“Despitefully use you,” Sadie finished for her. “I know the passage.”
They stared at one another. “Seriously, Jane, why are you here? I forgive you, or at least I will forgive you at some point, and I am sorry that your bad decisions might cost you your career. Does that make you feel better?”
Jane frowned. “I want to help you.”
“Help me with what?”
“With your case.”
Sadie laughed out loud, surprising herself. She slapped a hand over her mouth. It took a few seconds for her to recover and lower her hand. Yes, this was Jane Seeley—a woman who had set Sadie’s life on its ear—but Sadie was embarrassed by her own rudeness. “You want to help me with my case?”
Jane nodded, her eyes hopeful. “I’m a reporter, and I have all kinds of sources, databases, and journalistic wiles that I can use to help you. How do you think I found you here or learned about Shawn’s school issues—I think he should stay in, just so you know. I can help fill in the blanks for you, Sadie. Round out what you need to know about Sharla-May Sanderson and her father’s death.”
Jane knew about Jim’s death!
She continued. “I may have completely ruined my career as a journalist, but after following your escapades these last few months, I’ve realized there are other opportunities out there, other ways I can use my skills. You’re going into investigations; I can do that, too. I can be your wingman—or wingwoman.” She was fully animated, now, with a full smile and bright eyes that almost made her look like a different person. She stopped and grinned at Sadie, her expression so hopeful that Sadie felt herself considering Jane’s offer.
For about two seconds.
It only took a brief stroll down memory lane, looking at the encounters the two of them had had up to this point in their relationship for Sadie to realize how ridiculous it was for her to even consider trusting Jane. And yet, Jane seemed so sincere in this bizarre offer that Sadie hesitated to give her a smack down.
“I need some time to think about this,” Sadie said, feeling like an idiot for not giving this the gravity it deserved. “I have very few reasons to trust you, Jane, and I’m dealing with some extremely sensitive things right now.”
Jane nodded. “I saw Richard Kelly leaving as I arrived. Sharla-May won’t like you meeting with him.”
For the second time in five minutes, Sadie was shocked by what Jane knew, but she couldn’t show it, couldn’t let her surprise give Jane the upper hand, even though she couldn’t figure out how in the world Jane knew about Richard when Sadie had found him quite by accident. She was grateful Jane hadn’t arrived in time to see May’s dramatic exit, so she took a few seconds to try to decide what to do next. In the end, all she could think of was to stall.
“Where are you staying in Portland?”
“Well, here, at the hotel,” Jane said as though Sadie should have guessed that. “I’m on the third floor.”
Sadie nodded slowly, but the creep-out factor doubled. “I need to think about this,” she said again in a cautious tone. “Can we meet in the morning?”
Jane’s smile got even bigger, and she nodded, looking like a little girl desperate for approval. For an instant, Sadie wondered if Jane hadn’t been exactly that kind of little girl once upon a time. She’d told Sadie about her half-sister—Beautiful Becca, Jane had called her. Jane was not so much beautiful as she was intense, and Sadie could imagine a girl like that driving her parents crazy. It made her sad to think about it, but it was just speculation; she needed to not get carried away. It wasn’t always a good thing to have such a compassionate heart.
“How about eight o’clock?” Sadie said.
“For breakfast?” Jane asked.
“Sure,” Sadie said. “Breakfast would be good. They have a pretty good one here at the hotel.”
Jane headed for the door of Sadie’s room, pausing on the threshold of the open door. “Thanks for listening to me,” she said, sounding a little bit embarrassed. “Oh,” she pulled open her purse and removed a piece of paper. She held it out to Sadie.
“What’s this?” Sadie said, taking it cautiously.
“The pathologist’s report for Jim Sanderson. The coroner often requests a pathologist’s examination for unattended but unsuspicious deaths. The report is used to determine the cause of death, but it’s an internal-type document, not one the family would necessarily get a copy of unless they asked for it, which few people do. Consider it an olive branch.” She closed her purse and smiled one more time. “On the back I wrote down some basic notes on research I did for medications and such that could cause a heart attack that might be undetectable based on the testing they performed on the body.”
Sadie’s head snapped up, and she opened her mouth to ask how Jane knew that they suspected a heart attack–inducing medium, but realized the ramifications of her saying that out loud. She closed her mouth and turned over the paper, briefly scanning the list of eight or nine items.
One of the items was insulin, another was diuretics. There was also something called calcium hydroxide, as well as a few things she thought were prescription medications. It was a rough draft of Jane’s thoughts, and they weren’t complete. Clearly, Jane wanted to make sure Sadie had something to ask her questions about.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Jane said before Sadie could come up with anything else to say.
Sadie caught sight of Jane’s knowing smile before she disappeared through the door, leaving Sadie with her thoughts and the paper in her hand.
