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.”“And how Hannah never has any sweets around because she’s always on a diet?”“That’s true, she is.Ever since she married Payt, she’s always on a diet.In fact, she’s completely banned all candy from her home.Banned it.That skinny little—” Sadie wrangled to find the right description “—candy banner.”“Well, we just got a fresh shipment in at the store today.”“Pretty lame, Mom.” Ryan pulled the plug, and the water rushed down the drain in big gulps.“Lame is in the eye of the beholder, son.My daddy likes chocolate-covered cherries, and there he is, stuck in a house with a woman who hasn’t let sugar-laden fatty snacks cross her lips or her threshold for five years.” She tried to look sincere, though not overmuch, as she didn’t want to give her son the impression she didn’t understand how thin a justification she’d chosen.“Can you imagine how that makes him feel?”Ryan used the wad-the-tea-towel-up-in-a-ball method of drying his hands.Using that same level of attentiveness, he deadpanned, “If I say yes, can I go to my room?”“Go.” Ed waved his son off.“And speaking of that, I think it’s time I headed out, as well.”“Yes, you should go.I have to go, too.I’m a woman on a mission.”“A spy mission,” Ryan called out from the hallway.“A family mission,” Ed corrected, taking Sadie by the shoulders.“That is, it will be a family mission if you stop by and get April.”Sadie winced.As if things hadn’t already been stretched to the limits between the sisters, to then have two of them show up on the third’s doorstep armed with nothing more than a box of chocolate-covered flimsy excuses? “I don’t think April and Daddy are talking yet.”“All the more reason to do it.”Sadie wanted to see her father.She wanted to see how Hannah and he were getting along.She wanted to know just what exactly happened between April and Moonie.In the distance Ryan’s bedroom door slammed shut.She wanted to keep the channels of communication open between her sisters and father.Ed already had his lab coat in his hand, ready to go back to the store.But most of all she wanted not to have to spend yet another night feeling lost and alone in her own home.“Okay, I’ll do it.But don’t lock up the store until you hear from me, you got that, Ed?”“Okay, but why?” he asked as he ushered her out their front door.“Because if I drag April over to Hannah’s house to see Daddy unannounced, we may need emergency medical supplies before the evening is through.”Chapter Nine“You’re sure Ed suggested this?” April waited in Hannah’s driveway, her arms folded.“Yes.” Sadie withdrew from the back seat of her sister’s tiny car the biggest box of chocolate-covered cherries that they stocked at the store.“For the last time, Ed came up with the whole idea.”“He used to be such a reasonable man.” April shook her head.Her ponytail bobbed like a wagging finger to underscore her disbelief.“What happened?”The car door fell shut.Sadie headed up the walk without a backward glance.“You didn’t have to come with me, you know.”April, who had not spoken to Moonie since the day of his great escape, kept at Sadie’s heels.“Like I told you, I only came tonight out of loving compassion for Hannah and the desire to show support for and solidarity with her, as the one now responsible for the care of Daddy.”“Uh-huh.” Sadie shot a look over her shoulder.“And?”“And?” April blinked, her face pained like an innocent accused of high treason.Sadie wasn’t buying it.She prodded again, “And?”April opened her mouth, closed it, then winced.Then, her eyes alight, she indulged in a delightedly wicked grin.“And because, if Daddy has got up to anything untoward or audacious, I want to see it with my own two eyes and not give that baby sister of ours a chance to put her goody-two-shoes spin on things.”“She can spin until she falls down drunk with dizziness, that won’t change the reality.We know Daddy can make life very difficult.I mean, after what he pulled at your house.”“Nice try, but you won’t get any information out of me that way.”“Fine.” With a gentle but well-placed shove, Sadie propelled her older sister onto the long, narrow porch.“Just ring the doorbell.”“Me?” April’s eyes grew wide.“Uh-uh.I refuse to leave my fingerprints at the scene of a crime.”“Which crime?” Sadie had to smile.“Us dropping in unannounced or Hannah strangling us for doing it?”“Oh, she won’t strangle us.”“No?”“Too easy to break a nail that way.” April crinkled up her nose.“She might, however, snatch those chocolates from your hands and crack them over your head.”“The crime then being, what? Assault with a delicious weapon?”“Don’t laugh.” April wagged one finger.“It could happen.Good thing you didn’t bring Daddy a sub sandwich.They’d have her for assault with a deli weapon
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