Blackberry Crumble (18 page)

“I’ll be right back.”

Sadie pretended to scratch her neck in order to look over her shoulder for a glimpse of the men as they left the restaurant. After debating a moment, she pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her wallet and laid it on the table, took three quick dips of her dinner, and then headed for the door, slinging her purse over her shoulder.

Keith’s Mercedes was pulling out of the parking lot as Sadie pushed through the heavy glass door. Sadie hurried to her car, which she’d parked at the far side of the lot, and pulled her keys from her pocket—she hadn’t even remembered putting them in her pocket. By the time she started the engine and inched out of her spot, Keith was gone. Two other cars—presumably belonging to his dinner guests—pulled onto the street in quick succession, one turning left, the other right.

“Shoot,” Sadie said, stopping halfway in and halfway out of her parking stall, not sure what to do next. She tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel. There was nothing to do but go to Keith’s home and finish her assessments of his lifestyle and business. She scrolled through Dora’s memory banks and chose his home address again. It took a minute to calculate the route, which Sadie immediately began following.

Not feeling in any hurry—she had officially determined that she truly hated stakeouts—Sadie saw a sign advertising photos printed while you wait. Although she appreciated the innovation of digital photos, there was something far more substantial about a printed picture. Shaving twenty minutes off the inevitable sitting around didn’t worry her and being able to inspect and categorize the photos while she “staked” made the decision for her.

Luckily, the attendant knew more about her camera than she did, and only ten minutes later, she slid into the driver’s seat of her rental car, turned the air conditioning back on, and began thumbing through the pictures she’d taken already. The main door of the Kelly Fire Systems office building; the back door; the side windows; a close-up on the sign, address, and mailbox. The UPS man was at least nice to look at. She knew she was being thorough, but right now it felt more like amateur hour.

She finally saw the photos of the men at the restaurant—her best chance at discovering something of importance, though she didn’t know what. Her angle was a little odd, taken from the side of her table like it was, but considering her circumstances, she was pleased with the results. Maybe May would recognize someone. She wasn’t sure how it would really help the case she was trying to put together against Keith, but at least it showed she wasn’t wasting her time. The first two pictures from the restaurant showed each of the men clearly, given her angle. When she saw the last picture in the stack, however, she gasped.

The man with the receding hairline, the one she’d been facing while at the restaurant, was looking right into the camera.

Loaded Bread Dip

1 1⁄2 cups mayonnaise

1 1⁄2 cups sour cream

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1⁄2 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, mashed

1 cup cooked, crumbled bacon

3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 round loaf artisan bread*

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except the bread. Hollow out a round loaf of artisan bread, reserving the bread removed from the center. Spoon the dip into the bread and bake on a cookie sheet for 40 minutes.

When done, use the bread you removed to eat the dip. Serves 4.

*Use smaller rounds of bread for individual dips.

Chapter 22

Sadie gasped and stared at the photo, feeling her body tingle. He’d known she was taking a picture of them! She hadn’t seen him look in her direction at all other than when she had made the racket with her menu. But his blue-gray eyes stared back at her in the photo, his expression hard to read. Was he angry? Curious? Confused? If he knew she’d taken his picture, why hadn’t he confronted her? Who was he? Did he tell Keith what he’d seen?

Shaken to the point of being completely ineffective, Sadie programmed Dora to take her to the hotel. She needed to think this through and determine what to do about it, assuming she could do anything at all. She hadn’t even been in Portland two days and she’d blown her cover. Some investigator she turned out to be. As she followed Dora’s instructions—the beauty around her completely lost—she wondered if she should tell May.

What if that guy called the police? She already had a ticket, what would they do with a report of . . . voyeurism, or whatever they would call her taking the pictures. Was it against the law to take pictures in a public place? Paparazzi did it all the time, right?

When Dora finally directed Sadie to the hotel parking lot, she grabbed her things and hurried to her room, wanting to hide under the covers with a pint of ice cream. Shoot. She didn’t have any ice cream!

She let herself in with the credit-card key, then leaned back against the closed door. She looked at the photo again, feeling her cheeks heat up. She bit her bottom lip and shook her head before sitting on the bed and flopping backward, her arms outstretched. What was she supposed to do now?

Someone knocked.

In an instant, Sadie’s thoughts went from self-recrimination to panic. She propped herself up on her elbows and stared at the door. The only person who knew her room number was May, but why would she stop by unannounced? May had made it clear she didn’t want to see Sadie until tomorrow anyway. Maybe the knock was meant for another room.

Sadie got to her feet and approached the door carefully. She was inches away from the peephole when the knock sounded again, causing her to jump a full two inches off the ground and raise a hand to her throat to keep her heart from popping out of her chest. It took several seconds before she pulled herself back together and looked through the peephole. The same eyes from the photo looked back at her. Sadie’s heart began racing all over again. The man from the restaurant stood in the hallway.

Sadie pulled back, took a breath, and then looked through the peephole a second time to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. It
was
him! There was no mistaking it.

“What do I do?” Sadie whispered. Pretend she wasn’t there? Call the police? Or should she find out what she could learn from him?

Her heart started racing again, but for a completely different reason. He’d seen her at the restaurant and had obviously followed her to the hotel. What did he want to know? What could he give her in exchange? Was he dangerous?

“Who is it?” Sadie asked, impressed with how strong her voice sounded.

“My name is Richard Kelly. I’d like to talk to you.”

