Lemon Tart (37 page)

Carrie straightened and the fear finally entered her eyes.
She’d realized she was literally in a corner.

“Just give me a reason, Carrie,” Sadie said. “It’s been a very
trying afternoon and I could use the outlet.” Wow, she sounded like a wrestler
or something!

Carrie’s shoulders slumped and she took a step back, instead of
forward.

Assured that Carrie wasn’t going to try anything, Sadie bent
down and reached out a hand to smooth Trevor’s hair from his face, tears rising
as she realized it was over. Trevor was found, he was safe. He had a life ahead
of him, though one without a mother, with a father he barely knew, and a
history he would never be free of. She reached under him and lifted him in her
arms. Thank goodness she’d come at nap time. He shifted and blinked his eyes open
as she adjusted him against her shoulder, not wanting him to see her swollen
face.

“But . . .”

Sadie turned to face Trina who began to speak. “We . . .
we weren’t going to hurt him. And Randy—what do you mean about
Randy?”

Sadie smiled at her niece, sympathetic for her situation.
“You’re going to be okay, Trina, really,” she said in comforting tones.
“Detective Madsen is Randy
Sharp. He tricked you because he was going to blackmail your father. It wasn’t
your fault, but you can still do the right thing for Trevor and for your dad by
telling the truth when you get to the police station.”

“You don’t understand,” Carrie said from the far side of the
room, crying now.

Sadie turned and looked between the two of them, mother and
daughter. “Maybe not,” she said quietly, one hand holding Trevor against her
and the other smoothing his hair. She tried to keep her voice calm for Trevor’s
sake. “But I know Jack was willing to go to prison for you, Carrie. I wonder if
that means anything to you. All he can do is try to make a very big wrong a
little bit right. I wonder if you will make that harder or easier for him to
do.”

She turned, surprised to find a quiet Mindy still in the
doorway. She’d forgotten all about her. “I’m sorry for telling you to shut up,
Mindy, but can you please drive us back to town despite my rudeness?” Not
waiting for an answer, she headed outside, aware of Mindy pulling the door shut
behind her.

Sadie was only a few steps away from the cabin when tires
crunched on the gravel drive. She froze, unprepared for anything else.

“Mrs. Hoffmiller,” Detective Cunningham said with a tone that
caught Sadie’s attention despite all the swirling thoughts and emotions in her
mind. He was stepping out of a brown sedan and hearing his voice allowed her to
relax. He sounded relieved and scared and a tad bit hyper all at once. In
moments he was at her side, attempting to take Trevor from her arms as another
officer headed toward the cabin. “Your daughter called us and said you might be
coming to the cabin. Jack gave us directions. Let me take him.”

She held on tight to the toddler as Mindy followed the second
officer into the cabin, relaying their story as fast as she could. “He’s okay,”
Sadie breathed. “Just let me hold him for a minute.”

Cunningham nodded and led her to the sedan, opening the back
door so she could slide inside. “What happened?” he asked, once she had leaned
against the seat. He had one hand holding the door open, the other braced
against the frame of the car. His eyes were so troubled, and yet with relief
behind them.

“Oh,” she said, shaking her head as she tried to imagine how to
give the details. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“You’re hurt,” he said as his eyes seemed to scan her face for
the first time.

“I hit a tree, but I’m okay.”

“A tree?”

“I know, I can’t believe it either, I’ve never hit anything in
my life; well, other than Shawn’s bike, I guess.”

Cunningham paused, looking a bit confused. “Where’s Madsen?”

“He’s handcuffed to a tree about, oh, three miles or so from
here. He’s going to need surgery on his hand . . . and maybe some
stitches for his face, but I think he’ll be okay, other than the fact that he’s
a very angry man and I’m not sure what the cure is for that.”

Cunningham’s face scrunched, his confusion deepening. “What?”

She shook her head slightly and placed a hand on Trevor’s hair
again, reminding herself that he was there, still sleeping, blissfully unaware
of his circumstances. She looked up and met Cunningham’s eyes with her own. Her
tears overflowed as the tension finally drained away, her body finally
accepting that she, as well as
Trevor, was safe. “Can you please take me to see Jack? This boy needs his dad.”

Chapter 39

Sadie stood behind the mirrored wall looking in on
Jack once again. Detective Cunningham stood next to her; Trevor was in another
office being tended to by a representative of Family Services. In a few
minutes, once Jack had finished giving his official statement to the police,
father and son would be reunited.

“A bittersweet reunion if ever there was one,” Sadie whispered
under her breath, almost not realizing she’d spoken out loud until Cunningham
replied to her comment.

“But a reunion nonetheless. It doesn’t always have this kind of
ending.”

Sadie nodded her understanding.

“Madsen?” she asked after a few more moments, still watching
Jack.

“Fine,” Cunningham said bluntly with a shrug of his shoulders
and the faintest smile on his face. “He’d nearly broke through the tree you
hooked him to by the time we found him—mouth of a sailor, that
kid.”

“Very poor reflection on his parents,” Sadie said with a nod,
“that’s for sure. I wonder how his father will cover this one up.”

A silence stretched between them, but not a silence of
discomfort. Rather it was a pause laced with anticipation of what words would
fill the space between them—a comfortable silence, a calm
following the storm.

“Are you ready to go to the hospital, get yourself checked out?
Air bags pack quite a punch.”

Sadie shrugged. “It’s nothing some ice, herbal tea, and Tylenol
can’t fix. I’d rather stay here.”

The door to the little room they were in opened and a female
officer looked around until she met Sadie’s eyes. “Mrs. Hoffmiller, someone
would like to talk to you.”

