Rocky Road (19 page)
One beat. Two beats. Three.
It took that long for Sadie to process what she’d read. She looked into Caro’s face. “Oh, my gosh, what happened?”
“I don’t know—I haven’t called Tess yet. I turned my phone on and saw that I’d missed three calls from her. Then I checked my text messages.”
“Call her back,” Sadie said, gesturing toward the phone. Her chest was on fire. Anita was dead? How? When?
Caro put the phone on speaker a split second before Tess answered.
“Caro?” Tess almost screamed. Sadie and Caro shared a look.
“What happened?” Caro asked.
“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour!”
“I had my phone off. What happened?”
“She’s dead, Caro. I just ... Oh, my gosh, it’s so awful. A lady from the office found her.” Tess’s emotion turned to full-blown tears, and Sadie could pick up only a few words here and there: “fall” and “when she went to the house” and “blood everywhere.”
Caro attempted to calm Tess down, assuring her that it was okay and reminding her to breathe. Finally, Tess was able to get a hold of herself. “When are you coming back?” she said when she was breathing regularly enough to form comprehensible sentences. Caro looked at Sadie.
“Do you need us to come back?”
“I really need you to help me with this. I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t think you need to do anything,” Caro said. “Just try to calm down. I know this is really scary ...” She continued to speak calmly, but Tess was too worked up to even listen. Meanwhile, Sadie picked up her phone from the console between the seats and called her voice mail.
“Sadie, this is Officer Nielson. There’s been a development. Please call me as soon as possible.”
Sadie frowned as she considered what she should tell him. What could she tell him? Where did her loyalty lie, first and foremost? She was pondering her options when the next voice mail played.
“Sadie? This is Lori Hendricks. I’m sorry I didn’t return your call yesterday, but I just talked to Tess, and she said you’re looking for Trent and ... uh, I really need to talk to him. Please call me back at ...”
Sadie listened to the entire message, then repeated it and listened again, her frustration with Tess growing. Tess had felt like a liability from the start. Why would she tell Lori they were looking for Dr. Hendricks? Sadie had specifically told her not to talk to anyone.
Sadie hung up her phone while Caro was still speaking to Tess—almost arguing with her now. She needed more time to process what had happened before she decided what to do about it. She let herself out of the car. The salads were probably ready by now.
Sadie tried to act normal as Robert told her about Café Rio, a restaurant chain that had started in St. George—these salads were a knock-off version of their creation. On any other day, Sadie would be very interested in this story. Today she could barely listen. When the salads were ready, she paid for them and thanked Robert for his help.
When she returned to the car, Caro was still on the phone with Tess. Sadie had decided what to do about the calls she had received. She wasn’t going to call Officer Nielson until she’d heard what Dr. Hendricks had to tell her—Tess had talked to Lori, and Sadie saw how complicated things could become if information was shared prematurely. As for Lori, Sadie would ask Officer Nielson what to do about that.
Caro finally said she’d call Tess back in just a minute. When she hung up, she stared at the phone. “She is completely freaking out.”
Sadie forced herself not to vent about Tess’s blabbermouth and kept her attention on Anita’s death. It still felt so unreal. “Did she tell you what happened?”
Caro pulled out of the parking lot of the store and crossed the street to the motel. “No one knows what happened—Anita didn’t show up for work, and so someone went to the house to check on her. They think she fell and hit her head or something, but no details have been released—Tess only knows what people are saying.”
“I can’t believe she’s dead,” Sadie said as Caro pulled to a stop.
“I know, and the timing is ... scary.”
They looked at each other, and Sadie knew what Caro meant. Was it is a coincidence that Anita Hendricks died a day after their investigation began? The idea made Sadie sick. It reminded her of other times she’d felt responsible for terrible things that had happened. “What do we do?” Caro said.
“Dr. Hendricks is waiting on me,” Sadie said, turning to face her friend. “Could you stay here and see what you can find out about everything? Anita’s death, for sure, but we also need more information on Kyle Edger.”
“And send you back to the cabin alone?”
“You’ll know where I am, and I don’t see how we have time to waste in either arena right now. Tess told Lori we were looking for him, and Lori left me a message—she wants me to help her talk to him.”
Caro blinked. “Tess told her?” Sadie felt slightly smug about Caro’s reaction. It told her she wasn’t the only one who saw that Tess was out of line. It also fueled Sadie’s frustration.
“We can’t tell Tess anything else, especially now that Anita’s death has her worked up. She’s obviously talking to people—who knows who else she’s told things to.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Caro said. “I’m sure she just didn’t realize the importance of keeping stuff quiet.”