Richard Kelly
, Sadie repeated in her mind. At the restaurant, she’d pegged him to be in his thirties, a reasonable age for Keith’s son who was CFO for the company but didn’t have a photo on the website. She swallowed. “What do you want?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” the man replied, not necessarily angry but not joyous either. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“I’m not letting a strange man into my hotel room.”

“Fine,” he said with a snap in his tone. “Meet me in the lobby. Two minutes.”

She kept her eye to the peephole and watched him walk away without waiting for a reply. He disappeared almost instantly; peepholes offered little peripheral vision. Sadie stepped back from the door and took a deep breath while turning back toward the bed. She picked up her purse and moved the voice recorder into the front pouch normally reserved for her cell phone. She was halfway to the door before she considered the possibility of an ambush.

After slipping on her jacket—which she certainly didn’t need in this heat—she pulled a thin, black stick from the side of her suitcase. It was about eight inches long and made of a dense plastic. The website through which she’d purchased it called it a blackjack, and she’d felt it was the wisest weapon of choice for her. She’d seen one in action before, and since her purchase, she had watched several YouTube videos that taught her the basics. She slid the stick up her left sleeve, ready to pull it out at the slightest provocation. A girl couldn’t be too careful.

With her back straight, her purse over one shoulder, and the blackjack up her sleeve, she opened the door and cast a wary glance down the hall as she made her way to the lobby. She spotted the man sitting at one of the small tables used for the free continental breakfast. The desk clerk was on the other side of the wall, but within screaming range.

Sadie hoped she looked calm as she slid into the seat across from Richard Kelly and put her purse on the table, cell phone pouch facing him and the voice recorder already on. It was trickier than she’d anticipated to adjust the position just right due to the fact that she had to hold the blackjack in her sleeve the whole time. Maybe he would think she’d had a stroke and her arm was crippled.

As soon as the purse was situated, she dropped her hand into her lap and turned her full attention to the man in front of her. “So,” she said simply. “You said you wanted to talk.”

“Why are you following my father?”

A good answer to that question didn’t readily come to mind, so she said nothing, hoping he would fill in the awkward silence.

He did.

“You were asleep in your car at the office this afternoon, then you followed him when he left the office. I saw you taking pictures at the restaurant, and I saw you hurry out behind us. What do you want with my father?”

He’d seen her asleep in the car? How embarrassing. A good answer still eluded her, so she lifted her chin slightly and said, “I don’t think it’s any of your business.”

“Not my business?” he said, almost laughing—although he didn’t smile even a little bit. “You’re taking pictures of a private meeting, and you think it’s none of my business?”

“A meeting?” Sadie pulled out, hating that he was getting upset and yet reminding herself that it was her best chance to get information. “Is that what that was?”

Richard clamped his mouth shut. “Who sent you—Jepson?”

Sadie had no idea who Jepson was, but she shrugged and made a mental note to find out. “A man with nothing to hide, hides nothing.”

“Meeting at a public restaurant isn’t hiding anything,” Richard said. “But we’re tired of you guys messing with us, and if you don’t cut it out then the deal is over and done, do you understand?”

Sadie’s head was spinning. Deal? Messing with them?

Richard pushed away from the table but kept his hands on the edge. Sadie ran through all the information she’d learned about Keith Kelly and his company, grasping at anything she could say that would prolong this meeting.

“Do you have the authority to decide when a deal is over and done?”

She both saw and felt the hit Richard took at her comment and winced a little bit for him as she realized she’d touched a tender spot. But she couldn’t let go of it just yet. “I didn’t think so,” she said. “And if you ask me, that’s the biggest mistake Keith Kelly has ever made.”

Richard froze, halfway between sitting and standing.

He looked vulnerable and unsure of himself, which was a golden opportunity for Sadie. She wondered how much she dared say, and then pictured herself sitting outside of Keith Kelly’s back door again tonight and outside his office all day tomorrow. Good investigators went with their gut—it even said that in the book—and Sadie’s gut was telling her to not let Richard get away. But that meant she had to show her cards—at least one or two of them.

“I want to know about the Sanderson deal,” she said.

For the second time, Richard Kelly was taken off guard. “The Sanderson deal?” he asked. “What about it?”

“Why your father’s sudden interest in S&S?”

“That’s what this is about? You think that’s going to affect your position?” He finally sat. “It’s nothing—peanuts.”

Sadie shrugged, putting two and two together and concluding that Jepson was either interested in buying Kelly Fire Systems or Kelly Fire Systems was interested in buying Jepson. She didn’t really understand a lot about buyouts and mergers and things, but that’s what this sounded like. “It doesn’t feel like peanuts,” she said, then stepped even further over the line. “It feels . . . personal.”

Richard eyed her carefully. “Like I said, it has nothing to do with our deal.”

“Then you won’t mind telling me more about it.”

Richard considered that for a moment, but must not have felt threatened. “Jim Sanderson and my father were business partners several years ago. They split and Dad took sales and Jim took manufacturing. Jim passed away recently, and Dad’s trying to help out his kids by buying back that arm of the business.”

Help out the kids?
Sadie repeated in her mind. Oh, brother. “So, it’s purely philanthropic?”

“Not entirely,” Richard said. Sadie could sense his confusion. What he was telling her didn’t seem guarded, but he was clearly unsure of why she wanted to know it. Sadie didn’t mind his confusion. So far it was working in her favor. “Jim Sanderson is a . . .
was
a brilliant engineer. He’s responsible for several advances in piping and placement technologies, not to mention what he’s done with atomizers over the last several years. His ideas would be a huge boon to Kelly—and therefore to Jepson by association.”