Rocky Road (23 page)
When Sadie called Caro, she immediately suggested they meet somewhere. They agreed to meet in five minutes at Frostop, a burger place on St. George Boulevard not far from Tess’s house. Caro gave no indication as to the reason for the meeting, and her tone was suspiciously light.
Caro was already there by the time Sadie arrived at the fifties-style diner—not a commercialized, retro-looking fifties style, but an authentic style that hadn’t been updated since the actual 1950s. It smelled like French fries, pickles, and hamburgers. Caro was easy to find because only a few of the orange-seated booths were occupied. Sadie slid into the seat opposite her. On the chrome-trimmed, Formica-topped table between them was a huge basket of orange-colored fries—sweet potato, Sadie assumed—and a dipping sauce that looked like Thousand Island dressing. Sadie was instantly concerned. Ordering this type of food was very un-Caro-like behavior.
“You okay?” Sadie asked.
Caro looked up at her and swallowed before taking swig of her drink, which looked suspiciously like soda. Caro never drank soda—she said it deteriorated muscle tissue and ate away your stomach lining.
“You’re totally not okay,” Sadie said, nodding toward the drink as Caro put it down. “What’s wrong?” She reached over for a fry even though she was still full from lunch. She dipped the fry in the sauce that wasn’t Thousand Island dressing. Yum. There was mayo and ketchup in it, but also something tangy. It was really good.
“These are sweet potato fries—they have some nutritional benefits, so I haven’t completely lost my mind,” Caro replied. She pointed to the dressing. “This is called ‘fries sauce’—it’s a Utah thing.”
“Well, then they get points for a self-explanatory title and deliciousness. I think I could drink it. Now, what’s going on?”
“Well, you heard Tess freaking out this morning, right?”
“Right,” Sadie said. She ate another fry with the fries sauce.
“Well, she wasn’t much better when I got to St. George—she was cleaning her house like a madwoman.”
“Okay ... ,” Sadie said, wondering where this was going.
“And she was on the phone and on Facebook all day long with friends and things, people wanting to talk about what each of them knew—it’s a pretty close community down here.”
“Right,” Sadie said, still waiting to hear why this was important.
“But there was one person she didn’t talk to.”
Sadie raised her eyebrows expectantly but said nothing.
“Nikki,” Caro said. “Everyone else was calling and e-mailing and texting, but Nikki never did. Tess called her once and sent her a few texts, and she didn’t respond, which had Tess really worried. So about an hour ago, she called Nikki again—and as soon as Nikki answered Nikki must have told her to go into another room because Tess looked at me and disappeared into the bedroom. I tried to listen in but I couldn’t hear anything but mumbling through the door. They talked for almost ten minutes.”
“Did you find out what they talked about?” Sadie asked.
“No. When Tess came out, she wouldn’t talk to me about it. She just said Nikki was upset, and then she got really intense and made me promise not to tell you.”
“Me?”
“You’re the investigator—she didn’t want you to know that she’d talked to Nikki.”
“Why not?”
Caro shrugged and ate another fry. “I don’t know. That’s what has me so worried. I promised her I wouldn’t tell you.” A pained expression crossed her face. “But I knew I had to.”
“You definitely did,” Sadie said. “But without context, I don’t know what to do with it.” She could take it to the police, but what would they do with it?
“Maybe you could talk to her,” Caro suggested.
“Tess?”
“No,” Caro said quickly. “Then she’d know I told you, and I don’t think she’d give much up to you anyway. She’s still not really over everything.”
Oh, brother. “So you think I should talk to Nikki?”
“I know you don’t have much to go on, but something’s up with her, don’t you think? Why else would Tess be so secretive? She and Nikki are good friends, and I get the feeling that Tess feels like she’s protecting Nikki somehow.”
Sadie considered that for a few seconds, and then her eyes snapped up to meet Caro’s. “Did she tell Nikki about Anita and Dr. Waters?”
“I don’t know,” Caro said, making a face. “We told her not to.”
“But that might not mean much. If they’re good friends, Tess might feel some kind of obligation to tell Nikki. And we know she told Lori that we found Dr. Hendricks.”
Caro nodded and ate another fry. Sadie did, too, needing an excuse to continue pondering. If Tess did tell Nikki about the meeting Sadie interrupted at the church yesterday, what would Nikki do that made Tess feel like she needed to protect her friend? Sadie backed up a step and put herself in Nikki’s position. If someone came to Sadie and told her that her husband had been closeted with another woman, what would Sadie do? She would talk to her husband. She looked at the ring on her hand and smiled slightly at the zing she felt before getting back to the task at hand. Focus. But why would Tess feel protective because of a conversation Nikki had with her husband? The next thing Sadie might do would be to talk to the woman her husband had been closeted with. Sadie’s hand paused halfway to her mouth and a drop of fries sauce fell onto the table as the idea took full shape in her mind. What if Nikki talked to Anita?
“What?” Caro asked, reminding Sadie that she wasn’t alone. Sadie quickly ate the fry and then explained her train of thought. Caro’s eyes widened as she acknowledged the plausibility of Sadie’s theory.
“That would also explain why Tess was so hyper about everything this morning. If she’d told Nikki about Anita and Dr. Waters, and then Anita ends up dead ... Oh, gosh.”
“I need you to go back to Tess and see if you can find out if she told Nikki and, if so, when? Do whatever you can to find out what she’s hiding. I’ll go see Nikki—do you know where she lives?” It occurred to Sadie that going to Nikki’s might help her get into the clinic as well—she could really use a “two birds with one stone” turn of events right now.
Caro reached into her purse and pulled out a Post-it note that she handed to Sadie. It contained an address, hastily written. “I found it, just in case.”
“Well done,” Sadie said with a sincere smile. She reached across the table and gave Caro’s hand a squeeze, knowing this was hard for her, feeling that she had betrayed Tess. “Let me know what you find out, and I’ll do the same.”
It wasn’t until Sadie was three blocks away that she realized she hadn’t told Caro about her meeting with Dr. Hendricks. The case was picking up so much speed that even something as important as that had somehow taken a backseat to this new information.
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
Dash salt
For spicy fry sauce, add:
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
Mix all the ingredients together. Makes 1/2 cup.
The Waters’s house was located on the back side of a little hill on the east side of town that Sadie had seen when she’d entered the city. For some reason, she had assumed that hill was the eastern edge of the city, but according the directions of the GPS on her phone, the hill hid a large part of the city from the view of those on the west side. The farther up she went, the bigger the houses got, until she ended up on one of the topmost streets of the neighborhood. It was filled with some of the largest houses she’d seen in the city so far. She found the Waters house easily enough—even in ritzy neighborhoods like this one, not many people had the letter “W” inlaid with pavers into their driveway.
She parked at the curb and headed up the sidewalk, taking in the large, two-level home that could probably serve as a small hotel. How many children did the Waterses have? Sadie had seen three at the memorial service, but maybe there were more who hadn’t been there. The red Jeep Wrangler in the driveway was not parked straight, and the smell of baking was heavy in the summer air as Sadie got closer to the front door. Sadie could relate to the idea of baking when you were under stress, but she couldn’t imagine baking when the stress resulted from murdering your husband’s lover. Hopefully she was wrong to even think about that. Every meeting she’d had with Nikki Waters had been positive. She seemed like a genuinely kindhearted woman. But even the kindest of people had a breaking point. Still, Sadie hoped—really hoped—that Nikki would prove Sadie’s worst suspicions wrong. Her hope was so strong she could taste it.
Sadie knocked on the door, and a few seconds later, a teenage girl answered. Sadie recognized her from the memorial service the day before. Was it really only yesterday?
“Hi,” the girl said brightly. She had long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and wore shorts with a T-shirt that said, “This little light of mine ...” across the front. A lanyard with a set of keys hung around her neck. Sadie was guessing the Jeep in the driveway belonged to her. There was some heavy metal music playing toward the back of the house, which made Sadie worry that Nikki might not be home.
“Hi. Is your mom here?”
“Sure. Come on in.”
Sadie hesitated, but the girl pulled the door wide open and then called for her mom over her shoulder before turning back with a smile. “She’s in the kitchen, but she’s not in the best mood—she’s kind of having a bad day.”
Sadie followed the girl as she led her into the hallway to the kitchen. The back of the girl’s shirt said, “I’m gunna let it shine!” reminding Sadie of Caro’s lecture on using her gifts rather than hiding them under a bushel. Somehow Sadie didn’t think Caro had foreseen Sadie using her gifts to interrogate Nikki. But as she made her way toward the back of the house, Sadie realized that she felt good about what she’d accomplished so far. She had become invested in the people involved in this case. Lori, her children, Dr. Hendricks. Even Anita. And Nikki, too. She knew what hiding from the truth could do to people, and she felt good about the role she’d played in trying to bring the truth to light. She was grateful for this moment of reflection—it helped prepare her for anything ugly that might yet lie ahead of her.
The smell of what Sadie guessed were cookies became stronger, as did the volume of the music as they proceeded to the kitchen.
“She’s just down there,” the girl said, jumping to the bottom step of a flight of stairs that led to the upper level of the house.
“Um, have you guys had dinner yet?” Sadie asked before the girl continued up the stairs. It wasn’t quite dinner time, but Sadie would feel much better if there weren’t kids in the house when she confronted Nikki.
“Nah,” the girl said good-naturedly. “But we had lots of cookies ’til Mom freaked out and banned us from the kitchen.” She didn’t seem bothered by the ban or by saying such things about her mother to a complete stranger.
“Well, I stopped at this delightful burger place this afternoon called Frostop—have you ever been there before?”
“Um, yeah, I’ve been to Frostop.”
“They had the most delicious dipping sauce—they called it ‘fries sauce.’ Have you ever tried it?”
The girl looked a bit confused, but she nodded. “Yeah, I’ve had fry sauce.”
Fry or fries? “Then you know how amazing it is!” Sadie pulled her purse off her shoulder and found her wallet. She removed a twenty-dollar bill. “Why don’t you and your brothers and sisters go get something at Frostop for dinner, since your mom is so busy with the cookies.”
The girl still looked confused. “Only Bailey’s here—Kevin’s at a friend’s.”
“Well, you and Bailey can drown yourselves in the fries sauce, then.” Still smiling, Sadie held out the money.
The girl looked at the money, and then she shrugged and took it. “Sweet—thanks. But it’s called fry sauce, not fries sauce.”
“Oh, well, now I know.” Sadie smiled. “I’ll tell your mom dinner is taken care of.”
“Okay,” the girl said, skipping up the stairs. A moment later she was calling for Bailey.
Sadie took a breath and went into the kitchen.
There were large pink bakery boxes laid out on the dining room table. Two of them were closed and one was open, with what looked like three layers of cookies, separated by parchment paper, inside. Nikki wasn’t just baking—she was baking for an army, and apparently she’d done this before. Otherwise, she wouldn’t know about the convenience of using bakery boxes, and there would have been fifty paper plates piled with cookies instead. Paper plates were good when taking a dozen cookies to a friend—ridiculous when you were baking hundreds.
The countertops were littered with all kinds of baking paraphernalia, so it took a moment for Sadie to find Nikki, who was backing away from the oven with a hot pan of cookies. Sadie waited until Nikki put the pan on the marble countertop—she should use a trivet or hot pad, Sadie thought—before she said hello loud enough to be heard over the music. Startled, Nikki blinked, her face blank for half a second before she managed a weak smile. Her hair, so perfectly coiffed yesterday, was pulled up in a bumpy ponytail on top of her head, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her pink apron, complete with the pink posy logo on the front, covered a white T-shirt and black-and-red-striped pajama pants. Brown leather slippers covered Nikki’s feet. By all appearances, she’d had an “undone” kind of day.
“Hi,” Nikki said loudly. She moved to the thin stereo mounted underneath one of the upper cabinets and turned down the sound. Before she could find something else to say, Sadie complimented her on the cookies. “Chocolate chocolate chip?”
“Um, sort of. Oatmeal chocolate chocolate chip, I guess. I call them Dream Cookies.”
“What are they for? Do you cater or something?”
“I said I’d make some for the vigil tonight. It was the least I could do.”
Sadie looked at the cookies in a new light. They were for the vigil? Were they also a way to cover her crimes?
Nikki nervously picked up a spatula on the counter and began moving the cookies to a cooling rack. She really hadn’t let them cool on the pan long enough, and, although the first one survived the transfer all right, the second one she removed from the tray broke apart. “I’m really busy right now,” Nikki said between cookies, waving her hand toward the dining room table. The fourth cookie crumbled as well. Nikki didn’t seem to notice or to care.
“Looks like you could use an extra set of hands,” Sadie said. Nikki looked up at her but didn’t smile.
A teenage voice called from the hallway. “We’re going.”
Nikki stepped toward the hallway. “What?” she called—but the front door slammed.
“I gave them some money to go to Frostop. Have you tried their fry sauce? It’s incredible.”
Nikki blinked at her. “You gave my kids money?”
Sadie kept her tone light and conversational. “I knew you hadn’t been able to make dinner, and I didn’t think you wanted them here when you and I had this discussion. I know you want to avoid it, but you know in your heart you shouldn’t.”
