“Can I get you some more tea?” Sadie asked.
“No, thank you. I’ve imposed on your kindness long enough. Than you, Sadie, for everything.” He offered up a weak smile and rested his head on the back of the couch. She returned his smile. He squeezed her hand. “Hiring you is turning out to be the best decision I ever made.”
She was at a temporary loss for words, so she nodded. Sadie couldn’t believe he had managed to fluster her again. She looked away, searching the beautiful antique-filled room. Ben commanded an odd mix of attraction and pity from her. She had never been attracted to someone she felt sorry for, someone who was technically her employer. Though she enjoyed a challenge, she had never been drawn to the forbidden. What was it about him that intrigued her so?
Her phone rang and she leapt for it, glad for the reprieve. “Excuse me, I have to take this.” Ben nodded sleepily as she stood and walked away.
“Where are you?” was Luke’s greeting.
“I’m at Ben’s,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? You were on the afternoon news emerging from a murdered man’s house and you have to ask what’s wrong? Sadie, what is going on?”
“I was on the news?” Sadie said. “Did they mention the agency?”
She could picture him pacing the kitchen, grinding his palm into his eye socket. “Yes, I believe they said something like, ‘Sadie Cooper took a break from dressing like a chicken to play at being a detective. Then someone died and she realized how insane that was and found a real job.’”
“Wow, they need a new writer,” Sadie said.
“Sadie,” he hissed.
“Luke, I’m fine. Ben’s fine, thanks for asking. I’m sorry I’m not more broken up about the dead guy, but I didn’t know him, and he was kind of a sleaze from all accounts.”
“He’s not just a dead guy; he’s a murdered dead guy,” Luke said.
“Well, I didn’t do it, and neither did Ben.”
“And you don’t think the two cases are related?”
Now would be a good time to tell him about the broken neck/army connection, but she didn’t. “How and why would they possibly be connected?” Would he sense the genuine curiosity in her tone? She needed to find her own answers.
“All I know is that you went looking for a man who was missing and when you found him, he turned up murdered. Doesn’t that seem like a pretty big coincidence to you?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Sadie, come on.”
“Luke, I can’t think about this right now. Ben is really shaken up.”
“You shouldn’t be there with him. You should not be alone with a strange man at his house.”
“Why is everyone but me falling apart today? You’re freaking out over nothing.”
“Come home, or I’m coming over.”
“You can’t come over. I’m on a job. I don’t need a chaperone.”
“Obviously you do because you’re not grasping the danger of the situation.”
“There is no danger, okay? There’s me and Ben and his beautiful house full of breakable things.”
“What are you talking about? What does his house have to do with anything?”
“If someone tried to get in here, I would know immediately because they would break something. There’s a curio cabinet in every corner. It’s like your Grandma Mabel’s house times ten.”
“China teacups and knickknacks are not going to stop a crazed killer.”
“If the killer’s an antiques dealer, I’m pretty sure they would give him pause.”
“I’m serious, Sadie. I’m putting on my shoes and getting my keys right now.”
“All right already. I was about to come home anyway,” Sadie said. She hung up and stuffed the phone back in her pocket, torn between frustration and pleasure at his concern. When was the last time someone took an interest in her whereabouts? Except for her brief marriage to a man who had cared in an unhealthy, obsessive way, not since she was a kid living under Gideon’s roof.
“Ben, I have to…” she stopped midsentence when she realized he was asleep. She tiptoed nearer, covered him with a shawl, and eased out of the house. Maybe the key to Ben’s insomnia was to face a traumatizing ordeal. Sadie didn’t have insomnia, but maybe it was a cure for her, too, because she was exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to go home and decompress, but that wasn’t to be.
Luke was waiting for her when she arrived, standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the entry light. His arms were crossed over his chest, but she could see the outline of some geeky character on his t-shirt, some cartoon so obscure she didn’t know the name. He was barefoot, wearing jogging pants that, despite never having been used to jog, had seen better days, and no one had ever looked better. Sadie’s heart filled so quickly and so completely that it squeezed painfully. This man knew her every fault, had been on the receiving end of most of them, and yet cared about her anyway. Amazing.
She wanted to grab on and never let go, but she was afraid he might reject her. She, Sadie Cooper, who knew her way around men like Mark Twain on the Mississippi, was suddenly reticent to make a wrong move.
“Are you okay?” Luke asked.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look weird.”
