Wedding Cake

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “It’s over, Sadie,” he said, squeezing her hand. “We’re going to get through this, and we’re going to be okay, but I need you to understand that it’s over. Malloy did what he had to do. She wouldn’t have stopped.”

  Sadie looked toward Jane again—a paramedic had joined the SWAT members attending her. She couldn’t tell what they were doing. “I don’t want her to die. She’s sick, Pete, and maybe—”

  “Sadie,” Pete cut in, drawing her attention back to him. “Sick or not, she made the choices that put all of us in this situation. Whatever the result, it’s going to be okay. I need you to understand that.”

  Sadie nodded, realizing he needed the assurance that she would work toward believing what he’d said. She moved aside so the paramedics could lift Pete onto the stretcher. She followed behind them and was shortly joined by Shawn, Breanna, Liam, and Maggie, each of whom hugged her in turn and asked if she was okay, trying to hide their shock at her appearance: barefoot, her dress smeared with the blood of three different people.

  Breanna was crying; Liam and Shawn were keeping a brave face but were obviously shaken. She looked into their faces and understood why Pete had been so insistent on what he’d said before they took him away. She looked toward Jane, lying still on a stretcher, an oxygen mask over her face. The flurry of activity around her meant her injury was serious. There was nothing Sadie could do to help her, but she knew that if she could have, she would have done anything in her power for a different result than this.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said to her family, echoing what Pete had told her, but feeling it for the first time. They would cope with whatever came next—the physical and emotional recovery—but it was going to be okay. “It’s over,” she said quietly, feeling those words seep into her bones. “It’s finally, horribly, over.”

  Epilogue

  Two months later

  Sadie let herself in to a charming three-bedroom, cottage-style house near Old Town in Fort Collins, Colorado. “I’m home,” she said as she closed and locked the front door behind her. “Pete?”

  “On the phone,” he said from the third bedroom that served as his office. Sadie made a face, she hadn’t meant to interrupt. He’d recently been hired as part of a tri-county cold case unit, and she wasn’t used to him being on “work” calls. She hung her purse in the entry closet and headed for the kitchen to boil some water for cocoa. It was mid-September in the Rocky Mountains, and the glorious heralding of autumn was right on time, but she hadn’t been ready for the chill in the air when she’d left for her therapy appointment that morning. Plus, it was never a bad time of year for cocoa.

  After everything that had happened at the wedding, she and Pete had decided to make a fresher start than previously anticipated by moving closer to Pete’s daughters in Fort Collins. Sadie had no expectation that either of her own children would settle down anywhere near Colorado, and there was nothing left in Garrison for her other than a handful of good friends who understood her need to live elsewhere. She enjoyed being a grandmother to Pete’s grandchildren and had come to genuinely love his daughters who had embraced her as she had always hoped they would.

  For the most part, life had gone on with relative normalcy after the “Bombed Wedding,” as it had been dubbed by The Denver Post, who, with the help of the Garrison police force, put together the details of Jane’s plot.

  After Boston, Jane had attempted to start a new life in Nebraska. She’d used her real name again since all it had was an expired protective order connected to it, and she managed to keep herself out of trouble. After a year of losing track of Sadie, she had joined an online group of Garrison mothers, which is where she’d “met” a member of Sadie’s church. Jane claimed to be a former student of Sadie’s now living in Wyoming but hoping to return to Garrison soon.

  The woman hadn’t thought twice of giving her an update about Sadie whenever Jane asked how Mrs. Hoffmiller was doing—which Jane did every few months. She didn’t participate in the group otherwise, simply lurked and absorbed information as needed. When she asked for an update on Sadie in June, she’d learned about Sadie’s engagement, and it had triggered her old obsession more deeply than ever.

  She came to Garrison and rented two different storage units where she stored her more incriminating possessions, including the receiver for the listening device she had routed to an app on her phone. The cars she later blew up had been stolen and re-plated. She’d moved in to her apartment in July, keeping a low profile and using a variety of personas when she had to go out. It was so orchestrated, so premeditated. So sick.

  Sadie shook her head, clearing her thoughts. She hated thinking about Jane and let her mind move to the other things that had happened after the wedding. Happier things that lifted her mood instead of depressing it.

  The living liver transplant Shawn had participated in for his birth mother had gone well, and Sadie had been able to be with him. Pete insisted Sadie go to Alaska while he recovered from his injuries—which had led to emergency surgery on his knee the day after the wedding—at Brooke’s house. After the transplant and requisite recovery, Shawn had started working for an investigation firm in Sacramento and had rented a studio apartment not far from Maggie. Sadie expected an official announcement from the two of them any day now.

  Jane’s storage unit had supplied proof of her fraud against him, but it would still be some time before everything was cleared up on his credit. Being distracted by his relationship with Maggie was probably the best thing for him right now.

  Breanna and Liam had returned to London and hinted that they might be looking for a vacation home in the Fort Collins area when they came back for Christmas. Sadie had already sent them half a dozen property listings as encouragement.

  “Sadie,” Pete said from behind her. She turned to see him leaning on his cane with one hand, his other hand on the counter. While she’d been seeing a psychologist every week—including today—Pete had been seeing an excellent physical therapist three times a week and steadily improving.