Nikki blinked again and Sadie knew she was repeating in her mind what Sadie had just said. Nikki went back to her cookies. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sadie didn’t know what she was talking about, either, and she searched for a way to get Nikki to fill in the numerous blanks. “I owe you an apology,” Sadie said as she arrived at what she hoped was the right way to lead into this conversation Nikki didn’t want to have.
Nikki looked up. “An apology? For what?”
“Something happened yesterday that I should have told you about. I’m sorry that I didn’t.”
Nikki tensed and looked away. She went back to transferring cookies and said nothing.
“See, when we were at the memorial service, I saw Anita and your husband go off—”
“I already know, okay,” Nikki said quickly and sharply, obviously not wanting to hear it again and yet confirming that Tess had been a blabbermouth. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I understand,” Sadie said. “But I think we need to.”
Nikki stared at the counter and took a breath. She looked at Sadie. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but this really isn’t any of your business, and I would appreciate it if you would please go.”
“Did you talk to your husband about it?” Sadie pushed. If she had, it might have given him some motive, too. More motive than he already had if in fact there was something going on between him and Anita.
“You really need to leave,” Nikki said with what sounded like the last of her polite patience. She gripped the edge of the counter with one hand and her knuckles turned white.
“Or did you talk to Anita instead?”
Nikki’s head snapped up to meet Sadie’s gaze. She held it for a few seconds, with fear in her eyes before they narrowed slightly. She pointed the hand with the spatula toward the front of the house. “Get out of my house.”
“Did you go to Anita’s house last night, Nikki?” Sadie pushed further. “Did you confront her?”
“Get out!” Nikki yelled. “Get out now!”
“I’m not leaving,” Sadie countered, crossing her arms over her chest. “Not until you tell me what happened. You went there, didn’t you? You went there to confront her about the meeting she had with your husband at the memorial service. Tess told you about it, and you couldn’t help yourself.” She could tell by the varying expressions on Nikki’s face that she was on the right track. “It makes perfect sense that you would go there, Nikki. I’d do exactly the same thing in your position. Any woman would. How did she react? What happened?”
“I didn’t kill her,” Nikki said quickly, and then she realized what she’d said and clamped her mouth shut. Tears began forming in her eyes. “I ... I ...” She looked around the kitchen as though she were trying to find an escape. Her glance landed on the boxes of cookies she’d been working on all day, and she closed her eyes, a single tear leaking out of one eye, which she quickly brushed away. “She said I was being ridiculous—as though it didn’t even matter if ...”
Now they could get somewhere. “But you didn’t believe her.”
“She’s beautiful and smart and successful. She spends more time with my husband than I do and helps run his business.” Nikki opened her eyes and looked down at the apron she wore and the slippers on her feet. “I’ve had six kids. I don’t understand anything about how to run the foundation or the clinic, even though Jake has asked me for years to get involved, and ... and it wouldn’t be the first time she ...”
Sadie lifted her eyebrows. “The first time Anita went after a married man? You know about Dr. Hendricks and Anita, then.”
Nikki’s mouth dropped open in surprise.
“You thought you were the only who knew that?” Sadie asked, trying to play it cool, even though she was making it up one word at a time. Nikki had thrown it out there as a way to defend herself, but Sadie had caught the curve ball and thrown it right back. It was imperative that she stay on her feet for the rest of this inning. “Come on—he and Lori are having problems, and six months later this beautiful woman comes to work for him. Six months after that, they’re dating, and six months after that, they get married? It’s like a script for covering up an affair and making it all appear normal and natural. How did you find out?”
“Jake swore me to secrecy a couple of years ago, and even he wasn’t certain. When I learned about Jake and Anita going off like that, I just ... I just knew.” She blinked quickly and looked out the window to the backyard that had actual grass in it. “My family is everything to me, and to think that ... ”
“So—your husband and Anita were having a relationship?” Sadie said, saddened that the worst-case scenario could have been the truth. “He confirmed it?”
Nikki scratched at something on the counter. “I haven’t talked to him yet.”
Sadie blinked, mentally backing up in the conversation. “Then how can you be so sure they were having an affair? Anita denied it, right?”
“They went off together at the luncheon.”
“Is that your only evidence?” Sadie asked.
“Isn’t that enough?” Nikki responded. “And then other things made more sense. I thought she was calling him all the time because Trent wasn’t there for her to bounce things off of and that Jake avoided her because he didn’t really like her—he’d said that to me plenty of times before—but now I realize it was all an act, all part of the game they were playing.” She raised a hand to her mouth and looked out the window again as more tears came.