“Which she didn’t know because she left the ballroom before the shooting,” Sadie pointed out. “Doesn’t that strike you as bizarre? She leaves right before Thom is supposed to speak.”
A look of concern wrinkled Josh’s forehead. Apparently he hadn’t thought it through.
“Would she have a motive to kill Mr. Ogreski?” Shawn asked, but Sadie could tell from his tone that he found that a shaky suggestion.
However, Josh’s concerned look deepened, making Sadie seriously consider the possibility. Could Michele have a motive for murder? Sadie pictured the girl she’d met at her table—the piled-up hair, the strapless gown, and the big doe-eyes. She didn’t seem the psychopathic type.
“Would she?” Shawn pressed again.
Josh shook his head, but it wasn’t convincing. He glanced around nervously before making eye contact with Sadie again as he reached into his pocket.
Shawn grabbed Josh’s wrist as soon as he extracted the phone.
“Sheesh,” Josh said, after nearly jumping out of his shoes. Shawn was big, but he was fast.
“Who are you calling?” Shawn demanded.
Sadie tried to shoot Josh a sympathetic look. She was actually relieved by Shawn’s stubborn suspicion of Josh. It was wise to not become complacent with anyone.
“Michele,” Josh said between clenched teeth. He shot a heated look at Shawn before looking at Sadie. “I’ve told you everything I know, and I have nothing to hide anymore and no reason to hide it.” He looked at Shawn pointedly and flipped his bangs out of his eyes. “I’ll put her on speaker.”
Chapter 45
Heya,” a chipper female voice said on the phone. “Did you make it to Denver okay?”
Sadie and Shawn were leaning over the table where they’d all sat down in preparation to focus on the call, not wanting to miss a single word.
“I haven’t left yet,” Josh said rather curtly.
There was a pause. “You haven’t left yet!” Michele responded. “What are you thinking? You’re supposed to catch a flight in less than an hour.”
“A flight you insisted I take,” Josh cut in, that tightness still in his voice. “And where are you?”
Sadie noticed that Josh had balled his hand into a fist on the table. When a girl as cute and perky as Michele was could earn such anger from a guy like Josh, there were serious issues at hand.
“I’m betting you haven’t left yet either,” Josh said.
“I’m staying one more night,” Michele said innocently. “Just to see how things shake down.”
“Why did you leave the dinner early?”
Sadie wondered if Michele would pretend not to know what he was talking about, but she didn’t. “I was bored,” she said simply. “And the cake was a little dry.”
Sadie sat up straight. Dry! It was not dry! Sadie had to clamp her teeth together to keep from defending herself out loud. Josh looked at her strangely, reminding her that he didn’t know she’d made the cake. But Shawn did, and he put a calming hand on her arm, smiling as if to say, “Who cares what she thinks?” After a deep breath, she waved Josh to continue and tried to think of beautiful and peaceful thoughts to calm herself down. She suspected some people would think about butterflies or rainbows, but she thought about food and suddenly realized she hadn’t gotten any of the Evil Chicken. Would the injustice never end?
“Bull,” Josh said to Michele. “Why did you leave early? You came all the way to Garrison and left as soon as Thom showed up on stage.”
Michele sighed. “I had to use the ladies’ room.”
That was the reason she’d given when she excused herself from the table. Not that Sadie believed her anymore. She’d lied about Sadie’s cake and therefore couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth about anything.
“Where? At Walmart?” Josh said. “The police had the parking lot to the hotel blocked off within minutes, and no one was allowed in or out without police clearance. That’s why I had to get picked up—remember? I already know why you were there tonight, Michele, but you’d better tell me why you left.”
Sadie held her breath and waited for Michele’s answer. For a moment, she feared Michele had hung up, but then the girl started talking.
“I was in the foyer when Thom came out of the ballroom. Everyone was freaking out. He went out to the parking lot, and I followed him. He tried to get in his car, but it was locked and I guess he’d left the key with Mark. I offered him a ride, and he took me up on it.”
