Key Lime Pie

by Josi S. Kilpack

  She winced at the sounds of another hit, another groan, and another round of shouted questions. It was more than Sadie could stand. She couldn’t wait here and listen to Eric take a beating because of her. The alternative wasn’t all that appealing either, but Sadie was crafty and thought she could pull it off.

  Without allowing enough time to second-guess herself, Sadie stood up and took two steps to her left, leaving the security of the metal stuff that had given her sanctuary. Just as she’d thought, Eric was up against the building with a man standing in front of him, one hand holding the front of Eric’s shirt against his neck. The man’s back was to Sadie, so she couldn’t see his face, but Eric saw her over the man’s shoulder, and his eyes went wide, which caught the attention of his attacker. The other man turned and looked at Sadie, surprised to see her there, but not at the expense of his anger.

  “I’m s-sorry,” she said quickly, trying to stay above the fear that was grasping at her with ten-fingered hands. “I was looking for a bathroom and hit against your car. I’m afraid the handle caught on the edge of my purse.” She lifted her wine-colored, boxy purse for emphasis. “When the alarm went off, I kind of panicked. Please don’t hurt that man on my account.”

  Don’t hurt me either, she nearly added. Then all she could do was steel herself for his response and continue praying silently for deliverance.

  Chapter 22

  The man holding Eric against the wall was of average height and frame, shorter than Eric even, but the muscles in his arms and the set of his chest showed that Eric—who wasn’t out of shape by any means—didn’t stand much of a chance. Sadie had become used to seeing every shade of brown and black skin since arriving in Florida; this man ran in the lighter end in the spectrum, but had dark eyes and longish, dark hair anchored in a ponytail at the back of his head—not unlike Eric’s own hair, though this man’s head was shaved beneath the ponytail itself.

  He wore a leather shoulder harness, but there was no gun in the holster. A closer look, however, revealed the gun to be in the hand not pressing Eric against the siding. It always amazed Sadie how fake real guns could look. This one was black and small, but with what she could only assume was a silencer on the end, making the barrel unusually long. She pretended not to notice the gun at all. This was Miami, after all; everyone waved guns around, right?

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again, moving toward the strip of driveway which was the only way out of the yard. “I, um, saw a cabinet shop across the street. I’ll see if maybe they’ll let me use their restroom instead.”

  “No,” the man said suddenly, releasing Eric as he took a step back and holstered his gun in one fluid movement. “You can use ours,” he said, and though his tone was friendly, his eyes were not as he watched her intently. He had a slight accent—nothing like Monty’s—but still apparent in his words. He was in his late-thirties, she’d guess, with lines around his eyes and the beginning of jowls he would not appreciate in another fifteen years.

  Eric attempted to smooth out his shirt, but the part of his neck the man had been pressing against the wall was red, showing the force that had been holding him there. He wasn’t looking at Sadie; she wondered if that was on purpose. She was avoiding Eric’s eyes as well, not wanting to give anything away. It took every ounce of internal strength for Sadie to keep from running back to the cab. “It’s okay, I don’t want to disturb you any—”

  “You’ve already done that,” the man said, folding his arms across his chest as he continued to stare her down. He moved to the door and pulled it open. “May as well not waste any more time by making all this irrelevant.”

  Sadie paused, studiously avoiding looking at Eric for fear he would betray their connection, while desperately searching for a way out of this. “Thanks anyway,” she said, swallowing the fear and trying to convince herself that everything was fine. She moved forward, but the man moved in front of her, blocking her way.

  “I insist,” he said evenly, and Sadie realized that other than screaming and attempting to run, she had no choice. Taking a deep breath, she tried to convince herself everything was okay, that he was simply testing her story. If she really needed to use the restroom bad enough to have come back here, she’d follow through, right?

  “Okay,” she said, hoping she sounded brave. “Thanks.”

