Baked with Love

by Erin Wright

  She drew in a deep breath, trying to stem the flow of tears cascading down her cheeks, and failing spectacularly. “I’m not telling you that you have to testify against him in court. Only you can make that decision. I just wanted you to know that more than possibly any other person on the planet, I understand. I know how hard this decision is. I won’t tell you what to do; I’ll support you no matter what your choice is. I’m on your side, no matter what side that is.”

  They reached across the table at the same moment, their hands drawn together almost like magnets, clinging together, each lost in their own pain caused by the bastards on the planet who thought that a woman was nothing more than a piece of meat to be used and discarded at will.

  “Has he ever bothered you again?” Cady asked in the quiet that’d fallen between them. “You moved back here. He lives here. Surely you’ve seen him again.”

  “He doesn’t seem to be obsessed with me like he is with Sugar, and we don’t tend to run in the same circles,” Hannah said with a shrug of her thin shoulders. “He’s never managed to father a child, thank God, so I don’t have his kid in my class, and I don’t hang out in bars and in crack houses, shooting whatever I can find between my toes.”

  “He does drugs, too?” Cady asked, somehow stunned by this news. She’d only ever heard what a drunk he was. How had she missed drug use?

  “I’ve heard a few rumors. His drug of choice is alcohol, but he isn’t beyond taking anything he can get his hands on. Aaron’s told me about a few baggies they’ve found.”

  “Right. I keep forgetting that Officer Morland is going to be your new brother-in-law.” Cady shook her head in surprise. “Small towns, small towns…”

  They sat still for a while, both just lost in their own thoughts, in how one man had affected both of their lives, and who knew how many other lives.

  Finally, Hannah paid for their meal above the protestations of Cady, and then they hurried back out into the frigid air. “We should go to I Don’t Know,” Cady said impulsively, not ready to go back to Sawyer and decisions and guilt just yet. “I’ve heard they make delicious Mexican hot chocolate.”

  “Brilliant,” Hannah agreed. “I’ve only been there a few times, but I’ve heard the same thing.” She started the engine and carefully backed out onto the street, her thick red hair shining in the dull, wintry sunlight.

  “Thanks for listening,” Hannah said suddenly, apropos of nothing at all. “I’ve only told a handful of people. It’s not easy. I don’t know how it is that our society makes it out so that it’s a woman’s fault that she’s been attacked. And I don’t know how to change it.”

  “I can change it,” Cady said impulsively. “Well,” she gulped, backtracking, “at least my own tiny corner of the world.”

  The words came spilling out of her as she felt a rush of pride in what she was saying. It was the right choice – she was sure of it.

  “I’m going to change Sawyer by standing up to a man who has been terrorizing women for over a decade now. It’s stupid – I didn’t want to be on his radar. I thought that if I didn’t testify, he wouldn’t notice me or try to hurt me. But I am on his radar now, no matter what. Maybe I got there by accident, but that doesn’t really matter. Whether it’s a case of mistaken identity or not, I’m still there. I can’t let my fear of him ruin my life. I already spent so much of my life hiding in bed – after the football player, and then after my parents died. I won’t let it happen again.”

  Hannah pulled into the parking lot of the quaint I Don’t Know café and turned off the engine, pulling off her seat belt and leaning across to give Cady a huge hug. “I hope your parents are watching right now,” she said, her warm breath skimming across the top of Cady’s head. “They’d be so damn proud of you. I know that my dad would be, if he could…you know. Understand what’s going on around him.”

  Hannah’s father suffered from dementia and was living in the retirement home, slipping away from the world a little farther every day. Cady and Hannah headed into the café, hurrying towards the warmth promised inside, as Cady asked, “How is he doing?”