Sadie opened her mouth to ask where they’d gone, but Shawn put his hand over her mouth and shook his head. How could she forget that she and Shawn were simply eavesdroppers on this conversation?
Josh watched them, giving Sadie a pointed look before turning his attention back to the call. “Where did you take him?” he asked.
“A gas station,” Michele said. “We talked for awhile, but then he got kinda nervous and said he wanted to walk. I had what I wanted, so I let him go.”
“I guess you finally got the interview you wanted so badly,” Josh said, anger dripping from his every word.
“Sure did,” Michele said, chipper once again. “No thanks to you.”
“I don’t make it a habit to use my friends,” Josh said. “And I’ll be sure to tell Thom exactly what you’re up to as soon as I see him next time. I hope you got what you needed because he’ll never talk to you again.”
“Oh, I got plenty, thanks,” Michele said, a chuckle laced through her words. “He was far more forthcoming than I’d have expected him to be.”
“You’re pathetic,” Josh said. He hit the end button on the phone.
Sadie stared at it, then looked up at Josh, stunned. “You hung up on her.”
“Yep,” Josh said.
“But we weren’t done,” Sadie said.
Shawn put a calming hand on Sadie’s arm, but kept his eyes on Josh. “Why did she want an interview with Thom?”
Oh, good question, Sadie thought, reengaging.
“Michele and I . . .” he began. “We didn’t have any secrets when we were together.”
It took Sadie a moment to understand what he was saying. She lifted her eyebrows. “She knew the truth?”
Josh nodded. “You can’t imagine how good it felt to finally have someone I could talk to about everything.”
“How much did she know?” Shawn asked.
“All of it,” Josh said. He met Shawn’s eyes and for the first time they weren’t staring one another down.
Sadie wondered if that meant Shawn’s suspicions were dimming.
Josh continued, “I didn’t tell her all at once, of course, but little by little I told her every bit of this big, complicated story. And she loved me anyway—or at least I thought she did. We were talking about getting married, so I felt I had no reason not to trust her with every part of my life.”
Sadie noted the sadness in his expression. Michele had broken his heart, hadn’t she?
“A few weeks before Christmas,” Josh continued, “Michele suggested I invite Thom to visit for the holidays. She’d never met him, even though I talked about him quite a bit—especially the last six months or so as he seemed to be getting worse.
“I told her that inviting Thom would only make him feel bad that he couldn’t come. He rarely left the house, let alone travel to the East Coast. She was determined to meet him, however, so I suggested we go to California instead and she was all over it—too much all over it. I mean, she’d met my mother once and hadn’t made a big deal out of it so it bothered me that seeing Thom was so exciting for her, but I blew it off. I figured she was simply intrigued by him being a celebrity, ya know? Then I found out that her parents were planning a Caribbean cruise with her family over the Christmas holiday and she refused to go even though the tickets were nonrefundable.”
“Yikes,” Sadie said, totally following this line of suspicious behavior Josh was laying out. Turning down a cruise? That was so not normal.
Josh nodded. “I knew there was something fun
ny going on, but I couldn’t figure it out. So I told her Thom had changed his mind and that we couldn’t go to California after all. She insisted I call him back and find a time that would work. I refused and it led to the only fight we ever had.” He snorted again and closed his eyes as though the memory was physically painful. “That’s when I met the real Michele for the first time. I’d thought we never fought because we were so well-matched. Turns out, we never fought because Michele was a chameleon who became what I wanted in hopes it would lead her to Thom.”
“What for?” Shawn asked. “Was she some kind of obsessed fan?”
“Sort of,” Josh said. “More like an obsessed writer. That paper she’d first contacted me about—the one about teens who kill? At some point she decided to turn it into one of those true crime novels about Damon. While I thought I was trusting her with my deepest secrets and insecurities, she was taking notes. Apparently, from the first few e-mails we’d exchanged she sensed I was hiding something. She was very patient and very sly.”
