Wedding Cake Page 3

  The police had also traced the text messages through the cell phone tower closest to Sadie’s house but Sadie had already known that Jane must have been close enough to see Shawn come home from the party. That particular tower covered half of the town so it didn’t really narrow things down as to where the police should start looking.

  Lost in thought, Sadie didn’t notice Pete had crossed the room until he was only a few feet away from her. “It’s going to be okay,” he said.

  “Is it?” Sadie replied, irrationally irritated by his attempts to pacify her fears. “I spent over a year in hiding because of that woman.” She’d stopped hiding about nine months ago, finally easing back into a normal life not ruled by fear. She didn’t want to give that up.

  “The police are doing everything they can,” Pete said. “And you’re safe—that’s what matters the most. You need to have confidence that she isn’t smarter than everyone else—even if she thinks she is. We’re going to find her, Sadie.”

  Sadie’s irritation faded enough for her to feel bad about spouting off when she knew how much effort was going into protecting her. “Thank you for everything you’ve done,” she said. “And be sure to thank the department. I feel so . . . responsible for all—”

  “You’re not responsible,” Pete cut in. “And we are going to find her.” He leaned in for a quick kiss before reminding both Sadie and Shawn that he was only a phone call away and that an officer would remain posted outside their door. Sadie wondered if Pete would be up all night helping with the case despite the fact that he had retired from the police department a few months earlier. She hated this so much.

  After the door was locked and the chain engaged, Sadie lifted her suitcase onto the dresser and unzipped it. She was in the process of double-checking the items and attempting better organization of her things when she thought about Breanna. Her hands slowed as she considered that her daughter and Liam would be arriving in Denver twelve hours from now. Maybe the police would have found Jane by then, but if they didn’t . . .

  She looked at Shawn, whose eyebrows were pulled together as he continued texting—probably with Maggie. She hated that he was in the middle of this as much as she was, and she wasn’t sure she could handle the increased pressure of Breanna being in the same position.

  After a few more moments of consideration, Sadie turned away from her suitcase. She knew what she had to do, as much as she despised doing it.

  “Can I borrow your phone?” she asked Shawn. The police had taken her phone in order to download the texting history. She hoped they didn’t read the ones between Pete and her—the personal nature of their messages would embarrass everyone, not just Sadie and Pete.

  “Uh, sure,” Shawn said. “Just let me finish this up. Are you making a call or sending a text?”

  “Text.” Breanna wouldn’t get it until her flight landed four hours from now, but Sadie hoped to be sleeping by then. She was exhausted and knew she’d need rest before she faced whatever tomorrow might hold. Shawn opened a new text message and handed the phone to Sadie.

  Before Sadie typed out the message she felt a rush of resentment, regret, and just plain anger that any of this was happening. It was so unfair that Jane had hijacked such a happy time for all of them and turned it into her stage. Pete’s words came back to her, that Jane wasn’t smarter than everyone else. Sadie had to believe that was true. Despite her own pessimistic thoughts, she had to believe the police could catch her, put an end to the shadow Sadie had been living under, and bring Jane to justice for the things she’d done in Boston. Accepting that belief system, rather than a more fatalistic one, made it easier to type the message to her daughter—not a lot easier, but a little.

  This is Mom. Stay in Minneapolis. Jane is here. Shawn and I are at the Carmichael. I’ll call with details in the morning.

  Chapter 4

  It took half of a sleeping pill and twenty minutes of soothing rain sounds from an app on Shawn’s phone before Sadie fell asleep. She used her headphones to not disturb Shawn but woke up around five o’clock tangled in the headphone cord; she thought it was a rope for a frightening few moments. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think of anything other than the fact that she was trapped, that Jane had somehow found her. The terror kept her frozen until she awakened enough to realize she was as safe as she’d ever been.

  After disentangling herself from the headphone cord and thinking calming thoughts until her heart rate returned to normal, she put her legs over the side of the bed and sat up in hopes it would help clear her head from the leftover fog of the prescription medication she hadn’t used in months.

