Key Lime Pie

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Sadie paused for a moment, but couldn’t not say what she had in her mind. “But you do think she’s alive.”

  Eric said nothing for several seconds. “She would have contacted me if she could.” There was finality in his tone, and Sadie decided to let it go. It was hard to believe Megan would disappear on purpose—or, rather, the better explanation was that Sadie could see why it was hard for Eric to believe Megan would disappear on purpose.

  “So, where are we going?” Sadie asked after they drove several minutes in silence.

  “Miami,” Eric said.

  Sadie scowled; she’d been afraid of that. If she’d taken her own car then she could have headed right over to the airport when she was ready to go. But then she wouldn’t have had this time to talk to Eric. Still, she could feel the circumstances pulling her in little by little, and although she was definitely intrigued, she was anxious about getting too involved.

  “Why Miami?” she asked. “What’s this meeting all about?”

  Eric shifted in his seat, which Sadie chose to interpret as anticipation rather than nerves. “The short answer is that I’ll be able to learn more about where Megan is.”

  “And the long answer?”

  Eric paused for a few seconds and changed lanes. “Did Mathews tell you how they found the body?”

  “No,” Sadie admitted, wishing she’d thought to ask. “He didn’t.”

  “They received an anonymous tip,” Eric began. “I guess it would have been Wednesday morning. All the tip said was that there was a woman buried at some GPS coordinates near Redland. Megan disappeared in Key West, which is where the missing person’s case was filed, so there was no immediate connection when the police went out on the tip. When they found the bracelet with the body, though, Mathews immediately thought about Megan. He read up on the case, the forensics team studied the purse found with the body, and then he called me.”

  “Okay,” Sadie said. “That explains what the police know, but not why you’re going to this meeting.”

  Eric let out a long, tortured breath. “I’m getting to that,” he said. “I didn’t get to Layla’s until early Thursday morning, and I immediately crashed. Around 7:30 that morning I got a call from a man who gave me the same GPS coordinates he claimed to have given the police. He told me that he’d be calling me later with more information, but if I told the police, I’d get nothing.”

  “You didn’t tell Mathews?”

  Eric shook his head. “I met with him a little while later and, without telling him about the call, was able to verify the GPS coordinates. I was back at Layla’s by ten, and the guy called me at 10:30. He told me the body wasn’t Megan, but that she would lead me to my daughter.”

  “She?” Sadie said. “The . . . body?”

  “I assume that’s what he meant. I don’t know. He said he had information the police would never find, but that it would cost me ten thousand dollars. If I did as he said, and didn’t tell the police, he’d prove himself reliable. If I didn’t do as he said, I’d never see Megan again.”

  “That’s why you’re selling the trailer,” Sadie summarized, realizing this was the part where she’d become involved. “That’s when you called me.”

  Eric nodded. “I called my neighbor Brian first. We’d taken the trailer hunting together once, and I hoped he’d want to buy it, but he thinks he’s got a lay-off coming up and couldn’t do it, although he offered to show it for me. Then I called you.”

  “Why did you need the box?”

  “Mathews wanted it,” he said with a shrug. “For things like hair and handwriting samples.”

  Sadie took a breath. If he’d told her even that much, she wouldn’t have been as motivated to open the box at all, but he’d kept his reasons to himself, refusing to answer her questions and therefore allowing her mind to run wild.

  Let it go, she told herself. Eric hadn’t earned all the fault she wanted to heap upon his shoulders, and she was staying of her own volition. “Okay, so you started working on getting the money for the information this tipster offered you. And you kept working with Mathews in order to learn everything he knew as well.”

  “Yes,” he said with a quick nod, devoid of any shame at working both sides.

  “And you didn’t tell Mathews any of this?” Sadie said for clarification.