Sheesh, Sadie thought. Does everyone want to write a book? Damon, Thom, Diane, Jane, and now Michele. It was like a disease or something.
Josh was still talking. “I found the manuscript on her computer. Three hundred pages of information she’d carefully siphoned from me over the years, mingled with enough conjecture and supposition to make a great story—a story that will destroy Thom. I imagine she’s already shopping it around by now. When I saw her at the dinner tonight, I knew she was there to talk to Thom. It wouldn’t surprise me if she asked him flat-out if Devilish Details was Damon’s book. She’d love to have his reaction in her book—the final pages where she confronts the man behind it all.” Josh shook his head. “It makes me sick, but I’m grateful she and I were over with by the time I learned about Mrs. Veeter. I’m glad she doesn’t get to exploit that part.”
Sadie thought of Jane, who had come to town specifically for a story she could exploit. The pictures Josh had taken would go a long way toward helping that whole process. How did people live with themselves?
“Did you tell Thom about Michele’s book?” Sadie asked. “Did he know his cover was about to be blown?”
Josh shifted in his chair. “I didn’t tell him. I didn’t know what to do about it except count it as one more reason to push Thom to go to treatment—let him get well before Michele’s book hit the market. Thom and I have a good relationship, but I don’t know what he’s going to think when he learns I told someone else—let alone told someone who went on to write a book about it. He’ll be devastated. I’d like to wait until he’s sober and has a good therapist before he finds out.”
“So, even with all that you let Michele pick you up?” Sadie asked.
“I was in a complete panic. All the doors were blocked, and I couldn’t get my rental car out of the lot. That’s when I thought of the kitchen. As luck would have it, there were no officers there yet.” He paused and held Sadie’s eyes while they both relived the event.
Sadie wondered how different things would be if there had been a police officer there.
Josh looked away and continued. “When Michele found out I’d taken those pictures, she convinced me I had to get out of town before the police could determine it was me. She said the longer it took them to figure out who I was, the better chance I had to get away. It was stupid for me to agree, since I’d have been abandoning Thom, but she has a funny way of convincing me to do stupid things.” He paused. “We went to her uncle’s house since he was still at the hotel and changed my flight. I didn’t dare call Thom because if the police got his phone and found out that I’d been trying to call him, it could lead them to me.” He looked up at Sadie. “After we made the arrangements, we drove back to the hotel to see if I could get my car, but the lot was still blocked off and there were half a dozen news vans out front. That’s when I called my mom. She’d been calling me all night. I told her I had to get out of Garrison and asked if I could take her car to the Denver airport. She was going to bring the rental car back tomorrow and return it for me.”
“And then we intercepted you,” Sadie said.
Josh nodded and let out a breath. “Not that I’m all warm and fuzzy about what’s happened tonight, but I am glad I didn’t leave. I don’t know what Michele’s got up her sleeve, but I have no doubt that getting me out of town is part of her plan.”
“You mean beyond getting Thom’s interview?”
“She’s still here,” Josh reminded them.
Sadie pondered what Michele might have in the works. Maybe she would go to the police and tell them everything. Or, maybe with Josh gone, she’d be the one person Thom felt comfortable with, giving her more opportunity to bleed him for information. Sadie was searching for her next question when the back door burst open. Sadie pushed away from the table while Shawn and Josh both jumped to their feet. By the time Sadie realized it was Eric, he was inside, his hands on his knees, leaning forward in an attempt to catch his breath. He left the door open and the temperature in the kitchen immediately dropped ten degrees.
Sadie hurried toward him once she got over the shock of his dramatic entrance. “Eric, what happened? Are you okay?”
Eric put out a hand, raising one finger to indicate that Sadie wait for him to get properly oxygenated. It only took twenty seconds, but it felt like a long time before Eric stood up, his chest still heaving.
“I couldn’t . . . catch her,” he said, an apologetic expression on his face as he looked from Sadie to Josh.