  She’d go into the bathroom for thirty seconds, then thank him and make her getaway. It was possible for it to be that simple, right? She tried very hard to believe it as she walked into the building, the man close enough behind her that she could hear him breathing. She suppressed a shiver and thought courageous thoughts, taking confidence in the fact that Eric was here. If worse came to worst, he’d defend her.

  “It’s down that hallway,” the man said, his arm extending past her shoulder as he pointed straight ahead to an unlit hallway with two doors on either side. “Second door on the right.”

  Sadie nodded, unable to verbalize a second thank-you with her heart thumping in her throat. He continued to follow right behind her as she headed for the door. She half-expected him to go into the bathroom with her, but he stopped right outside the door.

  “I’ll wait for you here,” he said, managing a smile that gave Sadie no comfort. Eric had followed the two of them as well, but Sadie still refused to look at him, though she could sense his tension. As she stepped over the threshold and pushed the door closed behind her, she remembered her chiding him about going to this meeting at all, about how unsafe it was. What a hypocrite she was.

  The door clicked, and Sadie turned the lock. For a moment she listened, wondering if the man was staying right outside the door. She didn’t hear him walk away, but maybe she wouldn’t be able to hear through the door.

  She glanced around the small room. Now what? She didn’t have much time. That’s when she remembered Monty’s card in her back pocket. Moving carefully, she pulled the card from her pocket and then slowly opened her purse and pulled out her cell phone.

  She hoped that Monty texted. Gayle didn’t like to, which, despite Sadie’s lack of skill when it came to texting, was very annoying when a text would be easier and faster than having a conversation. But Monty was young, and from what Sadie had learned about young people, they always had texting enabled.

  Using her foot to flush the toilet, she typed as quickly as she could.

  Come inside in 3 minutes.

  She wanted to add “please” as a way to abate the presumptuousness of her request, but the toilet stopped flushing, and she was out of time. Monty would know the text was from her, right?

  She went to the sink and turned on the water, using it to mask the sound her phone made as she sent the text. She watched the screen of her phone as long as she felt she could, but no one washed their hands for more than twenty seconds, so she finally had to put it away. She shoved Monty’s card back into her pocket and the phone back in her purse. After running her hands under the water, she pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and dried them before unlocking the door and pulling it open, startled to find the man planted in the doorway only inches away from her.

  His arms were folded across his chest and although he was only a few inches taller than Sadie, he might as well have been eight feet tall for the imposing figure he cut. With her peripheral vision, Sadie saw Eric standing against the far wall of the hallway, a few feet closer to the exterior doors. She didn’t need to make eye contact to feel how tense he was—or perhaps angry was a better description.

  “Where are you from?” the man demanded.

  “Uh, I’m from Georgia,” Sadie said. Since she was trying to keep her connection to Eric a secret, admitting she was from the same state Eric was from, assuming the man knew where Eric was from, didn’t seem wise. Then again, she didn’t talk like someone from Georgia and felt the need to strengthen her story. “Well, not originally,” she said, offering a slight smile. Her mind was whirling with ideas on how she could make herself sound more believable. “My husband and I moved there from Wyomi
ng a few years ago. You know, snowbirds and all that. We sure do like the sunshine, though; it does wonders for my husband’s arthritis, which was just about as bad as it could be that last winter we spent in Cody.” She’d managed to confuse people before with too many words and hoped she could be so lucky again.

  “What are you doing in Miami?” the man asked, having not moved even a fraction of an inch away from her. She could smell his cologne and didn’t like it.

  “Um, we’re . . . buying a car,” she said, remembering the used car dealership half a block down the street. “We came out to visit Neil’s brother in our old Dodge, but it broke down about fifty miles out of town. We had to get it towed to his brother’s house, if you can believe it, and, rather than fix the old hunk-a-junk, Neil decided to get us a new car—well, new to us anyway. I can hardly stand listening to him haggle, though, so I decided to take a walk.” Her story, rather than getting stronger, felt as though it was unraveling.