  Hannah shook her head and then sent Cady an overbright smile. “Not well. He keeps yelling at the nurses, telling them to stop hiding his wife from him. There’s no point in telling him that Mom died years ago. He won’t remember five minutes after you’ve told him, and during those five minutes, he’s so heartbroken…” Hannah pulled the door open, ushering Cady inside, the doorbell jingling overhead. “It isn’t kind. So they just keep telling him that Mom’s gone to the bathroom.”

  Cady gratefully soaked in the warmth of the café as she listened to Hannah talk, thinking about what Hannah wasn’t saying. Did her dad still recognize her? Or had his memory of her faded too? And what did Brooklyn think of it all?

  From what Cady understood, Elijah’s parents weren’t supportive of their upcoming marriage, so she doubted Brooklyn had much interaction with them.

  Meanwhile, Hannah’s mother was gone; her dad was gone in all but body; and then there was Brooklyn’s biological mother who was currently behind bars, serving five to ten years for almost killing Brooklyn one night by driving back from Boise drunk as a skunk, Brooklyn in the backseat.

  Who did Brooklyn have to cling to? Cady’s heart ached for the little girl. She at least had Elijah and Hannah behind her 110%.

  After Hannah ordered and they got their to-go cups, they headed back out to the car. Cady had been willing to stay at the café and drink their cocoa there, but she could sense that Hannah hadn’t wanted to dawdle. She was ready to go back home; back to her house full of screaming preteen girls because she’d already started missing Brooklyn and Elijah.

  Hannah had a family now. She was no longer the single girl, able to simply hang out with Cady because she had no other pressures on her time.

  Cady knew that this was what Gage wanted. He hadn’t asked her – he wouldn’t push her. He was giving her the space to learn who she was, just like she’d told him she needed. But in the long run, this was what he wanted.

  They just had to make it through the trial, and then…she could figure out everything else.

  One step at a time.

  Chapter 28

  Cady

  April, 2020

  She was going to throw up. She should’ve asked the state prosecutor beforehand what the judge did when a witness threw up. Did they hold ‘em in contempt of court? Would she be thrown out of the courtroom? Would Rat Bastard roam the streets free because she couldn’t keep it down?

  These suddenly seemed like Very Important Questions, and how had it not occurred to her to ask the prosecutor before now? It was so obvious that she should have.

  She’d just kept believing that it wouldn’t actually go to trial. Surely, with all of the evidence and eyewitnesses, Rat Bastard couldn’t think he’d get a not-guilty verdict.

  But he’d clung stubbornly to his chance in court, refusing the deal the state prosecutor had offered. Perhaps he thought that with his father being a judge, they’d call the case to order, realize who he was and their tragic mistake in prosecuting him, and let him go.

  It was the only reasoning Cady could come up with. Blind, stupid cockiness born of a lifetime of never having had to suffer the consequences of his actions.

  “The state would like to call its next witness, Cady Walcott, to the stand.”

  Every eye in the courtroom swiveled to her. Staring at her. Drilling into her, and she realized that she’d been wrong.

  So very, very wrong.

  She wasn’t going to throw up.

  She was going to pass out.

  Stupid her.

  Gage squeezed her hand, his bulk beside her, comforting her, protecting her from Rat Bastard. No one would touch her with him around. Gage had proven that the night of the attack.

  Except they wouldn’t let him go up onto the stand with her. She’d asked. The prosecutor had given her a look that plainly said that he’d thought he’d heard it all but now he really h
ad heard it all, and no, a 34-year-old woman could not take her boyfriend with her up to the stand.

  Gage squeezed her hand again, a little more urgently this time, and Cady realized that the murmurs were breaking out in the courtroom, everyone wondering if she was actually going to move sometime this century.

  A fission of fear ran up her spine but she forced herself to her feet, then scooted down the bench and out into the end aisle. Walking up to the front of the courtroom, it was like she was in a long tunnel, except even with the slow speed of her feet, the front still came all too quickly. The bailiff swore her in, and then she climbed the steps to the witness stand, legs shaking, knees knocking, no color in her face, and slid gratefully into the wooden chair. At least now she wasn’t expected to bear her own weight any longer.