Sadie wasn’t sure who to expect, but after leaving the room and
seeing Ron waiting, her steps slowed. He stood up from the plastic chair he’d
been sitting in, one of a dozen pushed up against the wall. She stopped and let
him approach her, bracing herself for what she knew had to happen next.

“Ron,” she said when he was a few feet away. “I know what
really happened, and though I also know you’re not an evil person, I don’t
think that—”

He cut her off by putting his hands up, palms out, and facing
her. “I know what you’re going to say,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “But
I’ve thought about everything and come to the conclusion that whether you agree
with me or not, I did the right thing and I have no qualms about what I did.”

Sadie was stunned, reviewing the regret and what had seemed to
be tortured tones of their conversation back at the house. She shook her head
sadly, even more confused by this man she thought she knew. However, she was
grateful to have learned the truth about him before they married, rather than
afterward. That would have been horrible. “Well, if you have no qualms about
the choices you made, then you’ve only proved my position that we’re not well
matched.”

His eyebrows furrowed as if he hadn’t expected that reaction,
but he quickly recovered. “I think you’re being unfair, judgmental, and pious.”

Sadie’s mouth dropped open and she blinked at him. “Me? Well, I
think you’re being arrogant, demeaning, and stupid.”

“Well, I think you’re—”

She put up her hand to stop the juvenile exchange. They were
years from the playground that was the foundation for such petty arguments. “It
seems we agree.”

Ron straightened his shoulders again and nodded sharply. “It
seems that we do. I can’t see myself with a woman who can’t forgive me when I
make mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” Sadie repeated. “I thought you had no qualms about
the choices you’d made?”

Ron didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so she spared him
having to come up with anything. “If I had a ring, I’d give it back to you, and
since we both care about Jack I hope we can function as acquaintances for his
sake. He’s going to need his friends.”

Ron opened his mouth to say something, then looked past Sadie’s
shoulder, closed his mouth, turned, and stormed toward the doors of the
station—though another officer called out to him and ushered
him into a room. Apparently the police weren’t finished with Ron.

Sadie turned to see Detective Cunningham standing in the
doorway of the observation room. “Everything okay?” he asked.

Sadie looked back toward Ron, but he was gone, and then she
turned her head to look at Detective Cunningham again. She tried not to look at
it all too closely, but somehow it felt as though she were looking at her past
and then her future. He watched her carefully and she felt her pulse increase
by the protective look on his face. “I’ve been dumped,” she said after several
seconds, their eyes locked on one another.

“Or promoted to a whole new position of possibilities,” he
said. “It’s all about how you look at it.”

“Very true,” Sadie said.

“They’re about to bring Trevor in, I didn’t want you to miss
it.”

Sadie smiled at him as she passed him in the doorway. “Thank
you.” Once back in the room, many of those possibilities he’d just mentioned
began spinning cartwheels in her head. Perhaps she was jumping to
conclusions—it wouldn’t be the first time—but
there was a comfortable air with Detective Cunningham that tingled with
anticipation.

He held her eyes for a moment, then blushed slightly and looked
back at the glass. They watched in silence for nearly a minute as the officer
finished wrapping things up with Jack, who was still signing paperwork.

She tested the next thing she wanted to say, and decided to go
for it. Her timing was probably terrible, and yet with everything over she
realized she might not see the detective again. Even if nothing came of it, she
wanted some of her curiosity satiated in regard to this man. “When did your
wife pass away?”

Cunningham stiffened quickly, then slowly relaxed. When he
spoke, his voice was soft and vulnerable. “How did you know?”

Sadie smiled slightly but didn’t meet his eyes, allowing him
his privacy with facial expression if nothing else. “The tapering of your
finger where your ring used to be, the sweetness in your voice when you talked
about your wife’s applesauce . . . and you understood when I talked about
Neil’s death.”

After a few more seconds, Sadie turned to look at him. She
smiled even though it hurt a little bit. She’d been oddly excited to have him
see her with her makeup and hair done so he’d know what she really looked
like—now she’d have to wait for the swelling and bruises to go
away.

He met her eyes and cleared his throat before he spoke. “Two
years,” he said quietly. “Pancreatic cancer. It’s been . . . hard.”

Sadie smiled sympathetically. “I wore my ring for almost three
years,” she said. “It was hard to accept the shift in my future.”

Detective Cunningham nodded, absently rubbing his naked ring
finger with his right hand. “I took mine off on the two-year anniversary
last month—I’m not sure I’m the same man without it.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said sincerely. And she was; losing someone
you loved was a horrendously painful experience.

“Me too.”

The door of the room Jack was in opened and Jack quickly stood,
his eyes wide, his expression scared as he wiped his hands on the front of his
pants—the pants he’d come in with and that had been returned to
him. She noticed he had his wedding ring on again and wondered if he still had
hope in regards to Carrie. Part of Sadie rebelled against the idea—Carrie
had done very little to deserve a second chance—and yet who was
she to say what was and what wasn’t big enough for love to heal?

A woman led Trevor into the room and Jack tried to smile though
he looked very nervous. Finally he crouched down and reached toward the
hesitant toddler. After a few moments, Trevor let go of the social worker and
made tentative movements toward Jack’s outstretched hand.

“Hi, Trevor,” Jack said, smiling despite the tears in his eyes.
“I’m Jack, your . . . I’m your dad.”

Sadie felt a lump rise in her throat and wiped quickly at her
eyes before turning to Detective Cunningham, afraid if she kept watching she’d
lose all composure.

“It’s been a long day and I was thinking of making a
gingerbread when I get home tonight, you know, to take the edge off. I know I’m
not much to look at right now, but I can still cook. Would you like to come
over and share it with me?”

Cunningham regarded her for a moment, then smiled, his eyes
crinkling in the corner just like Sean Connery. “Gingerbread? I hear it
goes well with applesauce.”