“You’re wearing a cartoon mouse on your chest, and I look weird.”
“That expression on your face—I don’t know it.”
It’s called insecurity.
“Hunger. I skipped lunch. Let’s find something to eat.” She sped by him, hooking her arm through his as she tugged him behind her. The key was to keep moving. Luke was suspicious of her mood; she didn’t want him delving too deeply into her psyche right now for fear of what he might find out.
“Mom dropped off a meal,” Luke said.
Sadie was more relieved than she wanted to admit that she didn’t have to cook. “Your mom wins the award for best in the universe.”
“She’s worried about you.”
“She worries too much. Family trait.” Sadie poked her head under the cover of the casserole that Maddie Sawyer had made. It smelled like cream of mushroom soup, Velveeta cheese, and childhood security all rolled into one. “Where’s Abby?”
“It’s buy one get one free night at the hospital cafeteria.”
“I don’t know what she sees in that place. Their food is terrible,” Sadie said.
“I think Abby agrees, but her friends like it, so they go together. She’s a social one, our Abby.”
“That she is,” Sadie agreed. She portioned a plate for him without asking how much he wanted, and it was the perfect amount. Luke poured drinks and they sat.
“You look tired, Sade.”
“Is that my reminder to spackle on another layer of makeup?”
Any makeup she had applied that morning had worn off long ago. She looked cute and young and sleepy. “You don’t need makeup.”
“I don’t wear much anymore.” The true reason was because she couldn’t afford it, but she was content with allowing Luke to think she was comfortable with her unmade appearance. In comparison to what she had been, she was a mess. Her once-smooth hair now hung in curly ringlets, her well-made face was au naturel, her clothes more worn than polished.
See how the mighty have fallen.
The always camera-ready Sadie Cooper had been reduced to smearing petroleum jelly on her lips in lieu of expensive gloss. Her remaining pride sizzled and stung at being reduced so, but otherwise she was happy. For the first time in a long time, she was surrounded by people who genuinely cared about her, who didn’t mind that she was wearing last year’s shoes and rubbing herself with free samples from old magazines instead of real perfume.
They ate in comfortable silence for a while. The doorbell rang and they looked at each other in question. Who could it be? Everyone they knew was accounted for. Sadie sprinted to the door and flung it open while Luke trailed cautiously behind. Why did she never check the peephole? It didn’t matter this time, though, because no one was there. Sadie bent and retrieved something from the stoop, bringing it into the light to inspect it.
“What is it?” Luke asked. Prickles of apprehension were sparking down his spine at her expression. Whatever it was, Sadie was spooked. She didn’t want to show him, he could tell by the way she clutched it to her chest. He ripped it away and made his own inspection before she could protest.
There was a small cloth patch and a note. The patch he recognized as stripes belonging to an army uniform. The note read, “Game on, Sadie Cooper. Catch me if you can.”
“Are you going to tell Gideon?”
“Why would I tell my dad?” Sadie asked. She and Luke were eating breakfast together. Abby hadn’t yet emerged from her room. Sometimes living with an eighty year old was like living with a teenager.
“Maybe because the former chief of police should know his daughter is receiving threats.”
“It wasn’t a threat.”
“Sadie!”
“Look, I’ll admit it was creepy, but it technically wasn’t a threat. Gideon would say the same thing.”
“I doubt Gideon would be so glib.”
“I’m not being glib, it’s just that this sort of thing happens to me a lot.”
Luke’s spoon clattered dramatically to his bowl as he waited for her to expound.
“I have a public persona. There are a lot of crazy people. You put those two things together, and the result is what happened last night. I was on the news yesterday, and it sparked something in one of the crazies. This kind of stuff happened to me all the time when I was a reporter. There was one guy in particular who kept asking me to send him samples of my hair.”
“How can you be so calm? How can you talk about these things like they’re normal?”
“They’re not normal, but they’re not new, either. The only rational approach is to ignore them and they’ll go away. Be vigilant, yes, but don’t pay special attention because that’s what they want and it fuels the crazy.”
Luke stared at her as she ate her cereal and read the paper like it was any other day, like someone hadn’t invaded their home turf and issued her a challenge. “How do you explain the army patch?”
A little furrow worked its way between her brows. How she managed to be adorable and exasperating at the same time was beyond him, but she looked like a little kid who was trying to work out a perplexing math problem. “I don’t know. It hasn’t exactly been a secret. You know, I know, Abby knows, Hal knows, Mary knows. Maybe one of those people talked and the conversation was overheard.”
