Free Rocky Road by Josi S. Kilpack Page A

into the twilight. “Even if you did talk to me just to get information—”
    “I didn’t, I swear I—”
    “Even if you did,” Lori cut in, turning her head quickly to pin Sadie with a look, “it gave me a chance to feel understood and supported in my feelings. I think Tess’s scrapbook is a great idea—people will talk to you guys differently than they talk to the police—take it from me. I told you more than I told them because I knew they were looking at me as a suspect, not as a person struggling to make sense of what’s happened to a man I loved.” She paused to take another breath. “I’m not mad at you.”
    “Thank you,” Sadie said. They were quiet for a moment, looking at each other. Sadie pondered what Lori had just said: “The man I loved.” Did she mean to say “once loved”? It was ambiguous, the way she’d said it, and yet nothing else she’d said had hinted at the fact that she might still have those kinds of feelings for her ex-husband. Sadie needed to say something out loud, and she settled on what came naturally to her—offering support. “I’m sorry you have to deal with so much.”
    “It will help to see those pictures, to be a part of the process to figure out why his car wasn’t where it was supposed to be.”
    “There certainly doesn’t seem to be an easy explanation for that—and his canceling with Joey like he did.” Sadie wished she could better explain the process of how she’d gained her own interest in this, how talking to Lori and learning more about Dr. Hendricks had made Sadie feel a kind of obligation to find answers. But that wouldn’t matter to Lori. It might even be interpreted as further justification of Sadie’s “questioning” her.
    Tess’s and Caro’s voices could be heard approaching from the hallway. Sadie was glad to know that she and Lori seemed to be okay with each other and united in their goal to find information, but she didn’t love the fact that there were now four people involved in this. That meant a lot of opinions to sort through, a lot of coordination, and the big risk that one person might mess everything up for everyone else. Sadie preferred to be the only one responsible. Then she would be the only person responsible for getting herself in trouble.
    “I’d really like to know what happened,” Lori said quietly before Tess and Caro joined them.
    They all said goodbye again, and Lori promised again to call when she knew what time she’d be available the next day. During the ride back to Tess’s house to drop her off, the three women made a plan, just as though they had been together on the case from the beginning. Sadie couldn’t read Tess at all. She’d seemed annoyed with Sadie prior to the conversation with Lori, and now she acted rather cocky about the turn of events. Sadie firmly reminded them both that they were only doing this until Sergeant Woodruff got back to them. They agreed so quickly that she doubted they fully understood what it meant to turn things over to the police. On the heels of that thought, however, was the question of whether she herself were ready to do that.

Chapter 8

     
    Despite being tired from the long drive that day, Sadie stayed up reading the articles Tess and Caro had collected. Now that the shift in her thinking had occurred, she wanted to become as familiar as possible with the facts about Dr. Hendricks’s disappearance. She appreciated Caro’s notes and the lines she’d highlighted that made it easier to hone in on what Caro deemed most important. Thank goodness Caro had thought to make copies before they turned over the originals. As she read, Sadie created a timeline of events, starting in December when Anita’s cancer was first diagnosed, though it wasn’t written about until January. In several articles, a few people were quoted as saying that Dr. Hendricks had seemed withdrawn in the few months prior to his disappearance—but it was easy to tie that directly to Anita’s