Key Lime Pie

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “’Is phone?” he asked, checking Joe’s pockets.

  “Yes.” Sadie nodded, grateful she didn’t have to look for it. She tried not to look at Joe’s face—or should she be calling him Hugo?—but couldn’t help it. He looked paler, which only confirmed that Sadie’s plan to get him some help was a good one. Monty pulled the phone out of Joe’s jacket pocket, handing it to Sadie, who accepted it with a smile. “I’m still on your clock, right?”

  He nodded as he stood up, but he’d lost his smile somewhere.

  “Good,” she said. “I’m going to call someone to come help Joe, but then can you take me to the University of Miami Hospital?”

  “Sho’.” He looked as though he wanted to ask more questions, but he didn’t. Sadie was glad for that, since she wasn’t sure how she would explain that she was basing everything on a single letter of the alphabet.

  That settled, she looked at the phone again and nearly talked herself out of calling for help for fear of what the repercussions of her involvement would be.

  “Maybe we should take him to the hospital with us,” she said.

  “Not a man like dis,” Monty said, shaking his head. “’E be trouble. Like I tow you, ’e be best right ’ere.”

  Sadie looked up. “You think so?”

  Monty nodded, and Sadie wondered if he would get in trouble for knocking Joe out. She certainly didn’t want that. Monty had thought he was helping. Besides, she needed to see if Liliana was Megan, and although Joe was out cold, she knew there was someone else involved—the box burner. What if they beat her to Megan?

  She also wondered if maybe getting Joe to a hospital would give him a chance to talk to the police, perhaps sparing his life in the process. He’d said he wasn’t proud of some of the things he’d done, and obviously he was involved in some illegal things, but he also knew where Megan had been. Maybe he could trade what he knew about her situation for some help with his own. Sadie knew he didn’t trust the police, but they might be the very people to save him from what he’d already accepted as his fate.

  One more look at Joe, who was partially blocked from view by Monty, convinced her that she had to call. Eric had said Sadie was willing to do anything in order to do the right thing. Getting Joe some help seemed to be the most right thing she could do. Before she could argue the point with herself any longer, she punched in 911 and waited as a dispatcher came on the line.

  “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

  “Um, yeah, there’s a man unconscious at—” She scanned the park desperately; she hadn’t noticed the name of the park. She looked to Monty for help.

  “Tropical Park,” Monty said.

  “Tropical Park,” Sadie replied. “I think he hit his head.”

  “Did you see him hit his head, ma’am?”

  Technically, she hadn’t, but she wasn’t going to say anything more anyway. Instead she bent over to put the phone next to Joe. Monty, once again, cut her off. He took the phone and placed it on the ground next to Joe’s hand. It almost looked as though Joe had dropped the phone himself.

  The operator’s muted voice continued. “Ma’am? Ma’am, are you there?”

  “Sorry, Joe,” Sadie whispered, then looked up at Monty. “And I’m sorry to you too, Monty. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  Monty’s expression was flat as he looked down at Joe. He’d thought he was helping Sadie and seemed to be realizing that it hadn’t quite worked out that way.

  “I think I found the information he was going to give to my friend,” Sadie said. “Can you take me to the hospital?” She scanned the park, imagining that in a town like Miami there were police all over the place who would be responding to her 911 call any second.

  Monty must have been thinking the same thing because he too was looking around. He reached out and took Sadie’s hand in his large one. “We bettah ’urry,” he said, pulling her in the opposite direction from where Joe had parked. “De’ meta’s runnin’.”

  “After you drop me off, you can go,” Sadie said a minute later as she put on her seat belt in the backseat. “You’ve done so much for me, and I’m afraid things are only going to get worse from here on out.”

  Monty pulled out of the parking lot and turned left. There were no mountains for reference so Sadie had no idea which direction they were headed.

  “I kin wait fo’ you,” he said with a nod as he pulled up right behind another car and honked to get them to pull to the right. The car complied, and he hit the gas again, throwing Sadie against the seat.

  “Are you sure?” Sadie asked, holding onto the door to brace herself. “I really don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  “No trouble,” he said, glancing at her in the rearview mirror before making a hard right turn. “I not be leavin’ a lady like you to face dis alone. ’Sides, dis be de best time I had in weeks.” He smiled and winked.