Josh closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.
“But we . . . might . . . have even bigger . . . problems,” Eric said.
“What?” Sadie asked, her heart speeding up even more.
“There are cops . . . all over the place out there.” He nodded toward the open door. “Jane was stopped.” He made eye contact with each one of them in turn.
“By the cops?” Sadie asked.
“Did they take my camera from her?” Josh added.
Eric shook his head, his hands still on his knees. “I don’t
know. . . . I ducked behind a garage . . . but if she tells them where we are . . . we’re in trouble. I didn’t see anyone following me, so they might . . . not be convinced yet.”
Sadie felt frozen. Was she ready to face up to what she’d done tonight? She looked at Shawn, who looked equally surprised, before glancing at Josh, who seemed concerned.
“Well,” Sadie said, trying to sound calm, “I guess we’ve done everything we can do.”
“What about . . . the key?” Eric asked.
Sadie looked at him as he reached into his pocket and produced the orange key he’d spent so much time figuring out.
“If we leave now, we might . . . just get there before they catch up,” Eric said.
“I don’t know,” Sadie said, imagining being involved in a high-speed chase or something equally terrifying.
“Let’s go,” Shawn said decisively. “We’ve come this far. We should see it through.”
Sadie was still unsure, and she looked at Eric one last time. He was staring at her, but didn’t seem angry about her hesitation. His understanding helped to calm her.
“Seriously, Sadie, at this point—what do we have to lose?”
Chapter 46
Instead of turning right—where they could see a police car parked down the block—Eric made a left and wound through the side roads and backstreets before heading for a main road far enough away from the action that they could breathe normally. The mood in the Jeep was tense and no one spoke. Sadie decided that having time to think was highly overrated. Where was Pete? What was he doing? What was he thinking? And . . . why hadn’t he called?
Sadie reached into her pocket. Maybe he had called and she hadn’t heard it ring. It had been hours since she’d last tried to contact him. The screen was black, so she hit a random button to bring the screen to life. It remained black. Surprised, Sadie pushed another button. Nothing happened. “Huh,” she said under her breath.
&
nbsp; “What?” Eric asked, glancing at her. Apparently her mutterings were pretty loud in the silent car.
Sadie pressed down on the power button. Maybe she’d somehow turned it off. Again, nothing happened. “My phone won’t turn on.” She lifted her thumb off the power button for a few seconds before pressing it again.
“You can use mine,” Shawn said, handing his phone up over the seat.
Sadie shook her head. “I don’t need to make a call, I was just checking to see if . . . anyone had called me.”
“Anyone?” Shawn said, and Sadie could hear the tease in his voice. “You mean Pete?”
Sadie felt her cheeks color, but she wasn’t sure why other than she didn’t like being the center of attention. She put her phone back in her pocket. She’d worry about it later.
“Is that it?” she said, pointing at a blue and gold sign half a block ahead, grateful for the change of subject.
“I think so,” Eric said, leaning forward. One of the lights in the sign for Advanced Storage was flickering as they all got out of the Jeep. A few feet to the left of the main glass door was an oversized garage door. Sadie assumed it was to allow loading and unloading of larger items. She’d never seen an interior storage unit and it seemed quite clever to her. A little classier than the run-of-the-mill, outdoor type.
Eric pulled the key from his pocket and turned it over, typing in the five-digit number written on the back. Everyone held their breath as he pushed the final number. A slight buzz was the only indication that the door was unlocked. Eric smiled and pulled the door open, stepping back to hold it for the rest of them.
“There it is,” Josh said a minute later, pointing at a tiny square on the map stuck to the wall that indicated the different units and how to exit the building in case of a fire. “Looks like we make two lefts and follow that hallway nearly to the end.”
“He sure found the unit fast, didn’t he, Mom?” Shawn commented as they followed Josh down the hallway.
“He was looking at a map,” Sadie said. “It wasn’t rocket science.”
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