Pumpkin Roll (19 page)

When Gabrielle spoke again, her icy tone had returned. “Well, it’s obvious you’ve already made your mind up about me,” she said. “But you really have no idea what’s going on here so don’t—”

“Wait,” Sadie jumped in, trying to save the conversation. “I’m not trying to be judgmental, Ms. Marrow, just lining up the facts. I’ve already called social services, but—”

“You called them?” Gabrielle said, shocked. “Why would you do that?”

Oh, this was not going well. Gabrielle was obviously on edge and her mood was twisting like a windmill. “You wouldn’t talk to me on the phone,” Sadie reminded her. “You had me kicked out of the hotel, and you were—”

“I did
not
have you kicked out!” Gabrielle said. “I left a very important meeting to talk to you, and you were not there.”

Argh! This was so aggravating. Was Gabrielle psychotic
and
delusional? Sadie tried to get the conversation back on track. “Look, Ms. Marrow. I want to help your sister, and help you if I can. Really, that’s all I want to do.”

“Help me?”

“If I can, yes. That’s why I called you, why I went to the hotel, and why we called social services this morning. We are concerned. We want to—”

Suddenly Pete appeared in front of the minivan with Fig still sleeping over his shoulder. He was gesturing for Sadie to get out of the car. She furrowed her brow as he pulled open her door. She looked up at him.

“I need your help,” he said.

“Just a minute,” Sadie said to Gabrielle, pulling the phone from her ear and stepping out of the car. She covered the mouthpiece. “It’s Gabrielle,” she said to Pete in an urgent whisper. “She’s finally called me back, and I think we’re getting somewhere.”

“The back door was unlocked,” Pete said. “Someone’s been in the house again.”

Chapter 16

Sadie felt her stomach drop. Pete gave her a strong look and then headed out of the garage while Sadie waged a battle inside herself.

“Gabrielle, I’m really sorry, but can I call you back? I’ve got a bit of a situation here that demands my immediate attention.”

Gabrielle let out a heavy groan on the other end of the line. “There are a hundred things I need to take care of before tomorrow’s reception.” Something in her voice, however, sounded as though she regretted that; she wanted to talk to Sadie.

“I’m sorry. Um . . . what if we met in person later tonight? Whatever time works for you.” Meeting in person was always much more effective than talking on the phone anyway. She’d make sure it was a public location so that she’d be safe.

“I’ll have to call you back when I have a better idea of how the rest of my day is going to come together.”

“That’s fine,” Sadie said, the urgency to join Pete pressing in on her. “Anytime would work for me.”

“I’ll call you as soon as I have a time,” Gabrielle said. They said good-bye, and Sadie hung up, trying to shut out the regret of missing an opportunity to finally connect with this woman. She hurried toward the house. Pete was standing outside the open back door, Fig still asleep on his shoulder. He pushed a final button on his cell phone with his free hand and put it to his ear as Sadie approached. With his head, he motioned toward the open back door and stepped out of her way.

Chance sat on the wooden step, looking tired and a little confused. Sadie ruffled his hair as she passed him and looked inside the house, lifting her eyes as she surveyed the small section of kitchen she could see from the doorway. Plates and bowls lined the floor, each one placed carefully in a pattern. Plate, bowl, plate. There were three or four rows of them near the door, then a row of forks. Next to that was a row of spoons, and next to that was a row of butter knives. All the cabinet doors as well as the drawers had been pulled open.

Sadie swallowed and looked past the kitchen into the hallway. What looked like Mrs. Wapple’s hat was back in the same place where it had been yesterday morning. All the curtains had been closed, lending a pale darkness to the interior of the house. A gust of wind blew from behind her and points of cold pricked against Sadie’s cheek. She looked up at the gray sky as the first snowflakes began to fall. Pete was giving the address to what Sadie could only assume was a 911 dispatcher. His determination not to call the police had been exhausted.

“What’s the matter, Aunt Sadie?”

Sadie looked down at Chance. His sleepy eyes looked up at her dolefully. She sat down next to him on the porch, turning her back to the disturbing state of the house and put her arm around his shoulder, pulling him closer in the guise of keeping him warm. “Someone’s playing a game with us,” she said, trying to keep her tone from showing how scary the game had become.

“What kind of game?” Chance said, stifling a yawn.

“I don’t really know,” Sadie said. What she did know was that she didn’t want to play anymore.

• • •

“We’re okay to clean it up?” Sadie said in surprise, standing up from where she’d been sitting on the couch twiddling her thumbs for the last hour. Pete closed the front door behind him—the snow was really blowing now—and Sadie watched the last police car drive away. Luckily, the police had cleared the house pretty fast and allowed Sadie to put the boys down for their naps; they actually fell asleep too.

“They took pictures,” Pete said, his tone flat. “And filed a report.”

“Are they taking it seriously?”

Pete shrugged, put his hands in his pockets, and looked out the front window. It was becoming a habit for both of them to stare across the street. The snow was falling at a forty-five-degree angle and a wispy sheet already lay over the grass. The wintry light coming through the window accentuated the lines around Pete’s face and the furrow in his brow, making him look older while also emphasizing how concerned he was. “Mrs. Wapple didn’t answer the door, and there wasn’t cause for forced entry.”

“The front door is sealed,” Sadie said. Pete turned to look at her. “Her sister told me that on the phone. She hoped it would keep Mrs. Wapple from bothering people.”

Pete turned back to the window.