  She had stopped expressing out loud the guilt she felt at what had happened to him—to everyone. Her therapist was helping her separate the things she was accountable for from the things that belonged on someone else’s shoulders. Someone else’s cold dead shoulders.

  Jane had been pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital that day. Malloy’s bullet had hit its target, and Jane had not lived to face the repercussions of her actions. Some said it was a blessing—the toll of a trial and the possibility that Jane wouldn’t have served much time for destruction of property and assault against Pete would have been too much for Sadie to carry.

  For her part, though, Sadie wished things had ended differently. She hadn’t needed Jane to die to be free of her; she’d found that place before Malloy pulled the trigger. And yet, she could admit relief at not having to worry about Jane ever coming back.

  Sadie forced her thoughts away from Jane for the second time since coming home. “Who was on the phone?”

  Pete moved a few steps past her and sat on one of the kitchen chairs.

  Sadie pulled another chair around in front of him and lifted his foot onto her lap. She couldn’t massage his knee, but a foot rub now and again at least made her feel as though she were helping where she could. Pete relaxed and leaned against the chair back. “It was Malloy.”

  Sadie’s attention perked for a very different reason. Before the wedding they were silent enemies with one another, but the mandatory investigation that followed the shooting was far more intensive for Malloy than it would have been had Sadie pulled her trigger first. As an officer-involved shooting, there was a lengthy protocol that had to be followed to determine whether he acted appropriately. Because of the investigation and the need to recover from his injuries, Malloy had been on administrative leave since that fateful day nearly two months ago. Pete’s drug charges and Sadie’s breaking and entry had already been dropped, but Malloy’s future had hung in the balance with far more p
otential difficulties.

  “How is he?” Sadie asked.

  “Good,” Pete said with a smile. “Better than good, in fact. The DA wrote the letter.”

  Sadie let out a breath of relief and her hands stilled. It was what they had all been waiting for, an official letter from the district attorney stating that Malloy had been cleared of any criminal charges. Due to the personal attacks Jane had made toward Pete—a friend of Malloy and a former Garrison police officer—and the unprecedented choices Malloy had made regarding the wedding operations, it was essential to prove he had no personal interest in shooting Jane.

  Sadie certainly didn’t understand the intricacies, but she did understand that each week that went by without a decision increased the pressure Malloy felt regarding his future in law enforcement. “And he’s cleared?”

  Pete nodded. “Of all criminal charges. The letter has been sent to the chief of police and the city and county council members. Malloy could be back to work as soon as next week, assuming his doctor will allow it.” As a result of the gunshot, Malloy had lost his spleen and a section of large intestine, but he’d recovered well and lost twenty-five pounds in the process.

  “I am so relieved,” Sadie said, taking another deep breath and letting it out, releasing with it the pent up anxiety she felt for Malloy’s situation.

  “Me too,” Pete said. “As is Malloy and his family. I think his wife is more excited than anyone else. He’s driving her crazy kicking around the house all the time now that he’s feeling better.”

  Sadie smiled. “Malloy being cleared breaks one more hold Jane had on us,” she said. Pete’s words from their wedding day came back to her. “It’s over,” he’d said before being loaded on the stretcher. And while Sadie wasn’t sure it would ever be truly over, it was easier to deal with today than it had been yesterday and that was a good feeling. “We can all focus on our own recoveries a little more now that Malloy’s future is clear.”

  They talked a few more minutes about Pete’s hope that Malloy would receive the Distinguished Service Star for his actions. Sadie agreed. He’d saved both Pete and Sadie through his actions, and she would forever be grateful.

  “How was your appointment this morning?” Pete asked. Sadie hadn’t realized she’d stopped rubbing his foot so she started up again and watched his shoulders relax. Pete loved a good foot rub.

  “It went really well,” she said. “I bounced an idea around with Dr. Kim that might not be as ridiculous as I first thought. She was leading me through a free-thinking exercise of goals and ambitions.”

  “I hadn’t imagined you needed much help with goals and ambition,” Pete said with a smirk as Sadie knuckled the ball of his foot. “You’re always coming up with new things to do. I’m still not quite recovered from those amazing homemade noodles you put in the chicken soup last week; they were out of this world.”

  “I’m glad you liked them,” Sadie said with a smile. All these years and she’d never made homemade noodles. Now that she had, she couldn’t believe how easy they were, and so good she might never put store-bought noodles in soup again. “But this idea is a little bigger than finding a new recipe. In fact, it’s different from anything I’ve done before.”

  “Really?” Pete said, arching his eyebrows.

  Sadie nodded with enthusiasm. “I’d need a clever pen name to really pull it off, though.”

  Pete pulled his eyebrows together. “A pen name?”

  Sadie’s smile got even wider. “I’m thinking of writing a book. Well, actually, a series of books about my experiences these last few years.”

  “Books?” Pete said. “Like, self-help?”

  Sadie shook her head. “Novels.”

  Could he furrow his brow any deeper? “Novels?”

  Sadie wriggled forward in her chair as the excitement took an even stronger hold. With Malloy cleared, she felt more free than she had in a long time. Free to plan her future again and free to think fantastical thoughts that a short time ago seemed both silly and impossible.