  “No,” he said with an equally quick shake of his head. “Last night, the guy called back. After I assured him I was raising the money and was ready to work with him, he gave me another set of GPS coordinates. They weren’t the same ones where the body had been found, but I could tell it was close by. When Larry came over, I told—”

  “Wait,” Sadie said, putting up her hand to halt the conversation for a minute. “I just remembered I was supposed to tell you that Larry came to the police station, but then had to go back to work. Now, in one hundred words or less, explain why Layla lives in Larry’s house if they’re divorced.” They’d been talking about Larry as if Sadie knew everything about him, but she knew very little and needed a bigger picture.

  Eric took a moment to collect his thoughts and then sighed. “Larry,” he said as though it was a title for what he would say next. “Larry married Layla shortly after she and I divorced. He made it work for about three years before he threw in the towel, but instead of paying alimony, he purchased the house for Layla and agreed to maintain it. Layla is horrible with money, and this way she’d have somewhere to live for the rest of her life.”

  “Okay,” Sadie said. “I should have given you two hundred words. Why did he marry her?”

  Eric let out a breath. “Larry, Layla, and I have been friends since high school. He was always around; he’s Megan’s godfather and was pretty angry with me when I left.” He glanced at Sadie quickly before turning his attention back to the road. “A few months after I left, he moved to Homestead, and a few months after that, they were married. He said it was so she could be on his insurance—he worked for the state and had great benefits—and he could take her to some new doctors. Bottom line, he wanted to fix her; it didn’t work. For whatever reason, the nicer he was to Layla, the meaner she was toward him. He finally gave up, just like me.”

  “Oh,” Sadie said. She pictured the timeline in her mind. “Was that . . . hard for you when he married her?”

  Eric shrugged. “At first, I guess, but he had always been great with Megan, and then he took really good care of Layla—even though he didn’t find any miracle to heal her—so I got over it for the sake of them, and he forgave me for leaving for the same reasons, and we’ve been okay ever since.”

  Men! Sadie thought. How did they deal with things so logically?

  “And he works at the Speedway? Is that a grocery store?”

  “No,” Eric said, looking at her with genuine surprise. “The Homestead-Miami Speedway. NASCAR?”

  “Oh,” Sadie said, nodding. “Race cars.”

  Eric seemed a little startled by her simplistic answer. “It’s one of the most famous tracks in the country and hosts more championship races than anyone else.”

  “So, Larry’s a race car driver?”

  “No,” Eric said, almost chuckling. “He works in the back office—computers, printing; that kind of thing.”

  “Oh,” Sadie said. She had more questions, but didn’t want to get any more off track than she already was. “So you told Larry about the call you received and . . .”

  “Right,” Eric said, picking up the story. “It was eating me up not to talk to anyone.”

  Sadie bit back a comment about how she’d have talked to him about it if he hadn’t purposely withheld the information from her.

  Eric continued. “I knew he wanted information about Megan as badly as I did, and he even offered to loan me half of the ten thousand until the trailer sold. We decided to check out the GPS site together.”

  Sadie’s heart rate increased as her eyes were drawn to his dirty shoes. “That’s where you went this morning.”

  Eric nodded. “Before Larry
had to go to work.”

  “What did you find?” Sadie said.

  “A box buried under a couple inches of soil,” Eric said.

  “What was in it?”

  “Megan’s real purse—the one she had with her when she disappeared from Key West,” Eric said simply, but the words seemed painful for him to say. “And this.” He reached into the front pocket of his cotton, buttoned-up shirt and pulled out a business card, handing it to Sadie.

  She held it along the edges, not wanting to get her fingerprints on it, though she feared that with both Eric and Larry having handled it, any fingerprints the caller may have left behind would be destroyed. The front of the card showed a speedboat jumping over a wave—obviously Photoshopped since there was no way a boat could catch a wave that big by the shore like that. To the side of the graphic was the name of a company: Motorways Powerboat, Inc., with an address on 51st Street in Miami.