“Did you tell them we’d called social services?” Sadie asked.

Pete nodded. “They said they’d follow up with them and make sure she was a top priority. They’ll also come back this evening and try to talk to Mrs. Wapple once she’s home.”

“She’s there,” Sadie said, moving to stand beside Pete. He took one hand out of his pocket and draped it over her shoulder, pulling her toward him.

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “But they’re just following procedure. At least we have a report on record with them now. If anything else happens, that creates a foundation.”

Sadie nodded and watched the snow fall for another minute. “Maybe we should stay at a hotel,” she said. “The boys could swim. We could make it an event.”

“I thought about that,” Pete said.

“But?”

“I’d like to be here when the police come back to talk to her tonight.”

Sadie leaned into him, wishing she could be more help. He gave her shoulders a squeeze and kissed the top of her head. “I need to call Jared,” he said when he pulled back. Sadie’s stomach dropped. What a miserable phone call to make. He removed his arm from her shoulders and reached into his pocket for his phone. “And then I’ll install the bolts.”

“I’ll clean up the mess,” she said, turning toward the kitchen. She glanced around and noticed there were no gray patches on the doorknobs or walls like on TV after police had investigated a crime scene. “Did they dust for prints already?”

Pete shook his head. “Dusting for prints is a waste of time. They know I’m a cop so they didn’t bother putting on the show.”

“A waste of time?” Sadie’s crime-TV-watcher sensibilities were at instant attention.

“Running fingerprints is laborious and not highly effective without a significant crime having been committed.”

“That’s so disappointing.”

“I know. It ruins the romance a little bit, doesn’t it?” He smiled and Sadie smiled back, though neither of their smiles were happy ones.

Pete headed down the hall, phone in hand. Sadie stopped at the threshold to the kitchen and studied the strange pattern of dishes, wondering if the pattern meant something. After several seconds, she took a few pictures with her phone and started gathering up the dishes.

The beans in the slow cooker smelled amazing, and she stirred them again and turned the heat to warm. She’d already cooked them too long as it was, but beans were pretty easygoing. She closed all the cabinets and drawers before putting the dishes from the floor into the dishwasher, easily a full load, and running it on the pots-and-pans cycle. Then she filled the sink with hot water, added some Pine-Sol, and gave the kitchen a good mopping, which didn’t take long since the whole patch of floor was only about twenty square feet. As she was draining the dirty mop water out of the sink, Pete appeared in the doorway.

“How’d he take it?” Sadie asked, rinsing out the mop.

“Jared has a meeting with the chief resident at nine o’clock tomorrow morning and an orientation dinner tomorrow night,” Pete said without looking at her. “Heather’s going to see if she can find a flight home.”

“Were they upset?” Sadie asked, leaving the head of the mop in the sink to drain as she dried her hands on a dish towel.

“The police called Jared before I did. I gave them his number, but didn’t think they’d act so fast. He feels like we kept things from them.”

Sadie crossed the newly cleaned floor on her toes so as not to mar the finish and followed Pete into the living room, where they both sat down on the couch. “We kinda did keep things from them,” she said, tucking her feet beneath her. Pete finally met her eyes. “At the time it made sense not to worry them needlessly,” Sadie added. “And I stand by what we chose to do, but I can understand their perspective. I’m sure when they get here and we can talk about it face-to-face they’ll calm down.”

Pete gave a noncommittal shrug and tipped his head back on the couch so he was looking up at the popcorn ceiling. “It’s been really hard for me to keep my children close since Pat died,” he said, his voice soft and vulnerable. He didn’t put his arm around Sadie as he spoke. Instead, he fidgeted with a loose thread on the couch cushion and lowered his head to stare through the window at the house of the woman who seemed to be the one causing so much havoc. “Pat really was the glue for all of us. She kept up with what was going on in the lives of the kids and grandkids. She sent birthday presents, planned the holidays, and went to recitals and baseball games—all that stuff. She came out for a week when Kalan and Chance were born. Fig wasn’t born until . . . after.”

Sadie wanted to put a hand on his knee or give some kind of comfort, but talking about his late wife was still a fragile topic between them and she feared upsetting the balance. She understood how hard it was for him to make room for her, with Pat so dominant in his heart, but trusting Sadie with Pat’s memory was also an important part of their relationship.

“It’s been so hard for me to try to be her,” Pete said, his voice almost a whisper. “Hard for me, hard for the kids. I’ve tried to be more involved and make up for her absence, but it’s not the same. This . . . this trip here felt like a . . . a new start of sorts. Jared inviting me into his life, trusting me to take care of his children, wanting me to be more to them—and to him—than I’ve been in the past.” Sadie watched his hands rub absently on the thighs of his pants. “Not to mention welcoming you.”

He paused and looked at the floor. “I hate failing him,” he finally said.

Sadie sensed he wanted her reassurance now, so she took his hand in both of hers and held on. “This isn’t your fault,” she said. “And Jared will see that. You’ve done the best you can with a very strange situation; he’ll see that, too. And maybe you’re not giving yourself enough credit. Your children lost their mother, and there are few things as painful as that, but I think everything you do to try to keep them together makes a huge difference. Pat sounds like a wonderful woman, an excellent mother, but she wasn’t the
only
thing holding your family together. The fact is that Jared
did
invite you here to watch his children; he
does
want you in his life and once he gets here and realizes that no one’s been hurt, that the boys are not traumatized, and that you’ve done everything you can to deal with this situation, he’ll calm down and be okay.”