Free Blackberry Crumble by Josi S. Kilpack

drawn to Jane’s little red car still parked across the street.
     
    “You are kidding me,” she grumbled. “Her car is still there.”
     
    “Is she waiting for you to come out?” Gayle asked, and Sadie could picture her friend pacing back and forth in her living room.
     
    Sadie leaned forward to get a better look at the driver’s seat. “She’s not in her car,” she said, scanning the empty street. Where had she gone?
     
    She carefully opened her front door and peered around her yard. “I don’t see her anywhere,” she said into the phone, trying to make sense of what Jane was up to. “Oh, no,” Sadie said as she hurried back up her front steps, her neck sweaty from just the few minutes she’d spent outside. “What if she’s talking to the neighbors?”
     
    “What for?” Gayle said, but she sounded as upset as Sadie was.
     
    “I’ll call you later,” Sadie said. As soon as she’d hung up with Gayle, Sadie called her next-door neighbor and sister-in-law, Carrie. Their relationship had been strained since the murder of their neighbor, Anne, ten months earlier—not that it had ever been particularly good to begin with.
     
    “Hi, Sadie,” Carrie said automatically—caller ID.
     
    “Hi, Carrie.” Sadie looked through the kitchen window, scowling at the black walnut tree that blocked her view of the cul-de-sac. “I was just wondering if a reporter had come to your house.”
     
    “I sent her packing.”
     
    So Jane had gone to the neighbors. The woman was relentless!
     
    “Did she ask about me?” Sadie asked.
     
    “Yep,” Carrie said. “She’s the one who wrote that article in Friday’s paper, right?”
     
    “Yes, that’s her.”
     
    “She’s a viper.”
     
    For whatever reason, hearing Carrie call Jane names made Sadie feel better. “Thank you,” Sadie said, even though that wasn’t really what Carrie’s comment had invited. “Did you see where she went after she left your place?”
     
    Carrie was silent.
     
    “Carrie?”
     
    “Mindy’s,” Carrie said.
     
    Sadie’s heart was seized with instant panic at the mention of her motormouth of a neighbor, Mindy Bailey. If there was one person in the circle Sadie didn’t want talking to Jane, it was Mindy.
     
    “How long has she been there?” Sadie asked, horrified by the implications.
     
    “I think she’s been at Mindy’s since I told her to get lost.”
     
    Sadie was just about to hang up when she remembered something from her conversation with May. “Did another woman come looking for me on Friday? With red hair?”
     
    Carrie was silent for a moment. “She wasn’t a reporter, too, was she?”
     
    Sadie was relieved. “No, she just said a neighbor had told her where I was.”
     
    “I hadn’t heard about the article yet,” Carrie said sheepishly. “If I had, I’d have been more suspicious.”
     
    “It’s not a problem,” Sadie said, feeling unexpected tenderness toward her sister-in-law. “Thanks for your help.” It was just one little mystery solved, but it gave Sadie confidence.
     
    She hung up the phone and reset her priorities. After a few seconds of thought, she marched straight to the cupboard, pulled out the Tupperware that served as her cookie jar, and began loading a plate with the leftover cherry chocolate chip cookies she’d made for the Latham Club dinner on Friday and had been saving for dessert tonight. This was serious stuff. It was time to act.
     
    Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies
     
    1 (10-ounce) jar maraschino cherries (chopped, should yield 3⁄4 cup)
     
    1⁄2 cup butter
     
    1⁄2 cup shortening (Breanna uses butter-flavored shortening)
     
    1⁄2 cup sugar
     
    3⁄4 cup brown sugar
     
    1 teaspoon vanilla
     
    3 tablespoons reserved cherry juice
     
    2 eggs
     
    21⁄2 cups flour
     
    1 teaspoon salt
     
    1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder
     
    3⁄4 teaspoon baking soda
     
    3⁄4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips*
     
    Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drain jar of cherries