  “Look on the back,” Eric suggested, and Sadie attempted to turn her hand, still holding the card by the edges. She had to tilt her head slightly to see the back since her wrist would only twist so far. In pencil was written today’s date and the time of 2:30 pm above one word: alone.

  “That’s where you’re going?” Sadie asked, turning the card over so she could read the address again.

  “Yep.”

  Sadie handed the card back to Eric. “But you have no idea what you’ll find there.”

  Eric returned the card to his pocket. “I’ll find answers.”

  But was that enough? “I really think we should tell Mathews,” Sadie said. “What if this is some kind of setup? What if something happens?”

  “I don’t care,” Eric said calmly, shaking his head for emphasis. “I won’t risk not learning what he knows.”

  “Did he say she was alive?” Sadie asked.

  Eric shifted in his seat. This time he looked uncomfortable. “Not in so many words, but I think she is.”

  Sadie remained silent for a few seconds, trying to choose her words as best she could. “When you and I talked about her at the courthouse,” she finally said, refusing to think about the almost-kiss like she did every time she remembered that afternoon, “you said you hadn’t believed she was alive all this time.”

  “Why would he go to all the trouble of contacting me and leading me to her purse if he didn’t have something important for me?”

  Sadie pondered that for a while, reviewing all the motives for heinous crimes she’d encountered over the last few months. “In my experience, money is the lowest motive of all, meaning the people who seek it at all costs—no pun intended—are the least trustworthy. If he wants money, then he can’t be trusted once he gets what he wants.”

  “I don’t have the money,” Eric said. “The trailer’s been listed for about five hours. But I withdrew all twelve hundred dollars out of my savings account—that’s what took me so long this morning—and Larry got five thousand out of his. That gives me more than half. I’ll tell him I’ll pay the rest if I get Megan back.”

  Sadie shook her head. “This is a mistake,” she said with absolute certainty. But she didn’t like the way Eric was leaning away from her ever so slightly. If he took the defensive, she’d be the one losing his trust. She looked at Eric and allowed herself to embrace the compassion she really did feel for him right now. Maybe her understanding would open his mind better than her attack. “I know you want him to help you, but this thing has so many red flags it looks like it’s on fire.”

  “It’s all I’ve got,” Eric said softly, but with just as much determination.

  “Then give it to the police and let them figure it out. They’re trained for this kind of work; they know what to do.” She felt like a hypocrite for advising him on something she herself had never done, or at least not done well. “I know what this guy said, but if the police can get a hold of him, they can get the information you need.” She looked at the dashboard clock. “We can call Mathews, and he can get something set up if we hurry.” At least, she hoped he could.

  Eric shook his head, then checked his blind spot and moved to the right. Their exit must be getting close, which only increased Sadie’s concerns. “I refuse to take the chance of messing this up,” he said.

  “You recently pleaded guilty for withholding information during a police investigation,” Sadie pointed out. “A second conviction might not go as smoothly.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Eric said again, very calm and confident. “This is what I’m doing.”

  Sadie reflected on how differently he was behaving now compared to when they’d talked in the car before lunch. Then, he’d been gracious and sweet. Now he was rather dominating and dismissive of everything she said; he wasn’t even trying to consider her thoughts on the situation. Gayle’s assumption that Sadie’s trip to Florida would give rise to some kind of romance seemed rather silly now. Maybe it was just circumstances . . . but maybe not. Sadie didn’t dwell on those thoughts for long, however, they weren’t what was important right now.

  He moved into the exit lane and took the North Miami Avenue off-ramp. Sadie tried to think of another argument; surely there was something she could say that would help him see what she believed he was missing in the scenario. And yet she couldn’t ignore the question of what she would do if this were her child. If she believed the police could ruin her chances of getting her child back, would she take that risk?

  “I don’t feel good about this,” Sadie finally said. Eric had used his feelings that Megan was close to justify what he was doing. Surely her feelings of unease were just as real. “Something’s not right.”

