Page 5 of Montana Delta Rescue
Sadie! Tony hasn’t met Sadie. She married Hank Patterson who runs that bodyguard service. They live way out in Montana on a ranch. I’ll mail the pictures to Sadie. She’ll know what to do with them and her husband can keep her safe.
Marilyn copied the pictures onto a fob and then hurried to write a note to Sadie.
Dear Sadie,
I’m trusting you to hide these pictures and keep them safe. Don’t show them to anyone or tell them you have them. If anything happens to me, take them to the police.
Thank you for helping me.
Marilyn
She stuck the note and the fob into a padded envelope and addressed it. Then she deleted the photos off of her computer. Now the only place anyone could find them was on the fob. Once Sadie had the pictures, no one else would.
Still nervous, she mixed up the brownies and stuck them in the oven.
As soon as the brownies were done, she pulled them out of the oven and set them to cool, then she took the envelope and a few bills she’d written checks for, from a stack of outgoing mail and headed down to the apartment manager’s office to put in the outgoing mailbox.
“Has the postman come yet today?” she asked Della, the middle-aged redhead who was the apartment manager.
“Not yet. He should be here any time, though,” Della said.
“Good,” Marilyn said. “Don’t want to be late on these.” She held her envelopes up and smiled at Della. Then she paused.
“What’s on your mind?” Della asked.
“Can you send something for me by next day mail?”
“Yes,” Della said. “I’d need to do that at the post office.”
“Oh, I don’t want to bring you trouble,” Marilyn said.
“No trouble at all,” Della said. “I have to run errands there later anyway. I’ll get it mailed for you. Love the new hairdo by the way.”
“Thanks,” Marilyn said. “Well, I’d better get back. My brownies need to be iced.”
“Mr. Avery will be knocking at your door,” Della said with a laugh.
“You know it,” Marilyn nodded.
“I wish I had that man’s metabolism,” Della said. “I’d be twice my size if I ate sweets the way he does.” Della went for power walks on her lunch hour and was always watching her slim figure.
“I know, right? Lucky guy,” Marilyn said.
“He turns ninety-nine next month,” Della said. “He’s amazingly fit for his age.”
“Yes, he is,” Marilyn nodded. “I see him going up and down those stairs and swimming. I hope I’m as fit at that age.”
The phone rang. “Me too,” Della said before answering it.
Marilyn waved goodbye to her and went out the door heading back to her apartment.
Okay good, so if Tony starts asking around, there’s a second witness to me being home, baking. Paying bills, nothing out of the ordinary.
Marilyn really needed some ordinary right now.
She iced the brownies, spreading the creamy chocolate across them, and then sliced a few and put them in a container for Mr. Avery. She was surprised he hadn’t knocked on her door already and wondered if he was at home.
From her apartment she watched for Della to leave for the post office. It was a relief to finally see her driving away with the outgoing mail.
