly. “The thought never crossed my mind.” For half a second, however, she wondered if it should have. Ex-spouses were often brimming with motive. Sadie was careful to keep any hint of those thoughts out of her own facial expression.

Lori relaxed a little more as she regarded Sadie again. “Are you really a widow?”

“I didn’t lie to you,” Sadie said, bristling slightly. “Everything I said was true.”

Lori looked away for a few seconds, perhaps to gather her thoughts, and then she folded her arms over her stomach. When she looked back at Sadie it seemed as though she’d made a decision. “The police have told me nothing. Anita doesn’t talk to me about the case. Trent’s family only talks to me about the kids. Like you said before, I lost someone important, and no one seems to care.” She blinked back tears and took another breath before she continued. “Do you have any idea what a relief it was to finally have someone talk to me about this? And then find out that they had an agenda for it?”

“I’m so sorry,” Sadie said, wishing she could go back in time and be up front with Lori from the very start of their conversation. “But I meant what I said—you have suffered a loss. You deserve the same opportunity to grieve as anyone else does.”

Lori looked over her shoulder through the front doors, taking a deep breath that was possibly meant to help her control the emotion she was fighting. It was getting dark outside, and she stared into the twilight. “Even if you did talk to me just to get information—”

“I didn’t, I swear I—”

“Even if you did,” Lori cut in, turning her head quickly to pin Sadie with a look, “it gave me a chance to feel understood and supported in my feelings. I think Tess’s scrapbook is a great idea—people will talk to you guys differently than they talk to the police—take it from me. I told you more than I told them because I knew they were looking at me as a suspect, not as a person struggling to make sense of what’s happened to a man I loved.” She paused to take another breath. “I’m not mad at you.”

“Thank you,” Sadie said. They were quiet for a moment, looking at each other. Sadie pondered what Lori had just said: “The man I loved.” Did she mean to say “once loved”? It was ambiguous, the way she’d said it, and yet nothing else she’d said had hinted at the fact that she might still have those kinds of feelings for her ex-husband. Sadie needed to say something out loud, and she settled on what came naturally to her—offering support. “I’m sorry you have to deal with so much.”

“It will help to see those pictures, to be a part of the process to figure out why his car wasn’t where it was supposed to be.”

“There certainly doesn’t seem to be an easy explanation for that—and his canceling with Joey like he did.” Sadie wished she could better explain the process of how she’d gained her own interest in this, how talking to Lori and learning more about Dr. Hendricks had made Sadie feel a kind of obligation to find answers. But that wouldn’t matter to Lori. It might even be interpreted as further justification of Sadie’s “questioning” her.

Tess’s and Caro’s voices could be heard approaching from the hallway. Sadie was glad to know that she and Lori seemed to be okay with each other and united in their goal to find information, but she didn’t love the fact that there were now four people involved in this. That meant a lot of opinions to sort through, a lot of coordination, and the big risk that one person might mess everything up for everyone else. Sadie preferred to be the only one responsible. Then she would be the only person responsible for getting herself in trouble.

“I’d really like to know what happened,” Lori said quietly before Tess and Caro joined them.

They all said goodbye again, and Lori promised again to call when she knew what time she’d be available the next day. During the ride back to Tess’s house to drop her off, the three women made a plan, just as though they had been together on the case from the beginning. Sadie couldn’t read Tess at all. She’d seemed annoyed with Sadie prior to the conversation with Lori, and now she acted rather cocky about the turn of events. Sadie firmly reminded them both that they were only doing this until Sergeant Woodruff got back to them. They agreed so quickly that she doubted they fully understood what it meant to turn things over to the police. On the heels of that thought, however, was the question of whether she herself were ready to do that.