“You know who else knows? Ben,” Luke pointed out.
“Maybe Ben talked,” she conceded. She didn’t see it, though. Ben seemed like a private person, not one to wear his heart or his problems on his sleeve.
“Would it do any good to tell you I don’t think you should go alone to talk to him?”
“Go alone where and talk to whom?” Abby asked. She always emerged from her room perfectly made up. Maybe that was what took so long. No tatty bathrobe and frizzy hair for Abby. For all Sadie knew, she had a stylist set her hair in her room before she came down. How was it always so perfect? Did she sleep in a cap to preserve her curls?
“Ben White,” Luke answered while Sadie was preoccupied with trying to analyze Abby’s hairline for signs of recent elastic cling.
“I’ll go,” Abby volunteered. That got Sadie’s attention. If she was in some danger, she certainly didn’t want Abby getting in the middle of it.
“Abby, I thought today is your day to read.” Every week Abby volunteered to read to kids at a local elementary school. Though she had never been crazy about children, Sadie knew she enjoyed her weekly sessions. She said it kept her young to stay in touch with today’s youth.
“I’m a volunteer. I can miss if I deem necessary,” Abby said.
Luke must have been on the same page as Sadie. “You don’t have to cancel, Abby. I’ll go with Sadie.”
“No one needs to go with me,” Sadie argued.
“You won’t even know I’m there,” Luke said. “I’ll take a book and sit quietly in the background. He already thinks I’m mute.”
He was wearing his stubborn face. Sadie could win, but it would take a lot of energy she didn’t have. “Get a haircut. You look like a sheepdog.” She pushed his hair out of his eyes, let it go, and watched it cascade.
Luke smiled. Sadie always got mad and changed the subject when he won an argument. “The grungy look goes with my bad boy image.”
“The Rocky and Bullwinkle t-shirt does not,” Sadie said.
Luke looked down. He should probably change. The Ben White guy was a natty dresser. He made Luke feel young and poor in comparison. “I should change.”
“Don’t change. You look cute,” Sadie said. She ruffled his hair again. He smacked her hand away, and she winked at him.
“You treat me like I’m five sometimes.”
“Sometimes I still see you that way, but what’s so bad about that? You were adorable when you were five.”
The problem was that he had also been her minion. Did she understand that he was a grown man now, strong enough to stand on his own without her leading him by the nose? Now when he let Sadie take the lead, it was because he chose to. Did she get that?
“You’re staring at me in a creepy manner,” Sadie said.
“Thinking,” Luke said.
“Could you blink when you think?”
“Could you rhyme all the time?” He poked her side and she batted his hand away.
“You’re weird this morning.”
“Just this morning?”
“Good point. I should probably check on Gideon before we go.” She gazed out the window toward her father’s house. Though she had only been back in their lives for a few days, Sadie had come to count on Mary as a buffer. If she went this morning, Mary wouldn’t be there. Sadie would have to field Gideon’s barbs and rejection on her own.
“Gideon’s fine,” Abby interjected. She had been silently watching the byplay between Luke and Sadie, looking for they knew not what. What did Abby think about their relationship? She never said; she just watched and listened, almost like she was taking notes for a future tell-all book. “A sore behind is no reason to have to put up with his nonsense.”
“I suppose I could check on him later,”
when Mary is there to run interference.
“Sounds good,” Abby agreed. “Maybe I’ll be nice and take him some food, try to make peace.”
They cleaned up the kitchen together before going their separate ways, Abby to school and Sadie and Luke to Ben White’s house. Sadie drove. Luke didn’t think anything of it until he was once again in the passenger seat.
“I can drive, you know,” he said.
“You don’t know where we’re going.”
“You could tell me.”
“I like to drive.”
“Of course you do,” he muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“It means you like to be in control. Always. Sometimes I like to drive, too.”
“Fine, next time we go somewhere, you can drive.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said.
“What is your problem?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. He had no idea why he was irritable and spoiling for a fight except that it felt like they were falling into old patterns with Sadie leading and him following. But asserting himself by being a jerk was not the way he wanted her to realize he had changed. “When we were kids, you planned every adventure, every scheme. Every idea, good or bad, was yours. I was along for the ride, your hapless devotee. Now you’re back, and you’re still you, but I’m not still me. I’m not that kid who can be talked into anything, who would rather follow than lead. I’m my own person with my own ideas and agenda, and I’m not going to be strong-armed into doing everything your way.”
She didn’t comment until they were parked in front of Ben White’s massive Victorian mansion. “I didn’t think of myself as the boss and you as my employee. I thought of us as a team. One of the things I loved best about you was that you were up for anything, no matter how crazy or out there. And now you’re telling me that you’ve resented me all these years, that you think of me as some Amazon warrior who beats you over the head to get you to capitulate.”
“No, Sadie, that’s not…
She shook her head to cut him off. “Forget it. I can’t have this conversation when I need to focus on a job.”
“Sadie,” he called, but she had already left the car and was heading up the walk. He hastily grabbed his duffle of books. Maybe if he could catch up, he could get in a good word before the door opened, but no such luck. As soon as he arrived on the doorstep, Ben White had the door open and was welcoming them inside. His khaki pants and tweed blazer made Luke feel like a style-deprived teenager.
This is the kind of guy Sadie normally goes for, the kind who has his tailor on speed dial,
he thought. There was unmistakable disdain in his expression when he eyed Luke from the top of his shaggy hair to the tips of his worn sneakers, but was there also a hint of resentment? Had the stuffy Mr. White hoped to have Sadie all to himself? If so, he was in for a lot more disappointment.
I’m not going anywhere, pal.
Luke silently sent the message while pasting on a smile.
Package deal,
was what he was trying to convey, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded. As he stood behind Sadie, silent and loaded down with books, he looked more like her valet. She and Ben were a matching with their perfect looks and perfect clothes.
“Come in,” Ben said, his tone affable despite his frosty expression. “I’m afraid I’ve only set tea service for two, but I can easily add another.”
“That’s okay, Luke’s more of a coffee guy anyway,” Sadie said.
Luke wanted to argue that he could swig tea like a Brit when the occasion called for it, but he stopped himself in time. Being competitive over tea wasn’t a road he wanted to travel.
“I don’t keep coffee on hand,” Ben said. “That much caffeine and insomnia aren’t a good combination.”
Tea leaves have more caffeine than coffee beans.
It was the sort of annoying trivia Luke would normally spout, but he stifled, not only because he was trying to remain quiet but because Ben would no doubt point out that what mattered was the final product. Once brewed, tea did have less caffeine than coffee. Luke would feel chastised and petty. He scowled at Ben for the imagined slight. He really needed to stop having these arguments in his head.
“You were cryptic on the phone,” Ben said. He sat and began to pour tea. Luke arranged himself on one of the delicate-looking wing chairs. How did Ben relax in a room like this? Abby liked antiques and period furniture, but she kept it confined to formal spaces. As far as Luke could tell, this entire house looked like a period reproduction. He imagined Ben trying to stretch out and read the paper on the uncomfortable little settee and had to swallow a snicker.
“Last night, someone left this on my doorstep,” Sadie said. She produced the patch and handed it to Ben.
Ben took it with a confused expression. “I don’t understand.”
“He also left this note.” She unfolded the note and handed it over as well.
He read the note, his face going pale. “Oh, Sadie,” he whispered. “I’ve gotten you in a world of trouble and danger. I’m so sorry. Of course you’re going to stop working on this immediately and go to the police.”
Luke gave him points for his concern, but deducted the same number for how little he knew Sadie. “Ben, don’t be silly,” she said. “I’m not afraid of some crazy person who is trying to scare me. And there’s nothing to take to the police. There’s no threat, he didn’t enter the house, didn’t do anything more than put a note on the porch. I’m not going to stop working on your case until we figure out what’s going on.” She took a pad of paper and a pen from her purse. “I think we need to revisit the army. Our coincidences are piling up, and I need more information. How many men were in your unit?”
“That’s a tricky question. There were over a hundred men in the company and forty in my platoon.”
“What about your ranger team? From what I understand of Special Forces, you don’t work alone,” Sadie said.
“There were twelve men on my team, but it wasn’t like it was in the movies; we weren’t best buddies or brothers. We were coworkers, and that was it. I was only on the team for a little over a year; things never felt cohesive. We had our differences. Those differences caused stress, and that stress led to my withdrawal.”
“Let’s start with the team. Do you remember their names?”
“I think I’ll remember better if I write instead of dictate. Do you mind?” He held out his hands for her paper and pen.