  “Ms. Walcott, I understand that you originally met Richard Schmidt last April, at Emma Dyer and Sugar Anderson’s dual birthday party. Is that correct?”

  She nodded numbly.

  “We need you to give your answers verbally,” the prosecutor prodded.

  Shit. He’d told her that beforehand. She’d told him that would be no problem.

  But that had been years ago. Maybe centuries. Surely no one could expect her to remember that far back.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice cracking.

  She found Gage’s face in the audience and clung to it, like a person adrift at sea clinging to a life raft. His supermodel good looks; his bodybuilder physique; but much more important than that, his thoughtfulness. His soul. The goodness inside of him.

  It was hard to remember all those months ago when she’d wanted Gage fired just for offering cream puffs to her. That was a different Cady. A Cady who was scared of her own shadow.

  She straightened her back. That wasn’t her anymore.

  I’m doing this for all of the women that you’ve abused, Richard Schmidt. All of the pain that you’ve caused.

  She turned her eyes back to the prosecutor.

  “At this party, did you talk to Mr. Schmidt at all?” the prosecutor asked.

  “No.”

  “Were you introduced?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know that it was Mr. Schmidt that also attended that party, then?”

  “The people around me. The other guests. They were saying his name. Also, I talked with Emma afterwards, and she told me who it was.”

  “Why were you there?”

  “I was a guest of Gage Dyer, Emma’s brother. He introduced me to Emma and Sugar at the party.”

  “And why was Richard Schmidt there?”

  Finally. We’re getting the heart of the matter.

  “Because he got drunk and decided that crashing the party with a loaded gun would be a lot of fun,” she said sarcastically.

  A ripple of laughter spread through the courtroom at the answer.

  Cady clung to Gage’s face, though. Nothing else mattered. It was like she was telling him a story. Talking to just him.

  “Did he threaten you at all with the gun?” the prosecutor went on, ignoring the laughter.

  “No. He didn’t see me or interact with me in any way at that party. All he cared about was Sugar. He was angry with her for having Jaxson’s baby. He thought it should’ve been his.”

  “Objection, Your Honor!” the defense attorney cried, shooting to his feet. “That’s speculation. Ms. Walcott could not possibly know what my client was thinking.”

  “He was yelling what he was thinking at the top of his lungs,” Cady retorted, somehow forgetting to be scared for just a moment.

  “If your client didn’t want anyone to know what he was thinking, perhaps he shouldn’t have shouted the thoughts out for the whole world to hear,” the judge said mildly. “You may continue,” he said to the prosecutor.

  “How long had you lived in Sawyer by this point?” he asked her.

  “Only three weeks or so.”

  “So you were attending a party for two ladies who you’d never met in a town you’d just moved to, and although you witnessed and heard Mr. Schmidt making threats, you had no interaction with him yourself.”

  “That is correct.”

  “With all of that in mind, why is it, do you think, that Mr. Schmidt attacked you during the evening of the 25th of November?”

  “Objection, Your Honor!” the defense attorney yelled again, jumping to his feet. “He is asking the witness to speculate on the motives of my client.”

  “Let me rephrase,” the prosecutor said smoothly, before the judge could say anything. “Ms. Walcott, let’s leave motives aside for a moment and just focus on what happened. What time did you leave work that evening?”

  “Somewhere between 6 and 7 p.m., I would guess. It was getting dark. I remember thinking that I’d been staying late at work for too many nights, because I didn’t need the flashlight app on my phone to lock the back door.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Richard—” she’d been warned not to call him Rat Bastard in court, “—attacked me from behind. One arm around my waist, and one around my face. It took me a minute to understand what he was saying and what was going on. He called me a bitch and a whore.” There were gasps in the courtroom, but Cady plunged on, growing braver by the moment. Well, only so brave, really – her eyes were staying glued on Gage’s face. She could see Rat Bastard out of the corner of her eye, but she wouldn’t look at him. She might break down and—

  “He asked me if I was staying late, with him.” She emphasized the word just like he had that night. “I didn’t know who he was talking about – what him? I don’t have any employees, male or female. I didn’t know at that point that he thought I was Sugar Anderson.”

