Lemon Tart (33 page)

“You?” Sadie finally said as everything else she’d already
learned funneled through her brain. Carrie . . . well, probably Trina
had confronted Anne in the parking lot just hours before Ron had caused her to
fall down the stairs. More details rushed through her mind: the lemon tart, a
child’s shoe box in the garbage can, Carrie telling Mindy she was taking a trip.
Nothing made sense, as if she had taken pieces from eighteen different puzzles
and was trying to make something out of them anyway. “You . . . but . . .
Anne . . .”

Madsen laughed. They were outside of Garrison now, heading east
on the highway which just happened to be the same direction as Jack’s cabin.
“It was my idea to have her move out here, ya know. I got hired onto the
Garrison force, which wasn’t hard to do with idiots like Cunningham taking up
space, and then we waited for a house to come up for rent in Jack’s . . .
well, I guess it’s your neighborhood too. Can you imagine the stroke of luck
when it was two houses away from Jack?” He shook his head and Sadie had to
fight back tears as she absorbed what he was telling her. He was so cold, so
uncaring about the whole sordid story. “Almost seems like it was meant to be,
doesn’t it?”

“How could you do that?” she said quietly, almost in a whisper.
“How could you ruin the lives of all these people?”

He glared at her. “Guilty people, Mrs. Hoffmiller, adulterous,
lying, deceitful people who thought they could get away with it.”

“Like you plan to?” Sadie replied, leaning forward. “Have you
no shame in the fact that Anne is dead because of your plan?” Sadie spat out.
He met her eyes again, narrowed in the rearview mirror.

“That wasn’t my fault!” he roared, making her flinch and pull
back into the upholstery of the seat. “We just wanted money. I was sick of
playing the politics of law enforcement. I found this place in Costa Rica
where, with a couple hundred thousand dollars, we could have a good life
together. We were moving toward that goal and then Anne had enough. When I
called her on Monday she was acting weird and she didn’t want to talk to me. I
knew something was wrong and she finally admitted Jack was coming over that night
and that she would get the money. He’d been so generous
in his attempts to keep her quiet, we had little doubt he’d do it again.”

It wasn’t making sense. Ron hadn’t said anything about Anne
making those kinds of demands. She hadn’t said anything about money that night,
just that she was going public and wanted Jack. In fact she specifically said
she didn’t want money. And
then a few of those hovering puzzle pieces snapped into place.

“Oh,” Sadie breathed as she saw things a bit more clearly than
she had—than Madsen had too. “Oh,” she said again, managing a
low chuckle. “Did she play you or what?”

His brows furrowed in the mirror and she laughed, thinking
about the book she’d read; the way the woman kept trying to be a part of the
man’s life. It wasn’t about the money for the woman in the book and it wasn’t
about the money for Anne either. Anne was a far better player of this game than
anyone had ever expected her to be.

“Carrie already knew about Trevor when you called Anne on
Monday,” Sadie told him, watching his eyes closely as they hardened. “The
blackmail angle was gone and Anne knew it before she demanded Jack meet her
that night. You wanted the
money, but even after everything that happened, all Anne ever wanted was Jack.”
She paused, aligning her understanding; the clicks of everything coming
together was almost audible in her head. “And the lemon tart,” she mused. “My
mother used to make that recipe for Jack and me when we were little. It’s been
a favorite of his all his life and Anne had asked me how to make it right after
she moved in.” There was silence for the space of two seconds as the
implication of it all settled, reminding her that everything had been so
calculated and yet she’d had no idea. “Jack was coming to see her, or so she
thought, and she expected him to stay. She even set the tart to finish cooking
so it would be ready when they started a new day—a new life
together. Only Jack didn’t come Monday night like she planned, Ron did.” She
wasn’t sure yet, however, what part Madsen played in that. But it was coming,
she could feel the details lining up in her mind.

Madsen’s knuckles turned white against the steering wheel but
he said nothing. Sadie felt her panic rising again as even more questions
entered her mind about where they were going, but she tried to keep them at
bay. She needed to keep the dialogue going.

