Baked Alaska (27 page)

“And you don’t know anyone who would send a bottle of wine to you and someone named Ben?”

“I think I already said no to that question. What is wrong with you?”

Sadie let out a breath. She could officially rule out
this
Tanice. What a relief. “I’m looking for someone named Tanice; it’s an unusual name.”

Tanice nodded warily, and her expression wasn’t showing any good faith in Sadie.

“Do you know of any other people named Tanice on this ship?”

Tanice shook her head. “But I didn’t come here to meet people. I’ve met other Tanices in my life, though some of them spell it T-A-N-I-S. Was the name on this gift tag spelled that way?”

“No, do you spell yours like Janice with a T instead of a J?”

“Yes,” Tanice said.

“That’s how it was spelled on the gift tag.”

They lapsed into silence, and Sadie hurried to put an end to the conversation, glad she’d made a fool out of herself to get the information, though it would have been nice to get the information
without
having to make a fool of herself. “If you by chance run into anyone with that name, could you let me know? I’m in room 829.”

“Um, yeah,” Tanice said. “Why do you need to find her?”

“Just...because.” She wasn’t about to reveal more information than she had to.

Tanice’s expression was turning curious, a very dangerous thing Sadie needed to nip in the bud.

“So, how are things with you and Kirby?”

That did the trick, turning off Tanice’s curiosity to make room for her to be offended by Sadie’s nosiness. Tanice reminded Sadie that it was none of her business and quickly headed into town once more.

When Sadie got back to her room, she found Breanna zipping up her suitcase. It drained Sadie for the moment and she sat on her bed. “Pete said you got an e-mail from Liam’s mom.”

Breanna let out a breath and nodded. “She thinks Liam and I are being ungrateful for her help, and then she listed everything she’s done for this wedding.” She paused, her shoulders slumping as she stared at her suitcase for a few beats, then she lifted the suitcase off the bed and placed it on the ground. “She sent it to Liam too, and he’s finally mad. It’s no longer about just trying to make me happy; he can see she crossed a line with the accusations she made. The bad news is that what was already ugly, just got a whole lot uglier.” She sat on her bed across from Sadie. “When I told him I was staying in Skagway, he set up a conference call for all of us—he’s in London and his mom’s at the estate.”

They were quiet for several seconds until Sadie finally spoke. “I’m so sorry, Bre.”

Breanna smiled wanly at her. “Thanks for supporting me,” she said quietly. “I know none of this is easy for you either—it’s not what you dreamed for me—and I appreciate that you’re letting me do this my way.”

That brought tears to Sadie’s eyes, but she tried to blink them away. “I want you to be happy, Bre, and Liam makes you happy.”

“Shouldn’t that be what Liam’s mom wants for us, too?”

“She does want that,” Sadie said, thinking back to something Pete had said once. “Everyone has motives for what they do. Maybe if you can find out what her motivation is, you can find a middle ground.”

Breanna nodded and put her hands between her knees before glancing up at Sadie. “Are you mad I’m staying in Skagway?”

“Disappointed, but I’m glad Shawn won’t be alone. And I’m relieved that you get to work things out with Liam and his mother.”

“I need to get this wedding settled or I might lose my mind.”

“If eloping in Monaco is the best idea, I won’t say a word against it, I promise.”

Breanna smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”

Sadie would have liked some reassurance that they
wouldn’t
elope, but Breanna wasn’t offering any.

“We can use my computer to look up information about Lorraina—Pete said Shawn knows where to look. And Maggie will be there, too, so hopefully between the three of us, we can make some progress with that side of things. I’ve already found a hotel with free Internet.”

It took a few phone calls in order for Sadie to get access to Shawn’s room. She didn’t pack everything from his room, though. She couldn’t face the idea of his presence not being on the ship at all; it seemed to say he wasn’t coming back. Shawn
was
coming back—she had to believe that.

Sadie tried not to get emotional as she put the strap of Shawn’s bag over Breanna’s shoulder. The ship would sail at seven that night. If Sadie had time after her meeting with Officer Jareg, she promised Breanna she’d come to town and see them both before the ship left port. Maybe she’d have another chance to talk to Maggie too, and try to repair the things she’d broken.

After watching Breanna walk down the gangplank, Sadie returned to her cabin—alone—and clenched her fists to her sides. “This is not fair,” she said out loud, then pulled her notebook out of her purse and got to work. The best remedy for feelings of insufficiency was to do something. She ripped out a sheet of paper and began writing a note to the
right
Tanice, not the redheaded Tanice who had pushed her husband into a river, but the woman who sat a few tables away from Mary Anne in the dining room.

As far as etiquette went, it was completely out of line to pester a woman who had just lost her husband, Sadie knew that, and yet she was feeling desperate. Mama bear was not taking this sitting down. If they could get to the bottom of this and clear Shawn’s name, she could have her family around her again. Not doing what she
could
do to help was out of the question.

Rather than try to explain why she was contacting Tanice at such a difficult time, she decided to simply focus on what she needed to know. If that didn’t work, she’d be more direct with her next attempt, but she didn’t have a whole lot of room for “next times” in her schedule right now. She needed her son back.

Dear Tanice,

I wonder if you know anything about a bottle of wine with a gift tag that said “To Ben Tanice—May you continue to find every happiness together.” I’m in cabin 829. It will be very helpful to many people if you would contact me with what you know.

Sincerely,

Sadie Hoffmiller

Chapter 30

At the last minute, Sadie included her cell number on the note since they would be in port for a little longer. She folded up the paper and headed to deck eleven, moving slow enough to read the room numbers on the cabin doors. She wondered which of these cabins was Maggie and Lorraina’s? How close was it to Ben and Tanice’s cabin?