  “Objection, Your Hon—”

  “Shut up!” the judge roared. The courtroom fell deadly silent. “The witness is free to recount her story the way it happened to her. Ms. Walcott, please continue.” The defense lawyer sank into his seat in defeat.

  “Uhhh…” she stammered, every coherent thought completely gone. Her story. What had she been saying?

  “You’d mentioned that Mr. Schmidt had said that you were staying late with a male,” the state prosecutor said smoothly. “Then what happened?”

  “Oh. Right.” She picked up the thread of her story from there, Gage smiling reassuringly at her through it all. “Then he asked me how I could have Jaxson’s baby and still work for Gage. Told me that if I wasn’t going to learn my place in the world at the hands of my husband, then he’d have to teach me. This is when I figured out that he thought I was Sugar Anderson. Jaxson and Sugar got married before I even met them, but Richard has never forgiven her for divorcing him.”

  “Can you describe Sugar Anderson to me, please,” the prosecutor said.

  “Oh. Well, she’s very nice – lives up to her name, honestly. Makes everyone feel wel—”

  “What she looks like,” the prosecutor interrupted to say.

  Cady felt the tips of her ears go pink. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course he wants a physical description.

  “Right. My height, my build, dark brown hair about the same length as mine, but hers is straight and mine is…well, not.” She gestured to her mass of curls on her head and everyone laughed. “In the dark, from behind, to a man who smelled like he’d taken a bath in alcohol before he could gather up the courage to accost me…I can only imagine how easy it would’ve been to mix us up. Plus, the exit from the bakery where she works is right next door to the exit from the smoothie shop that I own.”

  “Was Sugar at work still?”

  “No, the Muffin Man had closed. Sugar was at home with her husband at the time of the attack. Or,” she shot a look at the overly eager attorney for Rat Bastard, who seemed to enjoy objecting to virtually everything she said, “at least that’s what she told me later. She certainly didn’t come outside during the fight.”

  Why isn’t Sugar here today? I know she doesn’t testify until tomorrow, but still. I could’ve just had her stand up and everyone co
uld’ve looked at her. It isn’t hard to see how the mistake was made.

  Sugar had stayed behind, though, keeping the Muffin Man open for business while Gage had come to Boise with Cady.

  “Let’s discuss that fight for a moment,” the prosecutor said, and then led Cady through it, step by step. The nasty rag in her mouth. Gage showing up. Cream Puffs jumping out of the bed of the truck and attacking Richard. Gage tackling them, and her arm breaking. Calling 911 and talking to the dispatcher. Officer Miller and Officer Morland showing up.

  Finally, the state was done with her, and Cady wanted to dissolve into a puddle of joy. She could not wait to get off the stand, but she couldn’t. Not yet. It was the defense attorney’s turn to try to tear her to pieces.

  Except, his heart didn’t seem to be in it. Whatever the strategy had been before the case went to trial, it seemed to have died a painful death, leaving the attorney to grasp at straws. He began a rambling monologue about this being some sort of conspiracy between Gage and herself to frame his client, shuffling back and forth in front of the witness stand but not looking at Cady once, until the judge interrupted him.

  “This is your chance to cross-examine Ms. Walcott, not give your closing statement. Either ask Ms. Walcott questions, or sit down.” The judge was pissed; the air in the courtroom crackling.

  Cady could see Rat Bastard out of the corner of her eye, growing more agitated with every passing moment. She refused to look at him. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t give him that power over her that she instinctively knew he’d have if their eyes met.

  “Are you and Gage Dyer dating?” asked the attorney, his face beet red from anger and embarrassment from being verbally reprimanded by the judge.