Wedding Cake

by Josi S. Kilpack

  By the time she returned, Sadie had the citric acid, lemon extract, and sugar set out and ready to go. Gayle would mix it with water and let it sit until right before it was ready to be served, then add a ton of ice and mix it again.

  “How’s the sugar?” Gayle asked, unscrewing the lid of the green cooler and smelling the inside. It must not have been bad because she shrugged and wrestled it into the sink so she could add water.

  “Sugar’s fine,” Sadie said. It was flour that couldn’t be unattended for a year and still be usable. Like Sadie, Gayle kept her baking items in airtight containers in her pantry.

  “That’s one thing I can’t get used to in Hawaii,” Gayle said loudly to be heard over the running water. “Bugs get into everything. I opened my sugar one day to find it riddled with ants. About lost my mind when Bill told me to just sift them out. I can’t imagine I’ll ever be able to do that, but apparently the locals are pretty kick back about that stuff.” She shivered dramatically at the memory. Sadie shivered too. Ants in the sugar was normal? Yikes.

  Sadie continued straightening the kitchen while Gayle measured out the ant-free sugar and lemon extract. They worked in friendly silence for a moment until Gayle cleared her throat. “So, what are you going to do about the dress?” she asked.

  Sadie began stacking a variety of papers on the counter that Gayle would need to go through later. The dress. She let out a heavy sigh. “Honestly, Gayle, I’m not sure the wedding will even happen.” She hated saying it out loud but was having a harder and harder time believing anything different. She faced Gayle, hating the pity she saw in her friend’s expression as she put the cap back on the lemon extract.

  Sadie continued, “With everything that’s happening, I just don’t know how it can work or if I even want it to. Who wants their wedding to take place amid this kind of stress and complication?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Gayle commiserated, exchanging the extract for the bottle of citric acid. “But I hate to see you give up on it.”

  “I’m not giving up on marrying Pete,” Sadie clarified. “I’m just finding it hard to imagine the wedding will happen the way we’ve planned it. What better stage for Jane to play her final card than at my wedding? And what if she does something horrible? All my favorite people will be in one room.”

  “But she hasn’t done anything to hurt anyone,” Gayle said. “She’s being sneaky and distracting and mean, but no one has been hurt.”

  “Can I trust that she won’t do something hurtful? Can I believe that the reason she hasn’t hurt anyone yet isn’t simply to lull us into a false sense of security?”

  Gayle considered that and measured out the citric acid. “Maybe you and Pete should just get married secretly, not have the public wedding at all.”

  “We’ve thought about it, but neither of us can imagine getting married without our children there. And everyone’s come to town for this, and we’ve paid for everything already. I’d hate for all that money and effort and time to go to waste.” She smiled at Gayle’s confused expression. “I realize that completely contradicts what I just said about not wanting to have a wedding amid all this drama, but it’s all just so . . . complicated. If it were up to me I’d have canceled this dinner, but Pete wants to keep it, and so we’re going through with it. I have all the same fears about it as I have about the wedding.”

  A knock sounded at the door. Gayle turned off the water and moved to answer it. Sadie stayed in the kitchen until she heard Breanna’s voice. Her breath caught and her eyes filled with tears before she hurried into the living room. She swept her girl into a mama bear hug, gushing about how glad she was that they were here.

  Shawn joined them—whining a little about not having gotten the same welcome when he’d arrived yesterday—and then welcomed his sister with a hug that lifted her off the floor. Sadie hugged Liam, who then gave his report on Allen Security while Gayle and Shawn returned to their respective tasks.

  “Their team is on their way and should get here at 6:00, in time to scout the neighborhood and get settled in. Troy shared his condolences that things are intense for Pete right now and promised to send his best guys.”

  “That is such a relief,” Sadie said. “Thank you so much for doing that.”

  “I’m happy to,” Liam said. “Truly.”

  “You said you’d have an update for me?” Breanna said, drawing Sadie’s attention toward her. “Did something happen other than Gayle volunteering her house?”