  “Think about it. A series of mystery novels about a woman who uses the skills she’s gained through living a relatively normal life to help solve murders and missing person’s cases. Dr. Kim said there’s a whole genre of mystery novels that even involve recipes as part of the plot. She called them ‘culinary mysteries’ and apparently they’re quite popular. She thought they’d be just the genre for my stories.”

  “Have you ever written . . . anything?”

  “Well, I have extensive notes about all the cases I’ve worked and, though I’ve never pursued writing as a career, I did very well in all my writing classes in college. And I attended a few writing conferences as part of my continuing education before I retired from teaching. I’ve also read thousands of books so I’m betting I have a pretty good sense of structure.”

  “You’re going to write novels,” Pete said. His look of confusion made way for surprise.

  Sadie scowled at him. “You don’t have to act quite so shocked.”

  “I don’t mean to,” Pete said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. “I’ve just never thought I’d one day be sleeping with a novelist.”

  Sadie laughed.

  “And you’ll be writing about your own cases?”

  “Well, sort of,” Sadie said with a noncommittal shrug. “I’ll have to disguise certain details, of course, and exaggerate other ones—change names and things to protect both the guilty and the innocent—but it could be fun. It’s probably a lot safer than the way I’ve spent the last few years.” She paused as she thought of a few more details. “You’d have to play the part of a cop or something to explain why you’re there, and I’d need to disguise my own character enough that no one would guess it was really me I’m writing about, you know? I could have a signature recipe for each book that would work for the title—desserts, I think. Everyone loves desserts, and they’d make fabulous covers.”

  Pete shook his head again. His expression had turned playful. “My, my, you are a woman full of surprises.”

  Sadie eased his foot to the floor and got up from her chair. She gently set herself down on his lap and put her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her back as she ran her fingers through his hair and continued to contemplate how her plan would work. She’d need to attend some additional conferences to learn more about the craft of writing, and with a little luck, maybe she could find an excellent editorial team that could smooth out her rough spots. She’d heard over and over again that when contemplating a book a would-be author should write what they know. It was beginning to feel like wasted knowledge if she didn’t write her stories.

  Pete’s lips on her neck brought her back to the present, and she decided she could work out such details later. Amid everything else that had happened these last two months, perhaps the very best thing was that she and Pete were together, legally and lawfully married and as committed as ever despite what some might call a rocky start, muddy middle, and terrifying end to their courtship. They had postponed their honeymoon to Costa Rica until Pete was more fully recovered but enjoyed the casual interactions of marriage . . . not to mention the intimate ones.

  “When did you think you might start the actual writing of these books?” he asked, his breath tickling her ear and making her whole body shiver.

  Sadie gave him a coy smile as she stood, then took his hand and pulled him to his feet. He shifted his weight to his good leg and his cane. “I was thinking of getting started on an outline for the first book later this afternoon.” The sparkle in his eye made her stomach do that zingy little flip-flop she hoped she would never get used to.

  “Do you think you could start in, say, an hour or so?” Pete suggested.

  “An hour?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

  He laughed, pulled her close, and kissed her soundly. When he pulled back, he looked her in the eye and lifted a hand to stroke her jaw with his thumb. “Oh, Sadie, Sadie, married lady.
You have a way of keeping me on my toes, don’t you?”

  “Well, once you figure me out, I’ll be boring.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about that,” he said, lowering his face toward hers for another kiss. “Not the least little bit.”

  Acknowledgments

  I’m writing this right after finishing my final revision of this, the final book in the Sadie Hoffmiller Culinary Mystery Series. What started as one chapter for a writing contest has ended with twelve books and a cookbook.

  To bring it to an end is a little sad (I’m going to miss Sadie), a little bit relieving (I’m ready to write something new), and a little bit scary (will I ever write something as enjoyable for me and my readers as Sadie and her misadventures?). Regardless, as I look over this series, I am stunned at the growth I have had personally, the impact Sadie has had on readers, and the amazing experience it has been. When I think of all the people who made this possible, I am truly overwhelmed and find it difficult to know where to start.

  There’s no way to prioritize who should come first in my thanks, so please don’t try to instill some kind of importance to the order of this list—I didn’t.

  Jeff Savage (J. Scott Savage, Zombie Kid, HarperTeen, 2013) inspired that first chapter that led to Lemon Tart, and I will be forever grateful for his friendship and the simple opportunity he created that led to this.

  Lisa Mangum (After Hello, Shadow Mountain, 2012) and Jana Erickson have been the dynamic duo from day one—carrying each book through the internal processes and producing a quality final product. Multiple people have worked as assistant editors, typesetters, designers, photographers, online coordinators, printers, shippers, etc., and most of them I have never met despite them being such an important part of this process.

  Specific people who have made ongoing contributions include Shauna Gibby (design), Rachael Ward and Malina Grigg (typographers), Kenny Hodges (audio producer, Kenny Hodges Productions), and Diane Dabczynski (voice talent for audio). Everyone at Deseret Book and Shadow Mountain has always treated me so well and believed in this project. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything.