Lemon Tart

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Sadie smiled and tears filled her eyes—both actions hurt her face terribly. “Mindy, you’re an absolute angel.”

  Mindy beamed at the compliment. The van came out of the trees, the fork in the road half a mile ahead of them. “Well, thanks,” she said. “Now we just need to get you to the hospital. What happened anyway? Did he beat you up? I saw that on the news a few weeks ago, how these cops beat up this guy. He was in bad shape, I tell you what, his face all big and gross. I could tell right away he’d have a scar where they—”

  Sadie sat up straight. “Mindy,” she said, turning toward her savior and putting a hand on her arm. “We can’t go to the hospital.”

  Mindy glanced at her and her eyebrows lifted. “We have to, Sadie, you’re badly injured.”

  Sadie shook her head despite the pain it sent through her neck. “We have to find Jack’s cabin,” she said, pointing to the fork in the road. “Carrie has Trevor there.”

  Mindy’s eyebrows lifted even higher. “Trevor?” she repeated. “What do you mean?”

  “Detective Madsen killed Anne,” Sadie said, leaning back against the seat. “But I think Carrie told Jack she’d done it and took Trevor and now she’s hiding him. Jack turned himself in and said Trevor would be found soon, and Carrie was going to give Trevor to Madsen, but Madsen is handcuffed to a tree. Trina’s helping her mom and we have to find them. Trevor is Jack’s son, see, and Carrie found out about Anne and . . . well, it’s a bit complicated.” Wow, she’d spoken almost as fast as Mindy.

  “Carrie?” Mindy repeated as if that was the only word of substance she’d been able to grasp in Sadie’s explanation. She glanced at Sadie again. “Jack?”

  Sadie pointed at the fork just a few yards ahead of them. “Take the other road,” she said. “Jack’s cabin is up there.”

  Mindy was silent for a few seconds and Sadie feared she’d perhaps dropped such a bombshell that even the likes of Mindy Bailey was silenced by the shock.

  She was wrong.

  Mindy took a breath and began talking again as if Sadie hadn’t just shared such a sordid secret. Mindy had never struck Sadie as particularly bright. “It is? I’ve never been there. Steve has, he used to hunt with Jack sometimes and he told me about it—said it wasn’t much. But Steve’s not much of a rustic man, ya know, despite the fact that he works at a sporting goods store. He’s more the athletic type, not so much the outdoorsman. This one time . . .”

  Sadie tuned her out, her attention riveted on the road. Mindy made the turn as Sadie instructed and Sadie leaned forward, scanning the trees on either side. She remembered a dirt road on the left, that was the first turn, but it was a ways up the road.

  “Turn there,” Sadie said a mile later, pointing to the dirt road, hoping it was the right one. She immediately saw a large A-frame that she knew hadn’t been there the last time she’d been to the cabin. She hoped it had been built recently and that she hadn’t chosen the wrong road. There was no time to wander aimlessly.

  Mindy hadn’t skipped a beat. “And they wanted to charge me eighty bucks when he wasn’t even there for an hour. I told them, no way, not for something like this. Now if it were carpets, that’s different, but then you pay by the room for carpet, not by the hour. My father-in-law used to lay carpet and he said that most people don’t know that—”

  “Right here,” Sadie said, swallowing as the trees parted enough to show the small brown cabin set back from the road. Both Jack’s truck and Carrie’s car were parked along the side and Sadie swallowed.

  They were here!

  Chapter 38

  As soon as the van door opened, Sadie jumped from the vehicle and ran for the cabin door, throwing it open. Carrie and Trina looked up from where they were sitting at the small table covered in papers. Sadie barely gave them a glance before scanning the room, her eyes taking in the black filing cabinet next to the table before resting on the small form curled up in a port-a-crib in the middle of the room. She took a few steps forward and seeing his small chest rise and fall made her feel as if her heart had just begun to beat again. A fire was roaring in the wood-burning stove in the corner and Sadie was relieved that he’d been warm. The last thing he needed after all of this was to catch a chill.

  Both of the other women came to their feet and the three of them stared at one another across the small—but surprisingly tidy—room. Sadie held Carrie’s eyes. “You were going to let him take the fall for it?” she accused her sister-in-law. “You were going to let him go to prison?”

  Carrie didn’t look away, raising her chin slightly in a display of arrogance. The room was silent, until Mindy came up behind Sadie in the doorway.

  “Oh, hi, Carrie,” she said in what sounded like a cautious tone. But it didn’t take long for her to switch into her hyper-oblivion mode. “Hi, Trina. Aren’t you supposed to be in school? Do you like it there? It’s fun, isn’t it? I remember college, wow, what an experience. I think all kids should go to college. That’s where Steve and I met, you know, I was a freshman. Have you met any—”

  “Mindy,” Sadie said, still staring at her sister-in-law. “Please, for once in your life, shut up.”

  Mindy’s eyes went wide but her teeth snapped together. Sadie had never talked to her that way and, under the circumstances, Sadie didn’t even care—though she knew she’d be baking later to make up for her rudeness.

  “Who’s to say Jack didn’t kill her?” Carrie said.

  Sadie shook her head. “That’s not why he’s there, is it? He’s there because he thinks you did it and he believes it’s all his fault.”

  “It is his fault!” Carrie hissed. She placed her hands on the small table and leaned forward, her eyes narrowed and her jaw tight. Trina looked like a scared kitten and seemed to shrink backward, making Sadie wonder just how willing a participant she’d been in this whole thing.

  “No, it’s not,” Sadie said slowly. “Detective Madsen killed Anne, Carrie; he’s the one who belongs in prison. You knew it wasn’t Jack all along. He’s a good man, and you know it, but you were willing to let him take the fall for vengeance.”

  Carrie’s nostrils flared. “He is not a good man,” she said. “How can you dismiss what he’s done? How can you let him get away with it?”

  “He’s not getting away with anything,” Sadie countered, throwing up her hands to encompass all that had happened. “He’s had to live with himself through this whole thing, knowing how many people he was hurting. Now Anne is dead. He’ll carry that with him the rest of his life.”

  “It’s not enough,” Carrie said between clenched teeth as she shook her head. “Not nearly enough to make up for what he’s done.”

  “Perhaps not, but then he’s never been good enough for you anyway, has he?”

  Carrie’s eyebrows came together and Sadie continued. “What he did was wrong—horribly wrong—but you are not helping anything.” She looked at Trevor and began walking toward him. “Especially in this.”

  Carrie hurried to get in Sadie’s way, lifting her chin and looking defiant. “You aren’t—”

  “Yes, I am!” Sadie said slow and sincere. “You’ve done enough and if you think I’ll be half as easy to roll over as Jack has been, you’ve made a grave error in judgment. Madsen”—she looked at Trina with sympathy—“the man you know as Randy Sharp—isn’t coming, and there is no way to keep Trina or yourself out of this any longer.” Trina’s eyes went wide with confusion. “You are going to have a lot of explaining to do, but if you try to stop me from taking this little boy to his father now, you’ll have more fight on your hands than you could possibly imagine.”

  Carrie lifted her chin higher and when Sadie took another step and Carrie moved forward to block her way again, Sadie raised both hands and pushed the other woman as hard as she could. Carrie was taken off guard and stumbled backward before tripping over the hearth of the wood-burning stove. She immediately stood and took a step forward, but Sadie lowered her chin and took a stance similar to the one she’d taken wit
h Madsen not long ago, crouching slightly, shoulders up and jaw tight.

  Carrie straightened and the fear finally entered her eyes. She’d realized she was literally in a corner.

  “Just give me a reason, Carrie,” Sadie said. “It’s been a very trying afternoon and I could use the outlet.” Wow, she sounded like a wrestler or something!

  Carrie’s shoulders slumped and she took a step back, instead of forward.