  Sadie told them about the dress, watching Bre’s eyes go wide at the story. “How did she get in—twice?”

  “I have no idea,” Sadie said, shaking her head. “Pete and I bounced around the theory that she could have come as part of the open house the realtor held two weeks ago and planted the bug then. We’d spent the day in Fort Collins at his granddaughter’s birthday party. It’s the only time I can think the house would have been open. But today she got in without triggering the alarm. I don’t know how.”

  “She could have disabled one of the sensors on a window or door, then used it to enter,” Liam suggested. “In high school my buddy did that with the sensor on his window. He found instructions online about how to do it without having it show up in the alarm system status.” He smiled. “I assure you I told him not to do such things.”

  Sadie smiled. “I’ll suggest the police look into that. We took everything I’ll need for the wedding tomorrow. I’m waiting to get an update from Pete. He’s been at the station for going on two hours, and I’m hoping they’ve made some progress.”

  Sadie explained who was working on what right now, and Liam and Bre volunteered to go to the house, talk with the investigative team there, and pull the tables out of the garage to make it easier for Miles to load up.

  “Could you also go to Rachel’s Bakery and pick up a couple dozen of her sugar cookies? I wasn’t able to make anything for the barbeque and at least Rachel’s won’t taste store-bought.”

  Breanna laughed, told her to call if she needed anything else, and then gave Sadie a quick hug before they left. Sadie watched them go, wishing she had given them additional warnings to be extra careful. She retrieved her phone and texted it. Breanna replied with a smiley face.

  On her way back to the kitchen, she stopped beside the sideboard that was functioning as Shawn’s office. “How are things going?” she asked. She’d heard him on the phone when she’d been talking to Bre and Liam and was curious as to who he was talking to.

  Without looking up from his laptop, Shawn pulled a Post-it Note off the sideboard and handed it to Sadie. Two names and two numbers were written there. One for Barry Smith and another for Professor Natalie Pruitt. From the area codes, Sadie thought Smith lived in Indiana and Pruitt was in Iowa, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “The top number is Jane’s dad,” Shawn explained. “The second one is Valerie’s last obsession.”

  Sadie’s eyes snapped up from the note to look at Shawn, who was still intent on whatever he was scrolling through on the computer. “Valerie? That’s her real name, then?”

  “Yep,” Shawn said as though it wasn’t a huge deal. He nodded to the paper Sadie was still holding. “The number for her dad is a cell number. I haven’t tried it so I don’t know if it’s current. As for the professor, she teaches at the University of Iowa and filed trespassing charges against Valerie about four years ago—right before ‘Jane Seeley’ showed up in Denver.”

  Sadie’s mouth hung open in shock. “How on earth can you know so much information? You haven’t been looking for even a full hour yet.”

  Shawn settled more comfortably on his barstool, looking rather pleased by her question. “Well, I started looking for her in Nebraska, since that’s where the prescriptions were filled—nothing on the public databases—and then branched out to border states. Found her name pretty quickly in Iowa’s database, matched up the physical description, and found the link to her dad through that. He’s had a couple DUIs, and the same address is listed on the protective ord
er against her. I then followed the lead on Pruitt since she’s the one who requested the restraining order.”

  “That’s amazing,” Sadie said, looking at the names again.

  “You continue to underestimate me,” he said, already turning back to the computer. “Anyway, I’m trying to get some leads on a possible juvie record, but those are hard to crack so I’ve got a buddy working on something behind the scenes for that part. It’s gonna cost us, but if he gets us what we can’t get otherwise, it’ll be worth it.”

  Sadie always got a little uncomfortable when Shawn talked about his sources to underground information and preferred to know as little as possible about it. “You think I should call these numbers?”

  “Yes,” Shawn said, eyes on the screen again. “The dad might be iffy—he doesn’t sound like a stellar citizen—but the lady professor seems legit and she doesn’t have any kind of criminal record; I checked just in case. The two of you share a stalker, that’s got to count for something.”

