Devil's Food Cake (23 page)

“I don’t know,” Sadie said warily. “I found it.”

“Can I see it?” Eric asked.

Sadie hesitated, watching him closely. She didn’t know this man. Why would he want to see the key? That didn’t seem like a smart decision.

He watched her for a moment, waiting for her answer. When she didn’t move, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys. He separated a small key from the others on the ring.

It was a key Sadie recognized from past experience, and her eyes widened in surprise. “You have a handcuff key?”

Eric nodded and took hold of the wrist shackled to the chair.

“Wait,” Sadie said as soon as she realized what he was doing. “Don’t—” But the ring fell off her wrist, clanging against the metal chair. Sadie stared at it for a split second before her eyes snapped back to her uninvited rescuer.

He was smiling, looking quite pleased with himself.

Sadie’s whole body flushed with heat, and she glanced quickly at the ballroom door. “Put it back on!” she demanded, trying to do it herself, but it was impossible since the wrist she needed to cuff was connected to the hand that had to do the work.

“Put it back on? Why?” Eric asked.

“I’m under arrest,” Sadie said in a panicked whisper, afraid someone would overhear. “I can’t just leave! Don’t you understand—they already hate me.” She fumbled with the dangling cuff.

“Sadie,” Eric said as though they’d known each other for years. “Do you deserve to be arrested?”

“Of course not,” Sadie said. “But this won’t help.”

“Sure it will,” Eric said. He reached out and grabbed her upper arm, pulling her to her feet. She looked at him with a mixture of fear and confusion. “They’re arresting you because you’re bothering them. I mean, come on, interfering with a police investigation? That’s just silly. They’ll just put you in a corner of a cell and wait until they have nothing better to do, then they’ll slap you on the wrist and send you home. Why not find your son, get your shoulder checked out, and get a good night’s sleep. And
then
go to the police, let them slap you on the wrist and send you home. If they’re not going to listen to you either way, then why allow them to do this?” He waved at the chair with the handcuff attached.

“It’s not that easy,” Sadie said. “M-Maybe they want me to come to the police station so they can listen to what I have to say.”

“They haven’t listened so far.”

He had a point. Sadie scrambled for another reason. “They’ll be so mad at me.”

“What are you—six?”

Sadie looked at Eric, frustrated by how casually he was treating this situation. Was he a good guy or a bad guy? She honestly wasn’t sure. She sat back down, determined to do the legal thing. “Please put it back on,” she said, picking up the cuff again.

Eric just looked at her, an expression of disappointment on his face.

She shook the cuff at him. “Put it back on!”

He turned and started to walk away. “I pegged you as a bit more determined than this, Sadie Hoffmiller.”

Sadie didn’t like that at all. Who was he to make those kinds of judgments about her anyway? “I’m trying to do the right thing,” she fired at his back.

Eric stopped in front of the kitchen doors and turned to look at her. “Do you believe in coincidence?” he asked, his voice a little calmer as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Sadie wasn’t sure now was the time for such an esoteric conversation. However, the look on Eric’s face was sincere. After a few seconds, Sadie shook her head. “No,” she said. “I never have.”

Eric smiled slightly. “Neither do I. I’m a locksmith—keys and locks are what I do. If you show me the key, I might be able to help you figure out what it goes to.”

Sadie lifted her eyebrows, but she wasn’t quite convinced. “It’s important,” she said. “We’ll both be in a lot of trouble if I don’t give it to the police.”

“The same police who are ignoring everything you tell them?” Eric said. “The same police who want to tuck you in a corner so that you don’t bug them anymore? Look, I’ve had my own experience with people not listening when I have something important to say. I can help you be heard—if you want.”

Be heard,
Sadie repeated to herself. That was all she wanted.

Eric watched her for a few more seconds before he smiled and nodded in a forgiving kind of way, perhaps trying to show his understanding of her decision, even if he didn’t agree with it. “Good luck,” he finally said. “I hope they do listen to what you have to say sooner rather than later. For your son’s sake, if nothing else.”

The doors swung shut a moment later and Sadie watched them flap back and forth on their hinges. The handcuff was still in her hand. How was she going to explain that when Malloy came back? Eric’s parting words rang over and over in her head.
For your son’s sake . . .

Sadie didn’t know what to do. Shawn was still out there, and she couldn’t deny that Eric was probably right about the police simply wanting to get her out of their hair. She knew she didn’t deserve to be treated that way; she knew she was only trying to help. She clenched her eyes shut and dropped the handcuff. It clanged against the metal chair and echoed off the cement walls, reverberating in her head and reminding her of the sound of jail cell doors being pulled closed. When she opened her eyes again, she looked at the kitchen doors. They weren’t swinging anymore. Eric was likely in the parking lot by now. Her chance to leave would disappear with him, and he was the only person willing to help her.

Sadie glanced one last time at the ballroom doors and at the handcuff now hanging useless against the side of the chair. She bit her lip and tried to stop the butterflies in her stomach from taking over as she stood up. She had only moments to make a decision and it made her sick. Pete had said that the other police officers didn’t trust her. That point had been proved without a doubt over the last five minutes. She liked to think Pete would understand once she explained everything, but as she moved to the kitchen doors she couldn’t ignore the possibility that Pete might very well never forgive her for this.