  “A hundred things aren’t right,” Eric clarified, coming to a stop at an intersection. “Believe me, I would prefer that he’d given all this information to the police instead of me; I would rather he wanted Megan’s return more than he wanted my money, but that isn’t what I’ve been given.” Without warning he pulled into a gas station, taking Sadie off guard.

  She glanced at the gas gauge—there was still nearly half a tank. When she looked from the gauge to Eric’s face, however, she understood.

  “I’m sorry you don’t agree with what I’m doing,” Eric said, sounding mostly understanding but a little bit disappointed, too. He’d wanted her to be a good sidekick and agree with him on everything. Apparently he didn’t know Sadie as well as he thought he did. He pulled up in front of the food mart and turned to look at her. “Do you have your phone?”

  Sadie didn’t answer, battling inside herself on whether she should insist on going with him or not. No, she didn’t like what he was doing, but was it worse for him to do it alone? Then again, she was sincere in her feelings that something was wrong. “I don’t think this is safe, Eric,” she said. “Let me go with you. I’ll duck down in the back and stay in the car, but if something happens then you won’t be on your own.”

  “No,” Eric said, his tone final. “I can’t take the risk. I’m sorry. I’ll come back and pick you up when I’m done.”

  She looked at the gas station, unwilling to give in just yet. The food mart wasn’t fancy, but it had a Burger King inside. There were tables where she could sit and certainly a selection of magazines that would keep her mind occupied. But Eric would be facing a difficult situation all by himself. Her gaze slid further to the side, taking in the other cars in the lot. After focusing on one in particular, she turned back to Eric and put her hand on the door handle. “I have my phone,” she said. “If I don’t hear from you by 3:00, I’m calling Mathews.”

  Eric hesitated, but finally gave a small nod, as though knowing he wouldn’t win this one. “Quarter after,” he said. “I’ve still got some distance to cover.”

  “Okay,” Sadie said. “One hour—3:15.” She looked at him and held his eyes. “Be careful.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a dip of his chin.

  Sadie bit back one more lecture and stepped out of the car. She could feel Eric watching her so she didn’t look back as she pushed through the glass
doors of the food mart. Once she was inside, Eric reversed out of his parking space. Sadie took a step closer to the front glass and watched until he’d pulled back into traffic. As soon as he was gone, she pushed the door open and took quick strides across the parking lot toward the far right gas pump.

  “This yours?” Sadie asked as she approached a young man who was pulling the nozzle out of the gas tank of a white-and-black taxi. She actually preferred that the taxi wasn’t bright yellow so that it wouldn’t be as easy to spot.

  “Yuh,” the tall, thin black man said without looking at her, a Jamaican accent coming through with just the one word. His hair was cut short, not in dreadlocks or anything, and if Sadie had to guess she’d say he was in his early thirties. Whoever called New York the melting pot had never been to Miami.

  “Good,” Sadie said with a nod as she headed toward the back door. “There’s a green Ford Tempo with an Avis rental car sticker on the back window that just pulled out of this station and is heading for 51st Street.” She pointed in the direction Eric had turned. “I need you to catch up with him, but without him knowing.”

  “You be in some kinda trouble, lady?” the man asked, looking at her for the first time.

  “Not me,” Sadie said, giving him a confident look. “But he is. Can you catch up?”

  The man looked at her for a moment. In the next instant his dark lips parted to show teeth that fairly glowed against his skin. “Certainly,” he said, hanging up the nozzle.

  Sadie nodded with relief, but immediately moved to the next worry on her list. It had been nearly a full minute since Eric had disappeared into traffic. Would they be able to find him?

  Chapter 21

  Sadie need not have worried about being unable to catch up. It only took two lights, and enough zigging and zagging between other cars to make Sadie grasp the door handle for balance, before Monty—the driver—pointed at a green Ford a few cars ahead of them as they slowed down for a light. “That be ’im?” Monty asked.