  The silver dawn of morning peeked through the gaps around the curtain, outlining Shawn’s mountainous form in the other bed. She stretched and blinked and only then did she remember everything. The subconscious hope of a new day was smothered and choked.

  Sadie closed her eyes and wished she was still asleep even as her mind slogged into wakefulness and anticipation of the day looming before her. She reached for Shawn’s phone, unplugged the headphones, and checked Shawn’s text messages for anything from Breanna or Pete. She purposely did not read the text from Maggie as it was none of her business—though it sorely tempted her.

  There was one text from Breanna.

  Breanna: What?!? Call me when you can. Be safe.

  Sadie looked around the hotel room and thought about the police officer posted outside her door. She was safe. Pete and the police were making sure of it, but if they’d found Jane during the night, Pete would have made sure she knew it. Since he hadn’t, Sadie had to assume that Jane was still out there.

  She went into the bathroom so she could call Breanna without waking Shawn. Breanna answered on the second ring, and Sadie explained the situation before all but forbidding Breanna and Liam from coming to Garrison. They had already missed their scheduled flight per Sadie’s instructions but they could catch another one, Breanna said. She obviously wanted to come, but Sadie was relieved that she didn’t argue.

  “What does Jane want?” Breanna asked in a frustrated tone.

  Sadie opened her mouth before realizing she didn’t have an answer to that very simple question. “I don’t know,” she finally said.

  Before—in Boston—Jane had wanted Sadie’s attention, approval, and . . . friendship; paltry things in light of the lengths Jane went to in order to earn them, as though her manipulations could make a difference. From the first time Sadie had met Jane, she’d never trusted her entirely, not even after Jane saved Sadie’s life in Portland. There had always been something that held Sadie back, a kind of cunning on Jane’s part that kept Sadie wary. Frustrated that Sadie wasn’t relying on her more, Jane had increased the stakes in an attempt to drive Sadie to include Jane in what was happening. When Sadie still didn’t turn to Jane for help, Jane had staged Sadie’s abduction and positioned herself as the rescuer—certain that would earn Sadie’s loyalty. Things had not gone according to Jane’s plan and the night had ended with a knife at Sadie’s neck and a threat that had rung in her ears ever since. What Jane had wanted back then was impossible now, which made it difficult to guess at her possible motivations for coming back now.

  What does she want? Sadie had no idea.

  “Mom, at least let us come as far as Denver,” Breanna asked. “We can stay there until you give us the all clear to come to Garrison, but at least we’ll be close instead of halfway across the country. Maybe we can even help. Liam offered to hire a security company to work the wedding events; his mom does that all the time. I don’t want to be so far away.”

  “I don’t know,” Sadie said, wavering. She wanted Breanna here—her daughter had strength and calmness Sadie could certainly use about now. “I’m worried someone might get hurt.” Jane had hurt Mrs. Wapple in Boston, which gave precedence for Sadie’s fears.

  Breanna followed Sadie’s line of thought perfectly and easily argued the point Sadie hadn’t said out loud. “Mrs. Wapple was some crazy woman who dug for potatoes i
n her flower beds. Give us some credit at being a bit more savvy than she was.”

  Sadie let out a breath. She didn’t know what to say but Breanna saved her from having to speak.

  “We’re coming to Denver.” Breanna wasn’t one to be so instantly decisive, which showed how strong her feelings were. Sadie heard some muffled whispers and imagined that Liam had been waved toward the ticket counter to work out the details of finding a new flight. “I’ll call you when we get there. Have you talked to Pete this morning?”

  “If they’d found her or discovered anything important during the night Pete would have called or texted me.”

  “Maybe you should call him and make sure.”

  Sadie considered that but felt sure Pete had been up most of the night helping with the investigation. She didn’t want to disturb him in case he’d managed to catch a little sleep. “I’ll call him in a little while,” she said, scrubbing a hand across her forehead where the first taps of a headache were growing stronger. “I’m going to shower and organize my thoughts. Let me know what time you’ll be landing in Denver, okay?”

