Lois nodded, still looking at the photos with a tender expression. “You never think it will happen to someone you love. When it does, all you can hope for is that they don’t suffer too much. If you’re lucky, you can help spare them a little.”
“Spoken like a true healer,” Sadie said, smiling at the other woman. As a nurse, Lois likely understood the frailties of the human body better than most and had committed herself to easing the suffering of people. It was a beautiful thing to realize that not everything and everyone in the world had ill motives for what they did.
Sadie looked at the car again. What were Jane’s motives? Why was she here? Sadie reflected on what Jane had said last night about wanting to help and not simply being here for a story. At least Sadie could take consolation in having been right about the choice not to trust the reporter. It wasn’t much, however, since she feared Jane was going to add complication to an already highly complicated situation.
Sadie looked back at the pictures and placed a hand on her stomach. She really didn’t feel very good. “Is that your s-second husband?” Sadie had to take a breath midsentence as she nodded toward a picture of an older Lois and another man, this one balding and thick around the middle. It looked like they were in Hawaii, since they were both wearing leis around their necks.
“Charlie,” Lois said, taking another sip of her tea as Sadie did the same.
Sadie blinked rapidly, finding it hard to focus her eyes on the next line of photographs—wedding portraits of Lois’s children, she assumed. Man, her lack of sleep from the night before and her intense all-day tension was catching up with her at the absolute worst moment. She needed to be in tip-top condition to deal with May and, possibly, Jane. This was not the time for the stomach flu!
She scanned the photos, trying to keep her focus, when they landed on the last photo in the lineup—a 1980s wedding, complete with big hair and light-blue tuxedos. Sadie stared at the bride. She looked like May . . . No, it looked more like Jolene from the family photograph over the fireplace at Jim Sanderson’s house.
Sadie knew the families were close, but to display Jolene’s wedding photos? Sadie turned her interest to the groom, Gary Tracey, and felt a different kind of heat rush over her. Her eyes snapped back to the sepia wedding photo of Lois and Bart, then back again as she compared the physical features of both men—both the same age, same build, same coloring. In a matter of seconds, Sadie looked through the lineup of family photos she’d skimmed through earlier, specifically noting the third child—a boy with sandy-blond hair; a boy, who as he aged, looked more and more like his father; a boy who was the man standing next to Jolene in the wedding photo.
She turned to Lois, who was watching her with a strangely intent expression on her face. Sadie’s head was feeling wobbly. “Gary is your son?” she said, and as soon as the words left her lips, all the nebulous details that had been swirling around the hypothesis she’d been putting together snapped into place.
“Yes. He’s my third child,” Lois said, sipping her tea and looking at the photos. “Didn’t you know that?”
“N-no,” Sadie said, stunned by this tiny piece of information and all that it might mean.
Gary was Lois’s son.
Lois was close to the Sanderson family.
Lois was a nurse.
No . . . it was impossible . . . but . . .
The sound of chirping birds captured Sadie’s attention—May’s ring tone? She blinked hard to clear her eyes as Lois set down her tea cup and pulled a Blackberry from her pocket. It looked just like May’s phone. Sadie looked up from Lois’s wrinkled hand to her even more wrinkled face that began weaving back and forth slightly in Sadie’s suddenly blurry vision. Her teacup seemed to tip out of her hand in slow motion.
Oh, biscuits, she thought as her mind started swimming. The tea cup spun in the air, the liquid arching out in a brown rainbow.
Pete’s words came back to her, telling her that she didn’t have the right training to take on this job. Would she get the chance to tell him she was sorry for not listening?
Chapter 45
You told May about my concerns about Hugh,” Lois continued while Sadie simply focused on keeping up with the older woman’s words. “I was helping her empty out closets while she spent half the morning trying to verify account balances and learn who Hugh might owe money to. She set up an appointment with the trust attorney this afternoon and didn’t notice her phone wasn’t in her purse when she raced out the door. It’s really a shame you added to her worry by implicating Hugh in all of this, Mrs. Hoffmiller. Don’t you think she’s had enough to make peace with?”
Sadie doubled over and immediately put her fingers down her throat, knowing she had to get the tea—and whatever had been mixed into it—out of her system. She gagged and coughed as she heaved tea onto the carpet. She knew her body had already digested most of it, but she had to try. As she straightened up, the room began to spin.
“That better not ruin my carpet!” Lois said from somewhere to the left. Footsteps retreated, but when Sadie looked up, she couldn’t focus enough to see where Lois had gone.
She reached out to grab something to steady herself with, and although she could see the edge of the coffee table, her hand seemed to move through it as though it were a ghost. She felt herself falling to the side, still grasping for something to help her regain her balance.
Then a hand reached for her. Instead of helping steady her, however, Lois pushed her out of the way. Sadie stumbled for a few steps, still bent over, until she was able to stop—barely managing to keep herself upright by bracing her hands on her knees and keeping her center of gravity low by remaining bent over.
“Tea is one thing, but vomit? The key is to clean it up as quickly as possible, before the acids can absorb into the carpet fibers,” Lois said. Was she scrubbing the carpet? “If you were one of my grandchildren, I’d give you a lickin’ for making a mess like this.”