A young man came down the hall, and Sadie moved to the side so he could pass her.

She looked at the next cabin and continued counting: 1176, 1178, 1180, 1182. She stopped in front of 1184—Ben and Tanice’s assigned cabin per the seating chart and Mary Anne’s verification.

Sadie looked at the note in her hand, wishing she could have a face-to-face with Tanice, but knowing that in the wake of the tragic loss of her husband, it was better to let her come to Sadie when she felt up to it. Hopefully that would happen before the cruise came to an end. Then again, Tanice might have left the ship entirely by now. Still, Sadie needed to do what she could do, so she squatted down and slid the folded paper underneath the door, then stood again, staring at the place where her request had disappeared.

She had a meeting with Officer Jareg in a few minutes. When she finished there, maybe she’d get a little more aggressive about finding Tanice. It was insanity-inducing to question every possible option every single time she did anything. It was often far more efficient to follow her gut, and her gut was telling her she was on the right track.

Sadie headed toward the security office and hoped that maybe she would learn as much from them as they learned from her. Police rarely shared information, but as Pete had pointed out, the security officers didn’t operate the same way actual police officers did.

“I have an appointment with Officer Jareg at four,” Sadie said to Hazel, who was still behind the desk. Did the girl ever get a break?

“Yes, I am sorry, but he won’t be back in time. Can you come back at five?”

Disappointment washed over Sadie. “Yes, that’s fine,” she said, trying not to sound too put out. It wasn’t Hazel’s fault that things were complicated. She wrote Sadie into the calendar; Sadie noticed that her four o’clock appointment was already crossed out.

She left the office and headed toward the elevators while texting Pete that she was on her way back to Skagway—was there anything she could do to help while she was in town? She finished the text and slid her phone into her purse just as she reached the doorway leading to the elevators.

“Thank you so much for your help,” a woman said, the emotion in her voice causing Sadie’s steps to slow. There weren’t many reasons to be so upset while on a cruise.

“Are you sure you don’t need help packing your things?” another woman’s voice asked while Sadie scrambled to make a possible equation for this situation. She was exiting the hallway containing the door to the cabin of a woman who’d just lost her husband. Could it be...?

“No, I’m fine. Thank you for going to the coroner’s office with me. I’m so sorry it took as long as it did. I just...” She paused to sniffle a very dainty sniffle.

Sadie inched closer to the doorway, not wanting to interrupt and yet trying to come up with the best approach. It sounded like this woman—Tanice, if Sadie were correct—was dismissing her friend, meaning she’d be alone. Meaning that Sadie could talk to her. Holy cow!

“I just need a little time alone, you understand, right?”

Sadie was leaning against the wall dividing her from the elevators and heard the rustle of movement and change of tone which led her to believe the two women hugged one another. They said good-bye, and Sadie listened for the elevator door to shut before backing up a few steps so that it wouldn’t look like she’d been listening. She started walking toward the elevators again, waiting for the woman to turn the corner but stopped when she reached the doorway, again, and heard the woman speaking. “Bunch of busy-bodied boon flies, every last one of ya.”

It was the same voice she’d just heard, but a completely different tone, and yet there was something familiar about it. Had Sadie met this woman already? Why wasn’t she coming around the corner?

Sadie paused, waiting for the woman to come toward her, but when there was no movement, she couldn’t hold back her curiosity any longer. She turned the corner and saw the woman finger combing her hair in the mirrored door of the elevator. Sadie almost missed a step as she recognized the woman as the one she’d met on the elevator a few days earlier when Sadie had been chasing after Lorraina.

This was the girl who had told her that Lorraina had gotten off on the eleventh floor. Sadie had run into her a second time yesterday—right down the hall! She hadn’t been paying attention to which room this woman had been exiting when they had passed one another yesterday, but thinking back on it now, it could have been the same door Sadie had just slid the note under. Sadie was processing this information when the woman turned and smiled at her—a fully lit, kind as they come, smile.

“Oh, hey there,” she said with the little drawl Sadie remembered. She was dressed in a charcoal velour sweat suit, and though her hair was done, her makeup was not. “How ya doin’?”

“I’m fine,” Sadie said, slower than she meant to. If she looked closely enough, the woman’s eyes looked red around the edges, but just a little. Sadie tried to remember exactly what she’d heard before she turned the corner into the elevator area. The woman had been mournful when her friend was there, then snide once her friend left, and now she was bubbly?

“Glad to hear it,” the woman said, moving toward the hallway Sadie had just vacated.

Sadie realized she’d come to an awkward stop, so she hurried forward and pushed the button for the elevator. “It sure is a nice day,” she said, wanting to keep talking but not sure how to do so.

The woman didn’t stop walking, but she did look over her shoulder and smile. “I hope you get to enjoy it, then.” She put her hand on the frame of the doorway, gave Sadie a flash of an even bigger smile, and then disappeared.

Sadie counted one, two, three, four, five hippopotamuses, then moved toward the hallway and peeked around the corner just as the elevator doors opened behind her.

The woman was walking down the hall with a swing of her hips, her long brown hair moving slightly as she did so. She turned the corner in the hallway, and Sadie counted two more hippopotamuses before hurrying down that section of hallway and peering around that corner too.

Sadie held her breath as the woman stopped at room 1184 and removed her card key from her back pocket. Sadie pulled back so that she only had one eye visible, should the woman—who seemed to be the recently widowed Tanice—look her way, but the woman disappeared inside the cabin without a backward glance. The door clicked shut, and Sadie leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath. That woman was not acting
at all
like a woman in mourning. The only reason Sadie could think of as to why was if her husband’s death wasn’t tragic. At least not to her.