“Your boyfriend pushed her down the stairs before she had a
chance to tell him,” Madsen said. “That’s all. He ruined everything. That
stupid tart isn’t the lynchpin.”

“But it is,” Sadie said quickly. “It was the symbol of the
woman she was becoming for him, the proof that she could take care of him
better than Carrie, better than any other woman in his life.” She paused.
“Wait, how did you know about the stairs?”

Ron had only told her half an hour ago. If only Ron and Anne had been in that
house Monday night and Anne was found dead in the field and Ron had only told
Sadie . . . “Unless, you were
there!” She leaned forward as more and more pieces of the gruesome puzzle fit
themselves together. “That’s it, isn’t it? You were there, in the house, and
Anne didn’t know because if she had known you were there she’d have had to
follow your plan and demand the money. But you figured it out, didn’t you? From
where you were hiding in the closet, or maybe downstairs, you heard the whole
thing and you—” Ron’s words came back to her, “She was alive when I left her.”

“You killed her for betraying you,” Sadie summarized, shocked
at her own words, at the picture they created. “You strangled her with the
tieback.”

Madsen was looking ahead now, though she could feel his anger.
His whole attitude made sense now, the reason why he’d targeted her from the
beginning, why he’d followed her to the library, and why he had confronted
Susan Gimes. All along he’d been protecting himself, hiding his own sins while
inflating everyone else’s. And now she was his only secret keeper; she was the
only one who knew the part he played. In one sense it was absolutely
terrifying, and yet in another way, a whoosh of relief washed through her. It
wasn’t Jack or Ron or Carrie or Trina. No one she loved had killed Anne. The
relief of that realization was overwhelming enough that it tempted her to relax
and accept that it was over and she could stop thinking such dark thoughts.
Then Madsen took the Grass Valley exit off the freeway—the exit
that led to Jack’s cabin. Everything shifted again.

“Where are we going?” she asked. Hadn’t she figured out enough?
What was left? Was it a coincidence that he had taken the same exit?

“We’re going to your dear brother’s cabin,” Madsen said. “Carrie’s
meeting Trina’s boyfriend there—she thinks he’s going to help
her figure things out—another loose end.” They reached the fork
Sadie remembered. Jack’s cabin was to the right. Madsen turned left.

Sadie had to clench her lips together to keep from asking the
next question out loud. But Madsen followed her line of thought anyway.

“No, Carrie doesn’t know I’m the boyfriend and Trina doesn’t
know that the guy she’s been seeing is also a detective on the case. Neither of
them know that this guy has been asking dear Trina subtle questions for months
about her family, more specifically her father. How much money does he make?
What kind of investments does he make with his money?” Madsen shook his head
and met Sadie’s eyes in the rearview mirror, his eyes cruel and confident once
more. “No offense, but your niece isn’t the brightest girl I’ve ever met. And I
think I know more about Jack’s finances than Carrie does.”

“You’re a terrible man,” Sadie said, trying to catch up with
this new information. “Trina took Trevor?” Sadie asked, almost to herself.

Madsen laughed and Sadie would have slapped him for being so
delighted with what he had to say if not for the handcuffs chaffing her wrists.
“Dumb girl,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew she was at her parents’ house so
I called her after I left Anne’s. She thinks I work as a security guard on the
night shift. I often call her late and she always
takes my calls. That’s when she told me about her father’s affair, that she’d
found out that afternoon and confronted the hussy—that’s what
she called her, is she eighty years old or what?” He laughed and Sadie
considered boxing his ears for his callousness . . . after she
slapped the grin off his face. “I got her all pumped up and told her a hundred
other things she should have done. When I suggested she go over right then
and confront Anne with the demand that she leave and never come back, she was
all over it. She called me an hour later, hysterical. She’d found Anne’s body
in the field. I expected her to call the police.”

“And because of the confrontation that afternoon she thought
they’d suspect her,” Sadie filled in. Poor Trina. “But what about Trevor?” she
mused, yet even as she said it, she knew the answer. Trina was a girl, but she
had a woman’s heart.

