“Take another,” Sorrell said. “But no tricks.”
They both grinned, looking far too much like their father when he was younger and planning trouble.
“And you take one too.” Sorrell took the plate and offered it to Zack again.
He looked from the plate to her and back again, then shook his head. “Why don’t you join us in town?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Another time. Enjoy your evening and thanks for stopping by.”
He took the cookie and tried not to make any more eye contact.
They were almost at Jonny’s house, having stopped three more times to either knock on the door of the houses they were passing or talk to other trick or treaters. Zack was grumpy: the whole outing had taken longer than he thought it would and he kept thinking about Sorrell. He didn’t want her to be nice or the sort of person who baked extra cookies and muffins for firefighters. Or the sort of person who liked sticky handed little girls who talked with their mouths full.
He wanted her to be mean and rude. And not look pretty andinterestingin sweatpants and a hoodie.
“Zacky,” Sadie Grace said as they finally made it to their front door where he could leave them in the sometimes gentle claws of Mrs Morris and go for a beer. “I’ve done something bad.”
“We agreed you weren’t doing tricks, Sadie,” Zack glared at her, knowing exactly what Sadie Grace was capable of.
She stood close to him, looking up with big eyes, one hand in her pocket. “It wasn’t a trick.” Then her bottom lip started to quiver.
Zack wasn’t going to be fooled. Everyone in Severton knew that Sadie Grace could pretty much buy her way out of any form of trouble with a few crocodile tears and her pool-like eyes. Her mother had been just the same, which was why most people gave into her anyway. “Sadie…” he said, elongating her name.
The bottom lip wobbled like jelly.
“Tell me what’ve you done…” The possibilities were endless. In the past six months, Sadie had let loose the bulls from one of the farm’s fields; been found at the top of the tower in the fire station after pretty much everyone had spent an hour searching for her; coloured Harry’s cheeks bright red when he was asleep with permanent marker; played painters and decorators while wearing Jonny’s best shirt; and locked Zack’s car keys in his car. There was more, but he and the rest of the town had blocked it from memory. She was single-handedly the best contraceptive Severton had ever had, and there was talk off her being used as a way to stop teenage pregnancies by the local high school.
Sadie Grace tried to smile. “I didn’t mean to. But it was so pretty…”
“What was pretty?” he asked. The boys were inside now. He could hear Mrs Morris giving very precise instructions as to what they had to do before bed.
Sadie looked at the floor. “The key thingy.”
“What key thingy? Let me see.” He held out his hand.
“Promise you won’t shout.”
“Do you ever hear me shout?”
Sadie nodded. “I hear you shout at Daddy and Jake and Scott when you play football.”
Shit. This was true. He would usually swear a lot too.
“I promise I won’t shout at you now.”
She pulled her hand out of her pocket and showed him her stolen treasure. A feathery key ring dangled from what he recognised as a car key and the key to the lodge at the manor; in other words, she had Sorrell’s keys.
“I’ll take them back to the hotel lady,” he said, visions of the beer that awaited him fading ever further away. “Then I’m telling Daddy what you’ve done and Alex too.”
Alex was his other brother and a local detective constable. He was a police dog handler, and one of Sadie Grace’s favourite activities was to pretend that the large German Shepherd was a horse—not to ride him, but to tack him up with various ‘saddles’ and ‘reins’ that she’d make. The dog had the patience of a saint.
Zack needed some of that patience right now.
Then the tears started for real. “Is Alex going to put me in prison?” she said. “I don’t want to go to prison.”
Zack shook his head. “That’s where thieves go. I suggest you go inside and start thinking about how to apologise to Sorrell.” He pushed her towards the door, giving Mrs Morris a brief nod.
The older woman shook her head and then raised her brows. “You were just as bad,” she said. “The three of you and Jake. I’ll remind you sometime.”