“You killed J-J-Jim,” Sadie said, still blinking furiously in an attempt to regain her sight. She couldn’t formulate the words and tried to take a deep breath, even though it didn’t feel like she could fully inflate her lungs.
“It wasn’t fair, what Jim was doing to those kids,” Lois said from somewhere above Sadie. “Causing Jolene to worry over Gary at a time like this.” Her voice sounded strange, like she was getting further away. “Bart didn’t believe in life insurance, so I was left with four kids and a nursing degree I hadn’t used in twenty years. It wasn’t fair for me, and it isn’t fair for Gary. I’m not about to sit back and let that happen.”
Sadie stared at the carpet, her chest heaving for breath. She thought of her cell phone in her purse, but she couldn’t focus enough to even see the table, let alone walk to the chair next to it. “But . . . but Jim?” She thought back to the conversation they’d had last night. Lois had said beautiful things about the rebirth that happens after tragedy. Sadie had been touched by the sentiment. And yet . . .
“I ease suffering for the people I love,” Lois said, her voice harder to hear than ever.
Sadie tried to lift her head to see where Lois was, but the whole room was spinning. Nausea started bubbling in her stomach
“Jim was turning a cold heart toward his children,” Lois said. “He refused Jolene the one thing she needed most—reassurance that Gary would be okay when she was gone. It was the only thing she wanted, the only thing, and Jim refused because of his own personality conflicts with Gary, who has had a very rough go of things himself. It hasn’t been easy for Gary to put up with Jim all these years. And then for Jim to hurt Jolene like this? Well, that was all he could take.”
“He c-came to you,” Sadie said, trying to follow along. “Gar-ry came t-to you for help.”
“Of course he did, I’m his mother,” Lois snapped. Sadie couldn’t tell if she was still scrubbing the carpet. Her disembodied voice seemed to be everywhere, and Sadie had lost sight of Lois somewhere in the spinning room. “I did everything I could to p
ersuade Jim to change the trust. He told me to butt out and mind my own business. Butt out? As if I weren’t a part of this family!”
Sadie felt her fingers begin to tingle. She couldn’t succumb to whatever was in that tea. She had to get herself out of this, but how? Pete came to mind, and along with the image of his face blurring in her thoughts was the reminder of the lesson he’d given her about keeping her keys . . . in her pocket! If she could get to her car, she wouldn’t need her purse.
But where was the front door?
“I fight for the people I love, Mrs. Hoffmiller. I always have, and I always will.”
Sadie reached for her pocket, but the movement threw off her balance, and she had to brace her hands on her knees again.
Lois kept talking. “I’ve been kicking myself for answering all those questions you asked me last night. After how hard I’d worked to keep Jim from making a mess of things, then you stepped in and made a bigger mess. Do you have any idea how much you’ve hurt my Jolene? My Sharla-May? I need to clean up the mess you’ve made and . . . ” Her voice drained away.
Sadie could only hear whispering or rushing wind, as though she had seashells held up to both ears. She reached toward her pocket again, slow and careful . . .
The room continued to spin, and Sadie was halfway to the floor before she realized she’d lost her balance and was falling. The impact was probably harsh, and she felt a twinge in her shoulder, but it was as though she were wrapped in bubble wrap. She strained to keep her eyes open, but her eyelids felt so heavy. If she could get to her car . . . but she couldn’t stand. If she could get to her phone . . . but Lois wasn’t going to let her anywhere near her purse. And then her thoughts latched on to something else.
Perhaps her only hope.
Jane.
Chapter 46
Sadie could feel her mind slipping, begging for unconsciousness, but she fought it with everything she had, which wasn’t much.
She had to get Jane’s attention. But she was paralyzed and on the brink of unconsciousness. Speak! she commanded herself, but she couldn’t open her mouth. Move! But her body didn’t respond expect for a tremor in her arm, which was trapped at a weird angle beneath her body. If only she could kick something or scream or somehow make herself noticed. But she could feel nothing, could sense nothing nearby she could knock over, assuming she could gather the strength. But then she felt something in her hand—the hand of the arm that was in such an odd position. The hand that was restrained. Was she lying on her hand? Was she on her side?
And then she remembered. She’d reached into her pocket for her keys.
Keys!
Lois’s voice droned on in the background, but Sadie couldn’t spare the energy to listen to the words. Instead she put every ounce of everything she had into moving her fingers. The sensations were muted, but she felt the smooth plastic of the key fob. Somewhere on that fob was the panic button that would set off the rental car’s alarm and alert Jane to her situation.
But her thoughts were slipping away from her. Blackberry crumble and peace roses flitted through her mind, soon followed by avocado-green appliances, turquoise tortilla chips, and her concerns about Shawn’s next semester. Her thoughts became more and more vague, and even though she tried to focus on whatever it was she’d needed to do with her hand, she was barely hanging on to consciousness.
Food carts and macabre donuts spiraled through her mind. What was she trying to do, again?