Except that we told her to keep it to herself, Sadie thought. But she didn’t say it out loud. “Regardless, we can’t risk that again—don’t tell her anything about what we’ve done today.”
“Okay,” Caro said. She looked at Sadie once she’d parked the car. “You really think going to meet with Dr. Hendricks on your own is a good idea?”
“I’ll drive right up to the cabin, and I’ve got your Taser.” She patted her front pocket.
“If you’re not back in forty-five minutes, I’m calling the police.”
“An hour, just in case.”
“Okay, one hour, but not a minute longer. There are big things happening right now, Sadie—we can’t be taking chances.”
Sadie nodded in agreement and opened the car door. “It’s almost checkout time,” she said. “Will you get us another night here so that we can stay a little longer?”
“Yeah,” Caro said as she turned off the ignition. Before Sadie stepped out of the car, Caro said, “Tess wants me to come back to St. George.”
“Me,” not “us.” “Oh,” Sadie muttered, unsure of what else to say for fear it would come across badly.
“Should I?”
“I guess it’s up to you,” Sadie said, although she hated the fact that Tess had even asked this of Caro. “I understand if you want to, though. I’m not sure there’s anything you can do here that you can’t do there.”
“Except make sure you’re okay and that you come back when you’re supposed to.”
“I can call you when I’m finished.”
Caro bit her lip and looked out the windshield. “I’m not sure what kind of help I will be to Tess in St. George, but this stuff is so new for her.”
Sadie felt a tiny bit of sympathy for Tess as she remembered how intense feelings could be in the face of such incomprehensible events. “I’ll call you as soon as I have cell coverage after I finish with Dr. Hendricks. If you’re halfway to St. George by the time that happens, I’ll understand.”
Caro nodded and got out of the car. Holding the plastic bag with the barbacoa salads in one hand and her phone in the other, Sadie gave Caro an awkward hug. She got out of the car and then had to put the salads down again while she took her car keys from her pocket. It wasn’t nearly as hot as it had been the morning before in St. George, but it was still very toasty.
“Be safe,” Caro said as Sadie got into her own car.
“I will,” Sadie said. “I’ll call you in an hour.”
She pulled onto Lloyd Canyon Road a minute later and thought about her top priority right now—it was time to get Dr. Hendricks’s side of the story. Sadie was more than ready to hear it.
As Sadie’s car approached the cabin, only her eager anxiety kept her from being overcome by the smell of the two barbacoa pork salads on her passenger seat. The heady aroma from the sweetness of the slow-cooked pork and the still-warm tortilla was almost enough to distract her from thinking about what had happened and what might happen next. After unwinding the chain on the gate, she drove through and then chained it back up again. She began the slow, careful drive down the private lane that led to Kyle Edger’s cabin.
The sun was high in the sky, but the trees had created large patches of shade that Sadie appreciated when she let herself out of the car. It wasn’t the temperature that was causing Sadie to sweat—it was her nerves. How would she tell Dr. Hendricks about Anita? The thought made Sadie’s blood pool in her toes.
With what Dr. Hendricks had said earlier—and what Sadie had seen of Anita the day before—Sadie couldn’t begin to guess what her death might mean to Dr. Hendricks right now. Not knowing how to anticipate his reaction, she had no idea how she would handle it. If she told him about Anita, she may not get any more information about why he’d left. Was that a reason to put off telling him his wife was dead? What was her goal for this meeting, anyway? Yes, she wanted to know why he’d left in the first place, and she did want to help him if she could, but what were the ramifications of all of that? Maybe she should have told Officer Nielson she was coming here.
Not being certain of her purpose made Sadie’s chest feel tight, but she continued walking toward the cabin. She wished she had cell coverage—for peace of mind, if nothing else.
Dr. Hendricks hadn’t specified where they would meet, but because she’d encountered him behind the cabin before, that was the direction she headed. She waited for nearly thirty seconds and was turning back toward the front of the cabin when she heard movement to her left. She whipped around, the plastic bag with the salads hitting her in the hip. Dr. Hendricks stood only a few yards away.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, but his eyes were on the bag she held.
Sadie attempted a smile. “You didn’t ... much.”
He didn’t smile, but she wasn’t sure if she’d know if he did because his facial hair was so thick. She would never again underestimate the importance of diligent beard trimming. “Can we meet back here?” he said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “I try to stay away from the cabin as much as possible.” He nodded at the bag, and Sadie wondered if he could smell that sweet pork. “Is that lunch?”
Sadie lifted the bag. “It’s Fresh Mex Thursday at the lodge. These are barbacoa pork salads. I hope they’re as good as they smell.”
