Rocky Road

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Sadie held the ice to her head as she continued to stare at the double doors Nikki and Anita had disappeared through. Tess put two extra-strength Tylenol tablets in Sadie’s hand, and Sadie thanked her. Though nothing had been said, she had felt the threat behind Anita’s stare. She suppressed a shudder. Who was Anita Hendricks, really—the cold woman Sadie had seen three times now, or the kind woman who’d thanked her for helping with the luncheon? And what, exactly, was she talking to Dr. Waters about behind closed doors?

  2 cups finely crushed pretzel sticks (about 8 ounces before crushing)*

  3/4 cup melted butter

  3 tablespoons sugar

  8 ounces cream cheese

  1 cup sugar

  8 ounces Cool Whip

  1 (6-ounce) package strawberry gelatin

  2 cups boiling water

  2 (10-ounce) packages frozen strawberries, sliced, with sugar, partially thawed**

  Mix the first three ingredients together and press in bottom of greased 9x13-inch pan. Bake 8 minutes at 350 degrees for a metal pan, or 325 degrees for a glass pan. Allow to cool completely.

  While crust is cooling, beat together 1 cup sugar and cream cheese until smooth. Fold in Cool Whip. Spread over pretzels, being careful to cover entire crust (or gelatin will make pretzel layer soggy).

  Mix gelatin and water until gelatin is dissolved. Add strawberries. Stir until well combined, then set aside for 10 minutes (only 10, or gelatin will start to stick to the bowl) to allow gelatin to thicken slightly. Pour gelatin mixture over cream cheese mixture. Chill until set, about 3 hours.

  *If pretzels aren’t crushed finely enough, crust may be hard to chew.

  **One 16-ounce container of fresh strawberries may be used as a substitute for two 10-ounce packages frozen strawberries.

  Chapter 17

  Sadie was useless for the remainder of the luncheon, which, thankfully, was nearly over. The Tylenol had taken the edge off the pain, but it hadn’t gone away completely, and even with the ice, the contusion on the side of her head looked like a golf ball beneath her skin.

  With everyone else busy with things Sadie couldn’t do, she asked Tess for Lori’s number.

  “What for?”

  “I want to call her,” Sadie said, holding Tess’s gaze. She was tired of Tess, and she didn’t back down until Tess finally gave her the number.

  Sadie called Lori, but she didn’t answer, which was frustrating. Sadie didn’t want to go to Pine Valley, and with her head killing her, it seemed much better to simply tell Lori she knew she’d received a call and demand answers from her. She called again. When Lori still didn’t answer, Sadie didn’t leave a message, and she threw her phone back into her purse. She’d tried. The kitchen was deemed restored to its original condition a few minutes later, and Sadie, Caro, and Tess gathered their things together.

  “So,” Caro said as they approached the car, which was parked in the rare patch of shade. It still wasn’t cool, but every little bit helped. Caro turned toward Sadie. “Are we still going to Pine Valley? Are you sure you don’t want to get your head checked?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Sadie said, even though the last thing she wanted to do was drive to a different hotel. She mostly wanted to sleep, but tomorrow she would have wished she’d gone to Pine Valley.

  “You’re both going?” Tess asked.

  “You’re welcome to come, too,” Caro said. “I just didn’t know if you could get away.”

  Tess let out an exaggerated breath and turned to Caro. “I thought you were going to help me work on the scrapbook,” she said. “That’s what we’d talked about earlier.”

  Probably while Sadie was talking to Officer Nielson.

  “But that was before we knew about Pine Valley,” Caro said, sounding conflicted.

  “I could really use the help,” Tess said. “I have a dozen interviews to translate into the scrapbook—it’ll take all night if I have to do it alone.”

  Sadie decided to make it easy for Caro, who was obviously feeling caught in the middle. “I can go to Pine Valley on my own, Caro,” she said. “You can stay here and work on the scrapbook.” If she were honest with herself, however, she’d admit she was a little frustrated that Caro was trying so hard to placate Tess. How could she help Caro see that she really ought to decide what she wanted to do?