  “Alone?” he asked.

  She added the rest in her mind—in downtown Miami?

  “Neil was trying to get another five hundred dollars taken off the purchase price,” Sadie explained. “I didn’t want to interrupt him—five hundred dollars is five hundred dollars after all—but I still don’t like to listen to all that, so I walked down the block. I was on my way back when I saw a car pull into this lot so I thought you must be open and, if you were, you might have a restroom I could use, and it would probably be cleaner than whatever the used car lot had to offer. I’m not much of a fan of public restrooms, if you know what I mean. Then my purse caught on the handle and all that drama ensued.” She made her smile a little bigger and waved her hand through the air in hopes it would make it all seem silly. “Sorry for interrupting your meeting, though,” she said, more eager than ever to leave. She finally dared glance at Eric, worried that at this point, not looking at him, and therefore not including him in her apology, would look more suspicious than ignoring him. His right cheek was red and a little swollen, but she was glad he didn’t look too mad. Instead, he looked really nervous—scared even, and that undid some of Sadie’s confidence.

  The man still hadn’t moved, so she took a step forward and slightly to the left, hoping he would step aside. He didn’t.

  Sadie glanced at Eric, who looked even more anxious. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. She didn’t let her eyes linger very long before she looked up at the man blocking her way. “I’d better get back to my husband,” she said, unable to keep the fear out of her voice any longer.

  He still didn’t move, and Sadie found herself holding her breath, worried that Monty didn’t have texting on his phone after all and wasn’t coming. Surely it had been three minutes by now, right? Maybe he’d given up on her altogether and left with the twenty dollars she’d given him.

  Finally, the man began turning to the side, allowing just enough room for her to slip past him. But as soon as she took a step forward, he moved like lightning, raising his right forearm and pressing it against her neck while pulling his gun from the holster with his left hand and pointing it at Eric’s head before Eric had time to do so much as flinch. Sadie attempted a scream, but the arm crushing her trachea prevented any sound from coming out of her mouth. She could only make a gurgling, coughing noise as she stared up at her captor with shock and fear rushing through her veins.

  He stared at her with those shark eyes of his, holding her with the intensity of a look that was as strong as the muscles in his arm. “Who are you?”

  Chapter 23

  The silence was profound as Sadie tried to look at Eric, but couldn’t turn her head enough to make eye contact. The man stared at Sadie while keeping the gun trained on Eric. “Who sent you?”

  He moved his arm from her neck to her collarbone so she could answer. She had to cough three times before she felt as though she could speak; her throat throbbed. “I told you, I’m from Georgia and—”

  The click of the safety being taken off the gun caused the rest of the lie to stick in her throat. She looked at Eric, who had suddenly stiffened.

  “I’ll kill him.” The man’s cold tone convinced Sadie he really would pull the trigger.

  Should she attempt another lie? The look in the man’s eyes told her not to. “My name is Sadie,” she finally admitted, seeing Eric slump a few feet away. “Eric told me he was coming here, but . . . he refused to let me come with him.” She turned to look at Eric. “I’m so sorry I followed you,” she said, meaning every word of it.

  “You weren’t supposed to tell anyone,” the man shouted, turning toward Eric, who startled at the volume of the man’s words.

  “I’m sorry,” Eric said. “I didn’t think she’d interfere.”

  The words were a slap, one Sadie knew she deserved.

  The man turned his eyes back to her. “Have you gone to the police with this?”

  “No,” Sadie said, suddenly hoping she was a bad enough liar that he would instantly recognize she was telling the truth now. “I only learned about it on the way here. Eric dropped me off so he could continue alone. I was just worried about him, I swear.”