She fully expected him to return her smile, but he looked from her to the bag, seemingly uncertain.
“You have to take a bite of everything first,” he said.
“You think I poisoned them or something?” She wondered why he would care—he had admitted to being suicidal—but she wouldn’t ask. He might misinterpret the question as a threat, and that wouldn’t help.
He didn’t say anything.
Sadie looked at the cabin. Why would he avoid it? Surely there was a table inside that would be lovely to sit at. But she looked at him and nodded. “I’ll follow you.”
He turned, and they walked away from the cabin until they came across a path that was darkened by shade from the thick pine trees lining both sides. The path turned uphill, and Sadie trudged behind the doctor for at least five full minutes, her anxiety rising along with the elevation. “How far are we going?” she asked. Caro expected her to call in fifty minutes.
“Not much farther,” he said over his shoulder. A minute later, he left the trail and began walking through the brush. Sadie hesitated, and after a few yards he stopped and looked back.
“I’m getting a little uncomfortable with how far we’re getting from the cabin.” If they left the path, would she be able to find her way back?
“I have a kind of campsite up here,” he said, coming toward her and putting his hand out for the bag of salads. They’d gotten heavy, and she was happy to hand them over. She was also glad to see that he’d softened a little bit and didn’t seem quite so suspicious of her. She chose to believe the change had nothing to do with the fact that she was far enough away now that no one would hear her scream. “And it’s not safe to stay close to the cabin,” he added.
Safe? Sadie looked around. She couldn’t imagine that the cabin was less safe than this. When she looked at Dr. Hendricks again, she realized her protests wouldn’t make him change his plan. If she wanted to talk to him, she would need to do it on his terms. She didn’t feel threatened, and she still had the Taser in her pocket, but all the same she said a little prayer as she stepped off the path.
She picked her way through the brush with cautious steps, wishing she’d worn long pants. They went over a rise and began a gradual descent into an area that was rockier than the woods they’d been walking through. Just before they rounded an outcropping of rock and walked into a small clearing, Sadie could smell remnants of a campfire. There wasn’t a fire in the rock-lined pit, but Sadie guessed he’d made one last night or perhaps this morning. There were two small cooking pans resting upside down on a flat-topped stone, and the red frame backpack Sadie’d read about in the newspaper articles was leaning against a cedar tree. Dr. Hendricks led her to the shaded portion of the clearing just past the fire pit.
“Are you leaving?” Sadie said, pointing to the bulging pack. Other than the pans, there wasn’t anything laying out—not a tent, a jacket, a tarp—nothing.
“I’m always ready to go, just in case.”
“Just in case what?”
“Just in case someone like you shows up and I have to disappear again.”
Sadie understood the meaning behind his words. She didn’t have him captured. Things were still very much in his court. And yet he’d brought her here. Why? She also wondered about her objectives again. Did she expect him to come back to St. George with her after they talked?
“Have you been here all this time?”
“Most of it.” He put the bag of salads on the flat stone that already held his two pans.
Sadie moved toward the rock, and Dr. Hendricks stepped back. As he watched from a distance, Sadie removed the aluminum containers from the bag and bent back the edges around the cardboard lids. She pulled out the plastic cup of dressing and looked up at the doctor. “Do you want to dress your own?”
He shook his head, and Sadie poured dressing over both meals. She always dressed her own salad—that way she knew she had the perfect amount for her particular taste. Maybe he wasn’t as picky after living up here for two months.
Assuming he still wanted her to taste both of them, she took a bite of the first salad and then a bite of the second one. It really was delicious—the tangy dressing complemented the sweetness of the pork. The beans and rice at the bottom created a really good blend of texture and flavor. “These are really good,” she said after swallowing the second bite.
He made no move to take one of the salads, so she took another bite of each one. “I could do this all day,” she said with a smile. “I assure you that I haven’t spent the last few years in Australia working up an immunity to iocane powder.”
He didn’t smile or make a move toward the salads.
“It’s from The Princess Bride,” she said. He showed no recollection of the movie. Sad. “Anyway, which one do you want?”
“I don’t care,” he said, but he sounded less suspicious, maybe even a tiny bit embarrassed about being so cautious. Sadie picked up one of the containers and handed it to him, along with a plastic fork still in its wrapper. Then she picked up the other salad and looked around for somewhere to sit.
Sadie didn’t like eating from her lap, but she had no choice, so she settled herself on a log. He sat on another log that looked as though it had recently been moved to this part of the clearing. Sadie guessed that she was his first visitor. She mixed the salad components together a little more before taking another bite. It was so good. “You don’t stay in the cabin?” she asked.