  “Great,” Tess said, smiling at Caro before turning to Sadie. “So—what happened? How did you hit your head like that?” her words sounded surprisingly sympathetic.

  Sadie tried to minimize the more embarrassing aspects of the situation, but there was only so much she could leave out when relating why she’d put herself in a situation that resulted in being knocked over by a door.

  “Dr. Waters said he was sharing his condolences?” Caro asked when Sadie finished. Tess looked more surprised at the information than Caro did. Probably because she knew these people and, more importantly, she knew Nikki. Sadie watched Tess process the information.

  “That’s what he said,” Sadie confirmed. “But they work together all the time, right? Why arrange for such a private conversation?”

  “They had to be ... talking about something they didn’t want anyone else to know about,” Caro said, but she and Sadie shared a look that communicated the other possibility they didn’t want to say out loud.

  “Nikki and Dr. Waters have a good marriage,” Tess cut in, saying the very thing they were avoiding. “They go to church and everything, and Anita—my gosh, she just memorialized her husband.”

  “Church attendance doesn’t explain away the possibility, and we have to look at everything that doesn’t line up,” Sadie insisted. “And their going off alone doesn’t line up the way I would like it to—there has to be a reason.” She decided not to tell them about the silent exchange of thought she’d had with Anita when she’d looked at Sadie from the hallway. Better to let Tess ponder on one part of this before adding more to her plate.

  “I’m sure it was nothing,” Tess said. “You’re taking it completely out of context.”

  Sadie let out a breath. “No one is jumping to any conclusions. You asked me how I hit my head, and I told you.” Because of Tess’s reaction, she also didn’t mention Dr. Waters’s reaction when Sadie had mentioned his wife being in the kitchen. He obviously did not want her to know. She wondered if he were stressing out right now, thinking Sadie was going to tell Nikki what she’d seen.

  “Well, I’d like to get on my way to Pine Valley,” Sadie said when no one else broke the silence. She looked at Caro. “I can take you back to the hotel, and then you’ll have your car.” She looked back and forth between the two of them. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that we shouldn’t talk to anyone about what I saw—like Tess said, we don’t know the context of that meeting.”

  “Of course,” Caro said, nodding her agreement. Tess nodded, too, but she didn’t say anything out loud.

  They said their goodbyes, and Sadie and Caro headed to the hotel. They were both silent for quite a while. “I’d rather be going to Pine Valley,” Caro said.

  “Then come to Pine Valley,” Sadie said evenly.

  “But Tess wants me to help with the scrapbook.”

  “Then help with the scrapbook.”

  “She’s kind of driving me crazy,” Caro said quietly.

  Right? Out loud Sadie said nothing.

  “I don’t like being in the middle.”

  Sadie considered her options before she replied. “You’re the one putting yourself there.”

  Caro turned quickly to look at her. “Me? I’m trying to keep everything good between the three of us—I’m the common link and I don’t want to push anyone away. You’re my friend, and she’s my cousin—and my friend as well. I came here to support her on the walk but everything’s gotten so crazy.”

  “Yes, we’re both your friends, but that doesn’t mean we’re the ones putting you in the middle.” She kept her voice kind, hoping that Caro would know she wasn’t angry with her. “You are a grown wom
an, and you can make your own choices.” Sadie turned onto Bluff Street.

  “You make it sound so easy.” Sadie liked the annoyance in Caro’s tone.

  “It is easy—maybe not comfortable, but it’s easy. Decide what you want to do and do it. If Tess freaks out, she freaks out. If I freak out ... well, I won’t freak out.” She turned enough to smile in Caro’s direction before facing forward again. Caro didn’t answer.

  Bluff Street ran along the west side of the downtown area of St. George and parallel to a large mesa that stretched toward the blue sky. Caro told Sadie that an airport used to be on top of the mesa but it had been moved to a nearby town. Their hotel was coming up on the right—it didn’t butt up against the mesa like the businesses on the left side of the street—and was landscaped with palm trees and a bridge that ran over a gurgling stream between the parking lot and the hotel. They’d done a great job of creating an “oasis” feel in this town—Sadie wished she were enjoying it more than she actually was.