Chapter 38
Sadie studied the pathologist’s report for nearly half an hour. May had been mistaken; the coroner had done a partial autopsy, which supported the cause of death as being a heart attack. They’d also done a toxicology report. Jim had had a glass of wine with dinner, but besides that, nothing other than his heart medication showed up. There was really nothing here to support an accusation of murder. Then she flipped the paper over to Jane’s notes. She’d said these were things that could have been undetected based on the tests that had been run.
Sadie considered her options. She didn’t trust Jane. Even though part of her wanted to, she didn’t, and while the pathologist’s report was interesting and Sadie was glad to have it, she knew it would be foolish to believe anything Jane said after the history she had with the feisty reporter. But . . . what if Jane was sincere? She’d managed to find out about Florida, and Shawn’s school, and Sadie’s life, not to mention Jim Sanderson’s death. Jane had skills to do what Sadie couldn’t.
It was an exciting possibility to have someone navigate the more twisty points of research, but the temptation didn’t negate the possibility that this whole thing could be Jane’s way of getting a story. How could Sadie know for sure? After a few minutes, she realized that she couldn’t know for sure. Besides, Sadie had already taken too many liberties that had hurt May, and she didn’t dare take anymore.
Forty-five minutes later, Sadie had packed up her equipment and made a new reservation at a hotel across town. From the Internet site, it didn’t look like it had the charm of the Mark Spencer Hotel, but she’d pay cash this time and hopefully stay a step ahead of Jane until Sadie was ready to leave. Jane’s offer still tingled in the back of her mind, but it was not a decision Sadie could make without lots of time to think it through. As tempting as it was to have Jane continue researching causes of death and look up the histories of people of interest, Sadie couldn’t forget the story about the turtle who gave a repentant scorpion a ride across the river only to be stung halfway across.
“What did you do that for?” the turtle asked the scorpion as they were both drowning.
“It’s just my nature,” the scorpion replied.
Sadie didn’t want to be a stupid turtle about this, but she could relate to the turtle wanting to believe that the scorpion had changed his ways. If Jane was actually what she claimed to be, things could really open up for Sadie; Jane could access information, help her line up the facts, and fill in the bla
nks. But this was May’s life, May’s pursuit for truth. Sadie couldn’t hand that over to someone who might exploit it, who might drown them all.
After sleeping—sorta—for a few hours, Sadie got up and began taking her things out to her car, watching closely for Jane to appear around a corner and catch her escape. After she’d loaded up her car, she went to the front desk and checked out, much to the desk clerk’s confusion. It was the same clerk who had witnessed the altercation in the lobby and parking lot. She was probably glad to see Sadie go, but that made Sadie feel kind of bad too.
“You have a very nice hotel,” she said, hoping to assure the clerk that Sadie wasn’t leaving because of poor quality. “I’ll be sure to come again another time. You and your staff do an excellent job here.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” the woman said as she gave Sadie the final receipt, which Sadie tucked into her wallet for her records.
She took a final look around the hotel lobby, then headed outside and into the heavy cool air of early-morning Portland. The next leg of her journey had begun.
At ten minutes to eight that morning—after Sadie had managed another few hours of sleep—she sent Jane a text message explaining that she still needed more time to think about Jane’s offer. She’d let Jane figure out that she wasn’t at the hotel anymore.
Jane texted back a minute later.
I understand. I can wait.
It wasn’t the response Sadie had expected, and it made her uncomfortable to be surprised by this woman. Knowing what she was dealing with was far more comfortable than trying to guess at Jane’s motives.
She moved on to the next item on her list: set up an appointment with Gary Tracey. This one felt risky—Gary was awfully close to May—and yet she had an open invitation from him to talk, and without many other people to get information from now, it was hard to ignore the opportunity. Her gut told her it was a good idea; then again, her gut hadn’t warned her that May would track her down with Richard last night. She called Gary’s phone number from the card but only got his voice mail. She left a message and asked that he call or text her about meeting today.
On the way back to the airport—she wanted to turn in this car and get a new one so that she’d have a complete separation of expenses for on-the-job versus on-her-own—her phone rang. She clenched her teeth. She hated not being able to answer her phone and wondered why she hadn’t invested in a Bluetooth when she’d bought all that other equipment. It could be Richard with information he’d learned about the lunch meeting between his father and Jim, or May, offering her another chance. It was a relief when she heard the chime that indicated a voice message; at least she’d know what the call was about.
As soon as she pulled into the rental car lot, she picked up her phone to see who had called. It was Pete, and a shiver rushed through her as she called her voice mail. She hadn’t planned to speak to him until she returned to Garrison and was eager to know what had changed that plan.
“Good morning, Sadie. At the risk of setting a pattern each time you go out of town, I noticed this morning that you received a cell phone citation in Oregon. I know that we’ve both made it very clear that what you’re doing there is none of my business, but I . . . well, I’m worried about you. I hope you’re okay. I know you weren’t planning to call me until you got back to Garrison, but if you wanted to call and give me an update, I’m not opposed to that.”