He shook his head and poked at his salad—he hadn’t yet taken a bite. Maybe he was waiting for her to finish hers without frothing at the mouth or something. “I’ve gone in a few nights when it was raining, but I sleep better out here.”
“It’s a little different from your home in St. George.”
“It’s better,” he said without hesitation, meeting her eyes quickly before returning to his salad. He finally speared a piece of lettuce. “I love it out here.”
Sadie took another bite and carefully chose her first question. She suddenly wished she’d thought to bring something to drink, but it hadn’t even crossed her mind. Focus. “Why did you leave?”
“What are you going to do with what I tell you?” he asked quickly, as though he’d been waiting for the chance to ask the question.
She liked the fact that he seemed prepared to tell her something if she could offer him some reassurance. “I can promise you that I’m not trying to get you in trouble, and I don’t stand to gain anything personally, regardless of your answer. Right now, I just want to understand, and then I want to work with you on what the next step for you should be. As I said earlier, if they decide to look, I’m not the only one who will be able to find you.” Especially now that your wife is dead, she thought. Gosh, how was he going to react to that? She felt terrible for not telling him yet, but she still felt it was the best course.
Dr. Hendricks took his first bite and chewed it very slowly. When he swallowed it, he looked up at her. “I’m giving you far more trust than I’m comfortable with.”
“As am I,” Sadie said. “What brought you here?”
“Would you believe me if I said God did?”
“Maybe, but I’d need some explanation.” The dressing was unbelievable. She refused to be seduced by the impending food-fog.
He took another, bigger, bite, and Sadie took great pleasure in the way he savored it. She’d made a good choice to bring food. Dr. Hendricks began, “You said earlier that I left what seemed to be a really good life. Six months ago, I thought so, too—I thought I had accomplished more than most men did in their lives. I thought I had given back and made the world a better place. And then a brick fell out of that castle in the sky, and then another, and another, and another ...” He went back to stirring his salad.
“So you ran from it?” Sadie prodded.
“When I left, I thought I was working on a solution.” He paused to spear another bite with his fork. “I’d contacted an attorney, and I was supposed to meet him at his cabin that Friday night—somewhere no one would see us.” He waved in the direction of the cabin owned by Kyle Edger.
“Why such subterfuge?”
“I’d lose everything if my wife found out what I was doing.”
“So, was this attorney a divorce attorney?” she asked, as though she knew nothing about Kyle Edger. Not telling him what she already knew would help her gauge his honesty.
“He mostly did contract law, but he agreed to help me.”
“With a divorce?”
“With staying out of prison.”
Sadie frowned, sincerely confused by his answer. She’d assumed Dr. Hendricks had gone to Edgar for advice on the business, not about something criminal. “What had you done that you needed to be protected from prison for?”
Dr. Hendricks let out a heavy breath and took another bite before looking up at Sadie again. “Do you know my wife?”
Sadie squirmed internally. But she still felt that she didn’t know enough of what was going on to tell him about Anita. It would derail this conversation. She felt guilty, but suppressed it. “I’ve met her,” she finally said.
“And I’ll bet she was charming and gracious and eloquent, right?”
“She was at first. But then I crossed her and glimpsed another side of her.”
“Crossed her how?” Dr. Hendricks asked, an eager quality entering his voice. He held the fork in his hand, anticipating her answer.
Sadie briefly explained how she’d attempted to overhear Anita’s private conversation with Dr. Waters. As she spoke, Dr. Hendricks stared at his food, and Sadie noted how very unlike a doctor he seemed. Not just in his appearance, but in his lack of confidence and in his mannerisms. He was slumped forward, his spine rounded and his shoulders pulled in as he stared at the ground instead of at her.
“Ah, Jake,” he finally said. It took a moment for Sadie to remember that Jacob was Dr. Waters’s first name. Dr. Hendricks didn’t sound angry. Just sad. For whom?
“Is there something between Anita and Dr. Waters?”
He shrugged his shoulders and continued eating, with his eyes trained on the lettuce and beans. “I wondered if there could be, before I left, but I never knew for sure. I hope Jake’s smarter than that.”
“But you think your wife would cheat on you with your business partner?”
“If it helped her get something she wanted that she couldn’t get from me? Absolutely.”
“Is that why you left?”
“That was part of it, sure. But Anita is ... false, about everything. Her feelings, her success—our success. Who she cares about and why, assuming she cares about anyone at all. She manipulates and charms her way to the top of everything she does, but it’s all a house of cards.”