  Assured that Carrie wasn’t going to try anything, Sadie bent down and reached out a hand to smooth Trevor’s hair from his face, tears rising as she realized it was over. Trevor was found, he was safe. He had a life ahead of him, though one without a mother, with a father he barely knew, and a history he would never be free of. She reached under him and lifted him in her arms. Thank goodness she’d come at nap time. He shifted and blinked his eyes open as she adjusted him against her shoulder, not wanting him to see her swollen face.

  “But . . .”

  Sadie turned to face Trina who began to speak. “We . . . we weren’t going to hurt him. And Randy—what do you mean about Randy?”

  Sadie smiled at her niece, sympathetic for her situation. “You’re going to be okay, Trina, really,” she said in comforting tones. “Detective Madsen is Randy Sharp. He tricked you because he was going to blackmail your father. It wasn’t your fault, but you can still do the right thing for Trevor and for your dad by telling the truth when you get to the police station.”

  “You don’t understand,” Carrie said from the far side of the room, crying now.

  Sadie turned and looked between the two of them, mother and daughter. “Maybe not,” she said quietly, one hand holding Trevor against her and the other smoothing his hair. She tried to keep her voice calm for Trevor’s sake. “But I know Jack was willing to go to prison for you, Carrie. I wonder if that means anything to you. All he can do is try to make a very big wrong a little bit right. I wonder if you will make that harder or easier for him to do.”

  She turned, surprised to find a quiet Mindy still in the doorway. She’d forgotten all about her. “I’m sorry for telling you to shut up, Mindy, but can you please drive us back to town despite my rudeness?” Not waiting for an answer, she headed outside, aware of Mindy pulling the door shut behind her.

  Sadie was only a few steps away from the cabin when tires crunched on the gravel drive. She froze, unprepared for anything else.

  “Mrs. Hoffmiller,” Detective Cunningham said with a tone that caught Sadie’s attention despite all the swirling thoughts and emotions in her mind. He was stepping out of a brown sedan and hearing his voice allowed her to relax. He sounded relieved and scared and a tad bit hyper all at once. In moments he was at her side, attempting to take Trevor from her arms as another officer headed toward the cabin. “Your daughter called us and said you might be coming to the cabin. Jack gave us directions. Let me take him.”

  She held on tight to the toddler as Mindy followed the second officer into the cabin, relaying their story as fast as she could. “He’s okay,” Sadie breathed. “Just let me hold him for a minute.”

  Cunningham nodded and led her to the sedan, opening the back door so she could slide inside. “What happened?” he asked, once she had leaned against the seat. He had one hand holding the door open, the other braced against the frame of the car. His eyes were so troubled, and yet with relief behind them.

  “Oh,” she said, shaking her head as she tried to imagine how to give the details. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “You’re hurt,” he said as his eyes seemed to scan her face for the first time.

  “I hit a tree, but I’m okay.”

  “A tree?”

  “I know, I can’t believe it either, I’ve never hit anything in my life; well, other than Shawn’s bike, I guess.”

  Cunningham paused, looking a bit confused. “Where’s Madsen?”

  “He’s handcuffed to a tree about, oh, three miles or so from here. He’s going to need surgery on his hand . . . and maybe some stitches for his face, but I think he’ll be okay, other than the fact that he’s a very angry man and I’m not sure what the cure is for that.”

  Cunningham’s face scrunched, his confusion deepening. “What?”

  She shook her head slightly and placed a hand on Trevor’s hair again, reminding herself that he was there, still sleeping, blissfully unaware of his circumstances. She looked up and met Cunningham’s eyes with her own. Her tears overflowed as the tension finally drained away, her body finally accepting that she, as well as Trevor, was safe. “Can you please take me to see Jack? This boy needs his dad.”

  Chapter 39

  Sadie stood behind the mirrored wall looking in on Jack once again. Detective Cunningham stood next to her; Trevor was in another office being tended to by a representative of Family Services. In a few minutes, once Jack had finished giving his official statement to the police, father and son would be reunited.