  She pulled into the parking lot. She and Caro both remained silent as they headed to their room. Entering the room seemed to finish the conversation about Caro deciding for herself what she wanted to do. Sadie was glad. She’d made her point—the rest was up to Caro.

  “Do you think there’s something romantic between Anita and Dr. Waters?” Caro finally asked. “You were there—did it have that kind of feel to you?”

  Sadie pondered on the question, then shrugged. “I could hear them talking the whole time, so I don’t think they sneaked away for some kind of tryst or anything like that. But there’s something up between them. If you could have seen the look on Anita’s face when she realized I’d been at the door ... And then, later, she stood outside the kitchen doorway and watched me when you were getting ice. Those aren’t the actions of a woman who isn’t worried about what I might have overheard.”

  Caro kicked off her shoes and reached around to unzip her dress. Sadie pulled open a drawer and tried to decide what to take to Pine Valley and what to leave in St. George. “Remember how Dr. H had been going to church these last few months?” Caro continued. “If he knew his wife was cheating on him, he might be in search of some kind of comfort.”

  “And it might be a reason to leave this life behind and start over somewhere else,” Sadie offered.

  Caro nodded as she shimmied out of her dress.

  “It could also be a motive for someone to murder him,” Sadie said—and even she was surprised that she’d jumped to such an extreme conclusion so quickly. Could she blame that on the head trauma, too?

  Caro looked quickly at Sadie with her eyebrows raised. “You really think so?”

  “In my experience, secrets can change everything. It must have been really important for Anita and Dr. Waters to talk in private today—at a church, with their families close by. Why? What was that important to take such a risk for?” Sadie’s thoughts were still lining up. “And with the way Nikki greeted her in the hall after that, Anita knows I didn’t tell Nikki what had happened.”

  “Right,” Caro said, though she sounded unsure of why that was important. Sadie wasn’t sure she could explain it. She was just saying what came to mind—and was glad her brain was still thinking despite its constant pounding.

  Fifteen minutes later, after Caro called to change the reservation into Sadie’s name, they parted ways in the hotel parking lot. Sadie was going to Pine Valley to pursue the mysterious call that had changed Lori’s mind about meeting with them, and Caro was going to do whatever it was Tess wanted her to do. Caro didn’t say again that she wanted to go with Sadie, and Sadie didn’t tell her she should. They simply wished each other luck and went their separate ways.

  Chapter 18

  Sadie pulled back onto Bluff Street after typing Pine Valley Motel into her GPS as her destination.

  “Stay on Bluff Street Highway 18 for twenty-six miles.”

  Bluff Street would take her right to Pine Valley? How convenient.

  She drove past businesses, parks, and residential streets for a few miles before the buildings started to spread out and the landscape became more natural. She stopped at a light and read the name of the street: Snow Canyon Parkway. Officer Nielson had said something about a parkway and the Chuckwalla Trailhead where Dr. Hendricks had been parked. The light turned green, and in less than a mile, there was a sign indicating that Chuckwalla was coming up on the left. Sadie changed lanes, and when another sign indicated the entry to the trailhead, she turned left into the gravel parking area that looked familiar because of all the photos Sadie had seen of the area.

  There were six vehicles parked in the lot on this Wednesday afternoon. While Sadie circled the restroom set in the middle of the roundabout, a couple on bikes came over the rise. Sadie parked and got out of the car, walking to the edge of the fence to get a better view. From where she stood, she could see numerous homes and condominiums to the left—within half a mile of the trail that disappeared around a small mesa. To the right was a sheer rock wall where, despite the 90 degree temperatures, a couple of rock climbers were making chalk marks on the already heavily marked wall. They must be tourists desperate for a climb. Sadie imagined locals knew better than to attempt a climb in this heat.