Airplanes and blow dryers and Pete. And with Pete, the thought of keys. Keys! That’s right, she was trying to set off the alarm. Pete had prepared her for this. She could do it. She could muster the strength she needed, despite the fact that her hands and feet were almost completely numb.
She focused on the plastic in her hand, feeling for the rubbery button. As soon as she felt a change of texture, she pressed. Nothing. Had she not pressed hard enough? Or was it the wrong button? She pressed again and then moved her thumb to the side. Another change of texture; she pressed again. Nothing. She could feel her lungs getting stiff, and tears began to threaten as she considered what would happen if she didn’t hit the right button, if Jane didn’t come to her rescue. She moved her thumb again as her thoughts turned to bicycles and strawberries, dreadlocks and bacon.
Another button and another push.
This time she heard the blaring of a horn. She drifted away for a moment, and then she heard something else as consciousness waved and kept her present a little longer. Was someone knocking?
No, banging!
She blacked out, but didn’t know for how long before she surfaced again. She heard more movement, more voices, and then words she couldn’t understand, and finally a voice she recognized.
“Boy, oh boy,” Jane Seeley said from somewhere above Sadie’s face.
Sadie sighed in relief. She felt a hand on her face that told her beyond the words and beyond the last five minutes that she was really going to be okay.
“You sure know how to keep things interesting, Sadie. I’ve already called 911. Hang in there, okay?”
She was safe.
Jane had saved her.
The feel of the key fob was gone, Jane’s voice faded, the blaring of the horn disappeared, and then there was nothing.
Chapter 47
Someone was calling her name, and Sadie forced her eyes open. Three ghostly images of Jane’s face moved in and out of one another, like that magic trick where someone hides a ball under one cup and then moves them around so you don’t know which cup is which.
“Mumh huff fum.”
“Don’t talk,” the three Janes said, shaking their heads in unison. “You’ve got an oxygen mask on.”
Sadie blinked, aware of the jostling beneath her and the fact that she was lying flat on her back. It took a few seconds to realize she was in an ambulance, and the idea panicked her. She tried to sit up, but two strong hands pushed her back down.
“Don’t get up,” a male voice said. “We’ve got an IV in place, and it’s helping move things through, but don’t push it.”
Sadie nodded, then looked at Jane again, realizing she might be the only person here with answers.
“She put something in your tea,” Jane said, seeming to read Sadie’s mind. “I found a mortar and pestle in the kitchen with some kind of pill crushed into it. The cops are getting it tested, but they think it was simply a sedative to make killing you easier. That lady had a syringe of something in her pocket; they think she’d have stuck you with it once you were fully out.”
Sadie concentrated hard on the words. Lois tried to kill her? It didn’t make sense . . . and yet it did.
“The car alarm was genius,” Jane said. “I couldn’t see much, what with the rain and everything, but I knew you were in trouble when the horn starting blaring.”
“Wuff nob comflop.” Drat, she’d forgotten she couldn’t talk.
“Don’t try and talk, Mrs. Hoffmiller,” the paramedic to her left said. “Just relax. You’re going to be fine.”
“Did you know Gary Tracey, Jolene Sanderson’s husband, is Lois Hilbert’s son from her first marriage?”
When Sadie nodded, Jane continued. “The police were talking about it when we left.” She shrugged. “I didn’t even think to dig into the old lady across the street.” She harrumphed, as though disappointed in herself. “I got so caught up in how Jim Sanderson was killed, I kinda skipped out on who would have wanted him dead.”
Sadie nodded at the irony; she’d done just the opposite.
Jane let out a heavy sigh.
Sadie pulled her eyebrows together to silently ask what was wrong.
Jane smiled and reached down to push Sadie’s hair off her face with surprising tenderness. “This would have made such a great story,” she said wistfully.
Sadie felt all her concerns about Jane’s motives descend again. But did Jane just say would have?
“I know what you’re thinking, Sadie,” Jane said. “You still think that’s why I’m here—for th
e story, huh?”
Sadie didn’t nod, but she didn’t need to. Of course Jane was here for the story. That’s what Jane did—she exploited situations for her own gain.
“I told you I’m looking for something different,” Jane said. “And I’m going to prove it by not writing a single word about any of this.”
Sadie narrowed her eyes. There was more than one way to “get” a story.
Jane read that thought too—which was starting to get creepy. “And I won’t sell it or give it to anyone else either, even though it could get me my place back at The Post.” She leaned down, allowing Sadie to focus on her face for the first time. “We could make a heck of a team, Sadie,” she said as the ambulance started to slow. “Think about it while they pump you full of charcoal, okay?”
Unfortunately, it was absolutely impossible to think about anything other than charcoal for the next few hours. By the time the doctors told Sadie she could go, she was completely exhausted and still trying to wipe the black ring away from her mouth. According to the ER doctor, she hadn’t been given a fatal dose of the medication, and the vomiting had gotten most of it out of her stomach. Of course they still had to charcoal her and run an IV. She probably could have fought to stay at the hospital overnight, but she would rather spend the night in her new hotel room. Tomorrow she’d meet with the police, and then . . . then she didn’t know what she was going to do.
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