  “Hang in there, Mom. Everything’s going to work out.”

  They ended the call, and Sadie retrieved her clothes from her suitcase—quietly so as not to wake Shawn—closed the bathroom door behind her, and turned on the shower. A minute later she stepped under the hot water and felt the physical and mental relaxation the warmth inspired.

  For the first time since working so hard to forget that night in Boston, Sadie went back to it in her head. She needed to remember everything about Jane to be clear about what she was up against. That night was something Sadie had wanted to forget so it was difficult to pull forward. She forced herself to do so, however, and put herself back in the art gallery on Newbury Street.

  Sadie had been in the office of the Bastian Gallery when she saw what she thought was a ghost coming toward her face. The ghost had turned out to be a rag doused with chloroform and it had rendered her unconscious. Sadie remembered waking up in the trunk of a car. She remembered Jane letting her out of the trunk and then driving past the police station, promising Sadie she’d take her there after she blamed someone else for Sadie’s abduction. Sadie jumping out of the car. Hiding at the pond. Listening to Jane search for her in the fog and . . .

  Sadie’s mind shut off the memory like an old-fashioned movie reel running out of film.

  She turned her face up into the water before going back into the memory. She started with the ghost again and tried to stay in the memory, which kicked her out a second time when her anxiety levels got too high. Frustrated but determined, she turned around so the water hit her back, and she closed her eyes again, pictured the ghost, and put herself back there. Trunk. Darkness. Cold. Rescue. Doubts. Drive. Fear. Panic. Her hand on the handle of the door when she thought about jumping from Jane’s car. Jump . . . and she was kicked out again.

  Sadie growled at her inability to see this through and turned the water off. The bathroom had steamed up from such a long hot shower, and a sucking kind of silence filled the room. The vapor settled and moved around her—a warm version of the cold fog that had appeared that night in Boston, both blinding and protecting her.

  Sadie put herself back into the memory and scrolled through everything again, determined to find a balance between feeling the emotions she’d felt that night and not letting them overwhelm her in the present. Driving. Passing the police station. Pete. Jane’s confession. Fear. Panic. The sign to Jamaica Pond. Her hand on the door. A red light. A turn. Rolling on the concrete. Crawling into the fog and trees. Hiding. Jane’s attack. Pete. And then . . . “You’ll never be free of me, Sadie! Never.”

  The words sent a shiver down Sadie’s spine that was quickly followed with confirmation of just how true those words had proven to be. Jane’s threat had changed so many things for Sadie, sending her into a state of anxiety, and to both Hawaii and then New Mexico as she tried to learn how to feel safe again.

  The Boston police had conducted a thorough manhunt for Jane after the incident in Boston but other than confirming her as the person behind the seemingly mystical things that had been happening to Sadie and Pete, the police had come up empty-handed. Jane Seeley was not her real name but an alias she’d been using for approximately three years—a very good alias that hid her true identity. “Jane Seeley” had disappeared as soon as she’d run away from Pete that night, and she never used her debit card, cell phone account, or driver’s license again.

  Though Pete had insisted Sadie take extreme precautions and had kept his eye on databases and records, the police hadn’t found so much as a shadow of the woman known as Jane Seeley. There was a warrant for her arrest and fingerprints in the national database that would be matched should she be arrested anywhere in the country. If that happened, then she-who-they-called-Jane would go straight to jail for the crimes committed in Boston. But she had to be found first, and that hadn’t happened in nearly two years.

  Now, Jane was back—just as she’d promised—and drowning out every beautiful thing in Sadie’s life. Once again, she was a hostage.

  Sadie stepped out of the shower and dried off, deep in thought. She dressed and considered the optimistic possibility that the text messages might be the extent of Jane’s interference. Jane had to know the police department would be on high alert due to the threat against Sadie—someone who was so closely tied to one of their own: Pete.