  Chapter 20

  Gayle came in through the sliding glass door, coming to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. “The lemon water is ready. I took the racks out of my freezer and put the cooler in there to try to chill things a bit before dinner starts. Don’t let me forget it’s in there though. How are things going?”

  “Things are going good,” Sadie said, looking at the sticky note in one hand and her phone in the other. “Breanna’s taking care of the security component of the barbeque, and Shawn found Jane’s real identity. I have the number for her father and for another woman she stalked.”

  “Serious?” Gayle said, turning off the faucet and shaking the water from her hands before looking around for a dishtowel. Sadie pulled open the drawer next to the stove, and Gayle grabbed a freshly folded dishtowel, drying her hands. “That’s fabulous. Bill got the grill working and trimmed up the grass. What time are the tables coming?”

  “Around 6:30,” Sadie said, distracted. She was still looking at the note, wondering what she could expect from the two people listed there. Would Jane’s father be cooperative or hostile toward Sadie’s questions?

  “Do Bill and I need to help set up the tables?”

  “No,” Sadie said, putting the note and her phone on the counter and turning her attention to Gayle. “We’ll have lots of hands.”

  “I only ask because I wanted to run an idea past you. Do you have a minute to talk?”

  “Absolutely,” Sadie said. Though she was eager to get information from Jane’s dad and the other stalking victim, making the phone calls made her nervous too. She was so much better in person than she was on the phone. Maybe a few minutes of prep would get her feeling more confident about the calls.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said—about the wedding and everything—and I totally understand you want your wedding to be beautiful and special.”

  Sadie nodded.

  “But you don’t have to have it be perfect for it to be all those things,” Gayle continued. “The wedding isn’t as important as the commitment you and Pete will be making, and no one who loves you will hold it against you if you guys run to the courthouse first thing in the morning and then jump a plane for Costa Rica.”

  “Thanks, Gayle,” Sadie said, meaning it. “I know you’re right—the marriage is more important than the actual ceremony.”

  “Right,” Gayle said. “And when you do get married—whenever and wherever that might be—you’ll need a dress.”

  Sadie felt her expression fall as the memory of her cut-up dress came to mind. She’d bought the dress in Denver, had it tailored and everything. It was classy and slenderizing—despite it being white, which notoriously made Sadie look thicker than she really was—but it also hadn’t necessarily looked bridal, which Sadie had liked since she wasn’t a young bride. She’d felt beautiful in that dress, and now it lay in pieces on the floor of Sadie’s living room.

  “If you get married tomorrow,” Gayle cut into Sadie’s thoughts, “what are you going to wear?”

  Gayle’s concern made Sadie smile. It was so like Gayle to skip past the fear of bodily harm and psychological manipulation to focus on wardrobe. “I haven’t thought much about it.”

  “I know you haven’t,” Gayle said. “What’s more, I know you won’t. You have too many other things on your mind far more important than a dress, which is why I was thinking that Bill and I should head down to Loveland tonight and get you some dresses.”

  Sadie pulled her eyebrows together. “Dresses? As in, more than one? And in Loveland?” Loveland was more than an hour away, but still the closest shopping mecca in this part of the state.

  “You won’t be there to try anything on, and there’s no time to tailor anything anyway, so we’d just get a variety in order to make sure you ended up with something fabulous. I’ll return whatever you don’t like next week while you’re frolicking on the beach with your beloved. The Promenade in Loveland has several stores where I know I could find some nice things on the rack. I’ll try for white but might have to be creative. You’d look great in lavender or even a pale pink, and since it’s a second wedding there are no hard and fast rules about color and style. Didn’t you say Pete’s suit is gray? Blue or pink or even a nice sea-foam green would look lovely with his suit. Bill could help me find a tie that would coordinate if we go with a colored dress. I’m sure there’s a Men’s Wearhouse down there.” She finished, smiling with excited eyes.