  “A bittersweet reunion if ever there was one,” Sadie whispered under her breath, almost not realizing she’d spoken out loud until Cunningham replied to her comment.

  “But a reunion nonetheless. It doesn’t always have this kind of ending.”

  Sadie nodded her understanding.

  “Madsen?” she asked after a few more moments, still watching Jack.

  “Fine,” Cunningham said bluntly with a shrug of his shoulders and the faintest smile on his face. “He’d nearly broke through the tree you hooked him to by the time we found him—mouth of a sailor, that kid.”

  “Very poor reflection on his parents,” Sadie said with a nod, “that’s for sure. I wonder how his father will cover this one up.”

  A silence stretched between them, but not a silence of discomfort. Rather it was a pause laced with anticipation of what words would fill the space between them—a comfortable silence, a calm following the storm.

  “Are you ready to go to the hospital, get yourself checked out? Air bags pack quite a punch.”

  Sadie shrugged. “It’s nothing some ice, herbal tea, and Tylenol can’t fix. I’d rather stay here.”

  The door to the little room they were in opened and a female officer looked around until she met Sadie’s eyes. “Mrs. Hoffmiller, someone would like to talk to you.”

  Sadie wasn’t sure who to expect, but after leaving the room and seeing Ron waiting, her steps slowed. He stood up from the plastic chair he’d been sitting in, one of a dozen pushed up against the wall. She stopped and let him approach her, bracing herself for what she knew had to happen next.

  “Ron,” she said when he was a few feet away. “I know what really happened, and though I also know you’re not an evil person, I don’t think that—”

  He cut her off by putting his hands up, palms out, and facing her. “I know what you’re going to say,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “But I’ve thought about everything and come to the conclusion that whether you agree with me or not, I did the right thing and I have no qualms about what I did.”

  Sadie was stunned, reviewing the regret and what had seemed to be tortured tones of their conversation back at the house. She shook her head sadly, even more confused by this man she thought she knew. However, she was grateful to have learned the truth about him before they married, rather than afterward. That would have been horrible. “Well, if you have no qualms about the choices you made, then you’ve only proved my position that we’re not well matched.”

  His eyebrows furrowed as if he hadn’t expected that reaction, but he quickly recovered. “I think you’re being unfair, judgmental, and pious.”

  Sadie’s mouth dropped open and she blinked at him. “Me? Well, I think you’re being arrogant, demeaning, and stupid.”

  “Well, I think you’re—”

  She put up her hand to stop the juvenile exchange. They were years from the playground that was the foundation for such petty arguments. “It seems we agree.”

  Ron straightened his shoulders again and nodded sharply. “It seems that we do. I can�
�t see myself with a woman who can’t forgive me when I make mistakes.”

  “Mistakes?” Sadie repeated. “I thought you had no qualms about the choices you’d made?”

  Ron didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so she spared him having to come up with anything. “If I had a ring, I’d give it back to you, and since we both care about Jack I hope we can function as acquaintances for his sake. He’s going to need his friends.”

  Ron opened his mouth to say something, then looked past Sadie’s shoulder, closed his mouth, turned, and stormed toward the doors of the station—though another officer called out to him and ushered him into a room. Apparently the police weren’t finished with Ron.

  Sadie turned to see Detective Cunningham standing in the doorway of the observation room. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  Sadie looked back toward Ron, but he was gone, and then she turned her head to look at Detective Cunningham again. She tried not to look at it all too closely, but somehow it felt as though she were looking at her past and then her future. He watched her carefully and she felt her pulse increase by the protective look on his face. “I’ve been dumped,” she said after several seconds, their eyes locked on one another.

  “Or promoted to a whole new position of possibilities,” he said. “It’s all about how you look at it.”

  “Very true,” Sadie said.

  “They’re about to bring Trevor in, I didn’t want you to miss it.”