“That was stupid,” Madsen said, shaking his head. “Taking that
boy was the dumbest thing they could have done. She was supposed to call the
police and get it over with. Even if Trina told them about me, she thought my
name was Randy Sharp and that I worked for Aglimate Security—they’d
never find me.”

“But they couldn’t leave Trevor home alone,” Sadie said, this
part making perfect sense. No woman could abandon a little boy late at night
after his mother had been murdered. “And they didn’t call the police because
they were terrified Trina would be a suspect.” She paused, still sorting
through all the information in her head. “The filing cabinet,” she said under
her breath, then understood. “They thought maybe they could hide everything,
make sure no one ever knew Jack was Trevor’s father. Carrie had already taken
the papers from Susan Gimes’s office and then took the filing cabinet, just in
case.”

Madsen shrugged Sadie’s assessment off as if Trevor and the
filing cabinet were incidental issues. “Stupid.”

This man was a sociopath. “Why didn’t you find Trevor right
away if you knew who had him?”

He shrugged again, causing heat to rise up Sadie’s spine. “It
was kinda fun seeing people scramble, and I wondered how far Cunningham would
get—about as far as I predicted. He’s a lost cause. I figured
they’d come up with nothing and the case would go cold—I sure
didn’t expect it to get this dramatic.”

His superiority complex, his thinking he was so much smarter
then everyone else, was infuriating. And yet she realized that in the right
circumstance it could possibly be used to her advantage. She filed it away for
later.

“Jack’s expecting Trevor to be found,” Sadie reminded him,
wondering how much Jack knew. Surely he knew Carrie had Trevor, but what were
her intentions with the child? What did she plan to do with him? Sadie
understood that the panic amid everything else Carrie had learned about her
husband and his life could keep her from thinking rationally. She’d proved
that already.

“He will be found,” Madsen said. “By me. What Jack doesn’t know
is that Carrie’s agreed to pay me—or rather, Randy Sharp—a
large sum of money to keep Trina out of this, to drop Trevor off where someone
can find him and not trace him back to Trina or her mom. When they find out
that Randy Sharp is really me, the money will become even more important in
order to ensure Trina isn’t implicated. It’s all falling into place.”

Madsen made eye contact with her again. “You, however, have
become a real problem.”

Sadie knew there was no way he would keep her alive after
telling her all of this—he had too much to lose. Sadie scanned
the back seat, looking for . . . something. But of course the back
seat of a detective’s car wouldn’t have anything in it she could use as a
weapon. She was left with only her ingenuity—something she
feared was not quite up to this challenge.

The road they were on was no longer straight, winding one way
and then another, causing her to sway with each bend of the road. Huge trees
stretched upward on both sides of the car and Sadie’s mouth went dry as she
realized how secluded this area was. In fact, they hadn’t passed a single car
since leaving the highway. He was going to kill her and leave her in the woods.
As if aware of her suspicions, Madsen turned onto a side road, not nearly as
well maintained as the other road had been. Sadie was bouncing on the seat like
popcorn.

“You killed her, didn’t you,” she said again, straining for him
to confirm it once and for all. She pressed herself against the door for
stability.

Madsen said nothing, but suddenly pulled over to the side of
the road so fast that she flew forward and hit her chin on the front seat,
unable to brace herself with her hands still cuffed together. Madsen turned in
his seat to face her. He drew a gun from underneath his jacket and pointed it
at her face, causing her to pull back. “We’re getting out of this car and then
we’re going to take a little walk.”

Sadie stared at the black chiseled metal in his hand. It could
have been a child’s toy, something she’d have bought for Shawn when he was
younger. “Why on earth would I go willingly when we both know you’re going to
kill me?”

“Who says I expect you to go willingly?” he said, half his
mouth pulling up in a sadistic smile as though he anticipated her putting up a
fight and it made this experience all the sweeter for him. At least she knew
now why he’d rubbed her wrong from the beginning, though her own skill at
judging character provided her a very small amount of bittersweet satisfaction.
Had she figured this out just fifteen minutes earlier, she’d have run into
oncoming traffic before she’d have let him put her in the car. It was unnerving
how much could happen in fifteen minutes.