  “You’d do all of that?” Sadie asked, and even though a dress felt like the last thing she ought to be worrying about, she really didn’t have anything else to wear other than Sunday dresses. Well, she had a velvet black formal dress and a sparkly navy blue one, but no one got married in black velvet or sparkly blue.

  “You’re going to get married sometime,” Gayle said. “And you don’t want me underfoot while you’re with your family tonight.”

  “I would love to have you at the barbeque,” Sadie said.

  Gayle shook her head. “It’s a family party.”

  Sadie abandoned that argument in favor of a new one. “What about your girls? You haven’t even seen them yet.” Surely after coming all this way, Gayle was eager to spend time with her family.

  “We’re going to Amber’s for dessert around 9:30, after she’s put her kids to bed—though I’m not sure they’re ever really in bed before midnight. She’s going to make those fabulous Rice Krispies treats—the ones with brown butter, so good—and Stacy’s coming over too so we can all talk.” She frowned. “I know my girls think my marriage to Bill is some sort of midlife crisis; I’ve been meaning to talk to them for a while and hope they’ll understand that this is my life now. Getting some retail therapy will help me from getting too anxious about it. I really want to do this, Sadie. Please let me.”

  Sadie hesitated, but she didn’t doubt the sincerity of Gayle’s offer. “Really? I feel like I’m taking such advantage of you.”

  “Nonsense,” Gayle said with a wave of her hand. “I’ve offered. And you have to admit, I have picked out some great stuff for you in the past.”

  Gayle did have a great eye, better than Sadie’s. Sadie could easily think of half a dozen of her favorite articles of clothing that Gayle had insisted she buy even though Sadie hadn’t been sure. In each case, after she’d worn them once or twice, she came to understand Gayle’s insistence. “You’re what, a size twelve?” Gayle asked.

  “Closer to a fourteen,” Sadie said, frowning slightly.

  “Okay, so a big twelve or a small fourteen. I’ll get half a dozen or so and whichever one you choose will be my wedding gift to you guys.”

  Sadie felt herself tearing up and blinked quickly to try to keep the emotion down. “I don’t know what to say except that I’m so glad you’re here.” Her voice broke with the last few words, and Gayle made a tsking sound even though Sadie could tell she was touched.

  Gayle put out her arms, and Sadie fell into another one of her friend’s affirming hugs. In the moments of the embrace,
Sadie reflected on their years of friendship, Gayle’s first marriage crumbling, her children growing up and leaving home. They had always been there for each other so having her here, now, when Sadie needed that mothering kind of support no one else could offer, felt right. There was no doubt in Sadie’s mind that Gayle’s presence was nothing short of a blessing.

  They pulled away and smiled at each other. “Thank you,” Sadie said, trying to hold back her emotion. “I shouldn’t let you do so much for me, but I appreciate it more than I could ever say.”

  Gayle let out a contented sigh. “It’s not very often anyone gets the chance to play fairy godmother for someone else. This is my chance to pay back all the kindness and support you’ve given me for so long. There were so many times in my life where you were exactly that for me, it’s only fair I get a chance to do the same.”

  Chapter 21

  Gayle and Bill left for Loveland within ten minutes of Sadie proclaiming Gayle the best fairy godmother ever. Shawn continued his work on Jane’s profile, and Sadie was left with the two phone numbers written on a Post-it Note. She wanted to make the calls before Breanna and Liam returned and so gathered together all her courage and confidence. She started with the top number on the list and, with each ring, her anxiety built a little bit higher. The gruff “Hello” didn’t help to relieve Sadie’s increasing nerves.

  She cleared her throat. “Hi,” she said. “I’m looking for Barry Smith.”

  “Yeah,” he responded, just as gruffly.

  Sadie took a breath. “Hello, Mr. Smith. My name is . . .” She hesitated. Did she want to tell him her real name? “Diane Hoffman,” she improvised quickly. “I’m calling to ask you some questions about your daughter, Valerie.”

  Silence.