Apparently, it was a risk she was willing to take.

Chapter 29

Sadie ran for the outside door of the darkened kitchen and nearly screamed when Eric’s voice caught her off guard.

“Took you long enough,” he said, a bit of humor in his lowered voice.

Sadie squinted into the shadowed area around the door. The police officer who’d let them in ten minutes earlier wasn’t there any longer—one point in their favor.

Eric pushed away from the wall of the kitchen and pulled open the outside door for her. A thousand snowflakes swirled through the doorway.

Sadie looked from the snow to Eric. “I just need a ride home,” she said. “So I can find my son. Then I’m going to the police station.”

“Fine,” Eric said. “But you’ll go back on your terms, in a position of power.” He waved at the door. “But if we don’t hurry you won’t get that chance.”

Sadie had so many questions—chief of which was why Eric cared that she went to the police in a position of power—but there was no time. What she was doing was bad enough, the idea of being caught before she actually got away was unfathomable. She hurried through the door. Eric was right behind her.

The footprints they’d left on their way into the hotel were all but filled in, and they practically ran through the curtain of snow for Eric’s car. Sadie held her injured arm with her good hand to keep the jostling to a minimum. As it was, though, the pain was getting harder to ignore.

As they approached the exit, Eric waved at the officer who was sitting in his car again. Sadie’s heart raced. If Malloy had discovered she was gone, wouldn’t he tell all the other officers? But it seemed luck was still on her side. The officer smiled, seemingly grateful they didn’t slow down, thus requiring him to get out in the storm. Her disappearance must not have been discovered yet.

It took another block before Sadie could relax against the seat of the car. She shifted around in hopes of finding a better position. After a few seconds, she gave up. She just hurt. There was no way around it.

“Where do you live?” Eric asked as he rolled through a stop sign.

“Peregrine Circle,” Sadie said. “It’s on the east end of town. Are you familiar with Horrick Elementary?”

Eric shook his head.

“Oh, well, follow Center Street east until you get to Highland, then turn right.”

“Got it,” Eric said with a nod. They were silent for a moment at a red light.

Sadie couldn’t keep her eyes off the side mirror, waiting for a police car to come up behind them. As they waited for the light to turn green, she lined up her thoughts according to priority. Shawn was at the top of her list, which reminded her of something Eric had said. She turned to him. “You said you knew what it was like when no one listened—what did you mean?”

The light turned green and Eric drove through the intersection, not looking at Sadie. “Three years ago my daughter went on spring break and never came home.”

“That’s horrible,” Sadie said. She couldn’t imagine if something like that happened to Breanna.

Eric nodded. “For the next six months the police did everything they could, but with no leads other than the fact she took a cab back to her hotel, it fizzled out. Everyone thinks she’s dead and because of that, no one will help me.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Sadie said. “I can’t imagine what it must feel like to wake up to that every day.”

Eric kept his eyes straight ahead. It was obvious he was uncomfortable with the discussion. “I’ve tried to keep the case alive, tried to keep up the fight, but it’s hard.” He looked at Sadie briefly as they stopped at another light. “And it’s even harder when people won’t listen. As much as I respect the police and what they do, they deal with these things all the time. They can’t care the way I can, and they’re limited in ways I’m not. So I’m the advocate my daughter deserves to have. The police aren’t listening to you and that will hurt this case. And possibly your son.” He looked back to the road. “If we can find a solution to both of those things, everyone will be better off, right?”

“I hope so,” she finally said when she remembered it was her turn to speak. “I’m so sorry.” Sadie watched him for a few more seconds until he caught her staring. Was everyone more than they seemed to be upon first impressions?

“Thank you,” Eric said, inclining his head slightly as he drove through another intersection. “But we can talk about that another time, right now we need to get to work. You needed to track down your son, right?”

“Right,” Sadie said, forcing herself to take his lead. “I have his number written down at home, I think.”

Eric leaned forward so he could reach under the seat of his car and straightened a moment later with a phone book in his hand. “Does he have a friend you could call?”

“Good idea,” Sadie said, impressed. She kept last year’s phone book in her car, too, and it had helped her many a time. He handed her the book and she put it on her lap so she could flip to the R’s in search of the home number of Jonathan Rodriguez, better known as Crab. There were three listings for Rodriguez. It was after eleven o’clock, way past polite phone call hours but Sadie had little choice, so she took a breath and called the first one. No one answered. The second one was a Hispanic woman who cussed her out with words Sadie didn’t understand, though the meaning could not be disguised by a simple language barrier. After apologizing profusely, Sadie dialed the third number and held her breath. If no one answered, or if it wasn’t the right one, she’d have to come up with a new idea. And she was fresh out of new ideas.

The phone was picked up on the second ring by a man who didn’t seem much happier than the last lady had been. “Hello?”

“Is Jonathan there?” Sadie asked.

“Who?”

Sadie paused for a moment, remembering what Shawn had said about everyone calling him by his nickname. “Crab?” Sadie asked instead, hating that she was giving in. “Is Crab there?”

“Let me get him,” the man grumbled. It appeared even Jonathan’s parents called him Crab. How sad.

A few seconds later, a new voice came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Jonathan?”

There was a pause. “Don’t you guys have rules about how late you can call?”