  She spent a few more minutes walking around the parking area. She observed the traffic on Highway 18 only a few yards away and watched as another car arrived and the biking couple secured their equipment and pulled out. It was a busy trailhead, just as Officer Nielson had told her. While she didn’t know enough about it to verify that it wasn’t used by hikers for more than day hikes, she could see why it would be less attractive to a more adventurous hiker like Dr. Hendricks. She pulled out her phone and called Officer Nielson, realizing she should report what had happened this morning.

  He answered on the third ring, and she didn’t waste time with small talk. Instead, she told him about the phone logs they’d gotten off of Lori’s phone and how she’d told them to leave the case alone. She also told him about Anita and Dr. Waters.

  “You’re on your way to Pine Valley now?” Officer Nielson asked when she finished.

  “Yes, I should be there in about an hour.”

  “Well, good luck, and thanks for the update. I’ll put it in my report and present it with the photos in the morning.”

  “Great,” Sadie said, surprised but not complaining that he wasn’t giving her more instruction or guidance. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good luck with the presentation.”

  “Thanks. Take care.”

  Though the tiny hamlet of Pine Valley was only thirty-five miles from St. George, it was reached by a two-lane highway that went through several small towns, requiring her to slow down every so often in order to obey the posted speed limits. For almost ten miles, Sadie was stuck behind a slow-moving truck that never broke fifty miles an hour. With her head throbbing she didn’t dare pass on the winding road.

  The landscape changed from red rock in St. George to more arid land covered with sagebrush and cedar trees and dotted with outcroppings of black lava rock. In the town of Central, her GPS instructed her to turn right, but she wouldn’t have missed it due to the signs pointing her toward Pine Valley. Once on that road, the cedar trees grew more dense and the road more winding. After several miles of seeing not a house or barn or any other signs of civilization, she turned a corner and a beautiful valley surrounded by pine-covered mountains opened up below her. The view was breathtaking.

  The road came to a T-intersection lined with houses and a pretty white church on the right. Following the instructions from her GPS, Sadie turned left and took in the quaint homes and log cabins along both sides of the road. After almost a mile, the GPS told her that her destination was on the right. A moment later, she spotted the sign for a restaurant—the Brandin’ Iron—and, next to it, the Pine Valley Motel. Across the street was the Pine Valley Lodge—a two-motel town? Impressive.

  Though she wanted to check in and collapse into bed as soon as she pulled into the motel parki
ng lot, Sadie forced herself to remain dedicated to her reason for being there in the first place. She wrote down the license plate number of every other car parked there—all four of them—to give to Officer Nielson, just in case. She found herself wondering what Pete was doing right now. What would he think of her working with the police on this case? She made a note to e-mail him about it tonight, even though she was pretty sure he wouldn’t see it until he got back next Monday. She glanced at her ring but was too exhausted to feel the zing she usually experienced when her thoughts turned to her sweetheart.

  Sadie forced herself to focus on the task at hand. The car Sadie had seen Lori drive away after the memorial service wasn’t one of the vehicles in the lot. That moved the possibility that Lori was meeting someone here farther down Sadie’s list of considerations.

  The fireplace in the foyer of the motel might just be for looks since it was still 78 degrees at eight o’clock in the evening. Two couches, a coffee table with an assortment of magazines, a breakfast room off to the right, and a single computer set up on a small table around the corner from the reception desk made up the rest of the décor. Oh, and a huge chandelier made entirely out of antlers in the middle of the room.

  “Good evening,” the desk attendant said as Sadie approached the counter.

  “I have a reservation for Sadie Hoffmiller.”

  The girl handed Sadie some paperwork to sign and then gave her a regular metal key attached to a leathery key chain with the motel’s logo burned into it. “Breakfast is right here in the lobby from seven to ten in the morning. Have a nice evening.”

  Sadie was on her way to the room before she realized she should have asked the girl some questions. But she knew this girl wasn’t the one who had been working when the call was made, and Sadie couldn’t think of what else she might have to offer.