Not opposed? Sadie repeated as she pressed the button to delete the message. Not opposed? Oh, what an infuriating man he was! She threw the phone back in her purse and pushed open her door. “Not opposed,” she muttered as she headed toward the rental car office. It felt as though she was at odds with everyone—except, apparently, Jane Seeley.
“Focus,” she said to herself as she pushed through the glass doors. She could think about Pete later—Jane too—but she had a limited amount of time to make sense of the information she’d already learned and couldn’t risk distraction. If May found out what she was doing, it would become even more complicated. There was no room for Sadie to get lost in her personal issues. Professional investigators had to put their personal lives on hold all the time. Unfortunately, Sadie was feeling less and less professional by the minute. She didn’t even have a client anymore. But one thing she couldn’t deny was that when she’d agreed to take this job, she’d felt that it was the right decision. After everything that had happened since then, staying and finishing what she could still felt right.
With a heavy sigh, she approached the counter, where a round-faced young man was waiting for her. She was officially changing the game she’d come here to play. Everything would be different now, and it made her feel very vulnerable and out of sorts. Focus was good, but confidence that she was doing the right thing would be even better.
Chapter 39
An hour later, Sadie pulled up to Karri’s—the restaurant where she and May had shared that first meal and where Jim had met Keith Kelly for a secret lunch more than a month ago. It didn’t look like Karri’s was open for breakfast, but there were two cars parked around back. She parked next to them and found the back door unlocked. She let herself in and paused on the landing of a split staircase. She walked up the steps until she entered a relatively small kitchen area, which had been expanded and commercialized since anyone had used this house for a residence.
“Hello?” she called out, taking timid steps toward a large stainless steel island.
“Hello,” a woman called from somewhere to the left. “I’ll be right there.”
Sadie stopped where she was and waited for the woman to appear, which she did shortly, wiping her hands on a paper towel. The woman was tall and lean, with a green bandana tied around her dark hair that hung in one long braid over her left shoulder. She looked as though she might be part Hispanic, or maybe Greek. She had an open expression on her makeup-free face and swirling colors running the length of both arms. At first Sadie thought it was a shirt, then realized they were tattoos. She tried not to stare.
“Sorry,” the woman said. “I thought you were my linen delivery.” She threw the paper towel past Sadie and into the garbage can.
Sadie smiled as she put out her hand. “Are you Karri?”
“Sure am. And you are?” They shook hands briefly.
“My name’s Sadie Hoffmiller. I’m sorry to bother you, but I wondered if I could ask you—or someone on your wait staff—some questions.”
Karri’s friendly expression didn’t waver. “Questions about what?”
“Um, Jim Sanderson. He was regular patron here, I think.”
The woman nodded. “Sure was,” she said, her smile turning sad. “Who are you?”
Sadie had been prepared for this question, and while she couldn’t believe she was doing it, she pulled the private investigator card Shawn had made for her out of her purse. Hopefully Karri wasn’t familiar enough with a real private investigator license to know Sadie’s ID wasn’t official.
“You’re an investigator?” Karri said after looking at the ID. She handed the card back to Sadie, her eyebrows raised.
Sadie quickly hid the ID in her purse again. She’d never hear the end of it when Shawn learned she’d actually used it. “I am.”
“And you’re investigating Jim?”
“Not Jim, someone else, but it pertains to Jim. I just need to fill in some blanks about a lunch he had here a couple of weeks before he died.”
Karri frowned. “Jim came in a few times a week, but—” She glanced over her shoulder as something dinged behind her. The expression on her face showed her consideration of everything, and finally softened—a decision had been reached. “Um, those are my rolls. I’ll do my best to answer your questions if you don’t mind me working while we talk.”
“Not at all,” Sadie said, relieved that there would be something else to focus on so that the discussion wouldn’t feel so formal.
“Thanks,” Karri said over her shoulder as she headed toward another part of the kitchen. “We open in a co
uple of hours, and there’s still a lot of prep to be done before then. Follow me.”
They went around the corner and saw a young man with headphones on slicing vegetables, his head moving slightly to the beat of whatever was pulsing in his eardrums. He gave a little chin nod to them both when they passed, but immediately went back to his work. The smell of baking bread got stronger and stronger until they reached a double-door oven.
“You seem young to be the owner of this place,” Sadie said, taking in how well Karri had used the limited space. Pans hung from the ceiling, and every portion of wall had something hanging from it or pushed up against it. “Did you always want to own a restaurant?”
Karri gave Sadie an appreciative smile as she pulled on a pair of oven mitts. “I sure did,” she said. “Owning my own place has been my dream for as long as I can remember. It finally became a reality about four years ago when this place went up for sale. It was a great price but needed some updating in order to be up to code.” She pointed at something on the ceiling with her eyes. Sadie looked up and noted the exposed sprinkler pipe.
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