  What if Jane had sent the texts and then left town to save herself, believing the texts would be enough to send the wedding into a tailspin? She might be miles away by now knowing that everyone was scrambling into a defensive position. She must have a life established somewhere else to return to. She could then play this game with Sadie all over again sometime in the future. The very idea of having to deal with this level of stress and frustration again made Sadie groan out loud. The Garrison police department had been searching for Jane for hours—maybe she was too far away to be found.

  Sadie wiped away some of the condensation that had built up on the mirror and looked at her reflection as though consulting all the versions of herself before making a decision on what to do. She thought of the other cases she’d been involved in—cases about someone else and their troubles. She had taken countless risks to solve those mysteries; she’d been determined and smart, and she’d helped to find resolutions. Now, it was her trouble she was dealing with, and she was hiding in a hotel room. It felt so counterintuitive for her to hide while everyone else tried to fix this. Meanwhile, what about the wedding? With everyone so intent on finding Jane, would Sadie and Pete choose to postpone the wedding? Was Sadie willing to give Jane that much power?

  “I am not,” she said to her reflection and felt buoyed by the proclamation. Her thoughts shifted just enough to feel strong again. Did a few text messages truly warrant the amount of attention they’d all given to the situation? Was Jane’s taunting worth all of this? Jane had once told Sadie that she knew how people thought; she’d nearly bested Sadie before by anticipating how Sadie would react to a given situation. But Sadie had outsmarted her, and then, through her healing from the psychological toll Jane and Sadie’s other cases had taken on her, Sadie had become stronger than ever. More assured. More capable. So why was she running scared now?

  The deeper Sadie reflected, the more invigorated she felt by the reminders of what she had done in the past. Jane had thought she had the upper hand before and she’d been wrong. She’d made mistakes that had proved her undoing; like Pete said, Jane hadn’t been smarter than everyone else. The Sadie who Jane had attacked at Jamaica Pond in Boston was not the same Sadie that Jane had taunted last night. This Sadie would not give up her wedding so easily. She would not hide. Resolved and relieved to have an empowered direction, Sadie wrapped a towel around her still-wet hair before leaving the bathroom.

  “Shawn,” she said as she gathered moisturizer, hair products, and makeup from her suitcase. She hadn’t brought everything she used on a typical day, just
enough to make herself presentable.

  “Huh-hmm,” Shawn mumbled from the other bed.

  “It’s time to get up.”

  He rolled onto his back. “Wh-what?”

  “It’s almost six but we need to get going.”

  “G-go where? What?” He sat up, bracing himself with his elbows while blinking toward her in the semidarkness.

  “We’re going home,” Sadie said. She’d found everything she needed to finish getting ready. “I’ve got so much to do today—getting ready for the barbeque tonight, packing for my honeymoon, double-checking everything to make sure every T has been crossed.”

  “Wait, did they find Jane, then?”

  “Not yet,” Sadie said with a flutter of anxiety in her stomach. “But nothing is going to happen as long as I’m hiding in a hotel room. And I’m not giving up my wedding so easily.”

  Chapter 5

  Sadie’s idea was easier to come up with than to actually put into action. Pete had driven her and Shawn to the Carmichael last night, so after they were packed up and ready to go, she asked for a ride home from the officer posted outside her hotel room door. The officer called his superior, Detective Malloy, whom Sadie had met on her first ever murder investigation involving her neighbor four years ago. Sadie and Malloy had never really seen eye-to-eye, and the officer posted at the hotel ended up driving them to the police station so that they could “discuss it” in person. Pete was called, and Sadie and Shawn both tried not to act or feel like children sent to the principal’s office.

  An hour after first explaining her reasoning to Malloy, she was explaining herself to Pete—the person whose opinion mattered the very most—and hoping he would back her up. He sat in one of the chairs in Malloy’s office with his arms folded over his chest and that blank detective expression on his face while she explained why reacting with such defensiveness may very well be working against them and why it would be best for her to go back to her normal routine.