  The man’s eyes continued to bore through her. “This complicates things,” he muttered. He moved his arm from Sadie’s chest, but only to clamp his hand on her right arm, tightly enough to convince her that now wasn’t the time to try the skills that had gotten her out of similar situations in the past. Still pointing the gun toward Eric, the man dragged Sadie toward the doors. Partway there, he suddenly shifted and pointed the gun at her head instead of Eric’s. Sadie forgot to breathe for a few stumbling steps. Then, in one fluid movement the man turned around, keeping Sadie with him. He looked at Eric.

  “She’s coming with me,” he said. “And the price just went up another five grand.”

  “Fifteen thousand dollars?” Eric sputtered, shaking his head. “There’s no way I can get that kind of money. The sixty-two hundred was all I’d been able—”

  “Find a way,” the man countered. “There’s a practice race at the Speedway tonight at 6:00. We’ll be in section C. Find us, bring the money, and I’ll give you your woman back as well as your daughter.”

  At the mention of Megan, Eric’s face drained of both tension and color, as though realizing how seriously Sadie’s interference had jeopardized his chance to find Megan.

  At the look on his face, Sadie felt the emotion she’d been holding back threaten to break free. “I’m so sorry, Eric,” she said as tears rose in her eyes.

  The man’s grip on her arm tightened as he pulled her toward the door. She tripped over her own feet and nearly dropped her purse. He steadied her without looking at her, but it surprised her that he’d bothered.

  “I hope you understand how serious this is,” the man said to Eric. “I’ve now got double coverage. You’ll have to give up ever seeing your daughter again if you choose to do something stupid.” He shook Sadie’s arm for emphasis.

  They’d reached the glass doors. Though Sadie envisioned elbowing this man in the stomach, kicking him in the groin, and making her getaway, she didn’t so much as try to pull away. She’d caused enough trouble for Eric and didn’t dare compound it. The man pushed the door open and turned back to look at Eric, who stood in the middle of the entryway. So many feelings were playing over his face that Sadie didn’t have time to identify them. “Get out here so I can lock up.”

  Eric paused for a moment then came forward, passing Sadie and the tipster in the doorway. Sadie tried to catch his eye, but Eric avoided her gaze. He exited the building and headed for his car. When he reached it, he dropped his chin, keeping his back to Sadie. She kept watching, waiting for him to turn around. Then she asked herself what she wanted him to do. Tell her it was fine when they both knew it wasn’t? Still holding her arm, the man pulled her completely out of the building. Sadie squinted against the blinding sunshine.

  The door closed, and Sadie watched the man turn the key in the lock of the door before pulling on the handle to ensur
e it was locked. “You’ll wait here for five minutes before you leave,” he told Eric. “Following us will only make things worse. I’ve given you enough information for you to know I can be trusted; you have not earned my trust nearly as well.”

  The man dragged Sadie around the car to the passenger side. “You understand how this arrangement works?” He released her arm and pulled open the door. It took her a moment to realize he was talking to her. He still had the gun in his hand, but wasn’t pointing it at her anymore. He didn’t need to. “You don’t scream or run or do anything to draw attention to yourself while you’re with me.”

  Sadie nodded. “I won’t do anything else to make this worse,” she said. “I want Eric to find his daughter.”

  “Good,” the man said. “If you do something stupid, you will be responsible for him never seeing her again.”

  She nodded her understanding, looking at the ground, feeling Eric’s eyes on her—eyes she couldn’t bring herself to meet.

  He motioned with the gun for Sadie to get into the car. She didn’t have to be told twice—or once, really—and she obediently moved the iPod off the seat and sat down. She put on her seat belt while the man made his way around the car and then she zipped up her purse and held it tightly in her lap. Moments later he pulled open the driver’s door and removed the jacket from the front seat. He slipped it on, covering the shoulder holster he wore. He slid the gun into the holster, and Sadie wondered how he could wear a jacket in this heat. The very idea increased her own internal temperature.

  Sadie did not try to catch Eric’s eye again. She’d messed everything up. As the magnitude of the situation descended on her, she winced at the ramifications. Could she live with herself if she was the reason he didn’t find Megan?