  Sadie smiled slightly, reminded of her son, Shawn, and how he was the same way—unable to absorb the severity of what was happening, seeing life as one big adventure. Kids. The taxi zoomed past a restaurant with a marquee that read “Key Lime Pie $3.99” and Sadie frowned. Joe had offered to take her to get some key lime pie. Oh, she hoped he was okay.

  “Well, why don’t I pay you now?” Sadie said, opening her purse. “Just in case you need to go while I’m inside.”

  Monty shook his head. “I wait fo’ you, lady, an’ you be payin’ me when you come back.”

  Sadie hoped his insistence wouldn’t put him in a bad position, but she finally nodded her acceptance of his terms. She’d been very clear with him, and he was choosing to remain involved. She couldn’t deny that it felt good to have someone else on her side, and she was glad that her knack for finding good people in difficult times was still holding. Even if he had knocked Joe out and complicated things a whole heck of a lot, Monty had still rescued her.

  Remembering that her phone had rung while she’d been in the car with Joe, she pulled it out of her purse to see who’d called.

  A shiver ran through her as she saw Pete’s number next to a tiny picture of him. Her daughter, Breanna, had showed her how to customize her phone so that a person’s picture came up with the number. The tiny Pete looked up at her, a slight smile on his face, and she realized that she missed him. Immediately she felt ridiculous. They hadn’t really had a relationship in the first place, they just both had really wanted to have one, and she’d chosen to cut it off.

  He’d left a voice mail, and Sadie took a deep breath to prepare herself before she pushed the button to listen to the message. Gayle’s message was first. As Sadie had expected, she was reporting that the trailer was cleaned and ready to go—and that Eric’s neighbor, Brian, was kind of cute. Sadie shook her head, but felt a fledgling hope that maybe Brian would help distract Gayle from Pete.

  Speaking of Pete, he was the next message on her phone, and she bit her lip as his voice elicited another wave of . . . what? Nostalgia? Regret? Tenderness? She focused on his words instead of his voice. “Sadie, I just received a strange call from a police sergeant in southern Florida. He had a lot of questions about you and Eric.” Pete paused and Sadie cringed. “I had no choice but to share the information about your conviction with him, but I did try to emphasize that it’s your only run-in—ever—and that you pled guilty and are nearly finished with your sentence. On a personal note, I’m not sure what to think about any of this. Please call me back.”

  What Sadie wouldn’t do for a rewind button! Then she wouldn’t have looked in the box, and she wouldn’t have come to Florida and led Pete to believe she had come here with Eric. She was so embarrassed, and yet she couldn’t think of anything she could say to Pete if she called him back right now. What must he think of her? Was he wrong to think it? She had chased Eric to Florida, and she was in the middle of yet another investigation. But therein lay her redemption—she was on the brink of possibly finding Megan, which would justify everything she’d done so far. She couldn’t regret that entirely
, no matter how much Pete’s good opinion of her mattered.

  She looked out the window as she tried to be confident in what she was doing and attempted to distract herself by focusing on the city beyond her window—a city that she hoped to leave behind as quickly as possible. As soon as she did just one more thing.

  It seemed she’d traveled all over Miami today, yet Joe had said it was small for a big city. To Sadie it just kept going and going and going; she hadn’t seen the beach yet, though she’d seen glimpses of ocean now and again. Gayle had said Florida was one of the most romantic places in the country. Sadie wished she could see that side of Florida. The next thought she posed to herself was if she’d want to see that side of Miami with Eric. She wasn’t sure she did.

  Her phone rang from inside her purse, and she nearly shouted “Hallelujah,” glad to have a reprieve from her miserable thoughts—until she realized it could be Pete calling her back. When she recognized the Florida area code she almost relaxed—until she realized it could be Eric. Was he calling her from Layla’s house instead of on his cell phone? Her stomach sank as she wondered what she could say to him right now with so many whirling thoughts taking place in her brain. Chickening out wasn’t the answer either though. On the third ring, she took a deep breath and answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Hoffmiller?”

  “Yes,” Sadie said, recognizing the voice immediately. “Sergeant Mathews?” She didn’t want to talk to him either and wished she’d let the call go to voice mail after all. Too late now. What does he know? she wondered. What could she say without making everything worse? Was there any way he could know she’d placed that 911 call?

  “Are you still with Mr. Burton?”

  She thought back to when she’d been leaving the police station and insisted that she wasn’t with Eric. She’d worried then that Mathews thought she was lying. Knowing she was still in town must make him pretty certain she had lied. She paused before deciding to tell him as much of the truth as she could. “No, I’m not.”

  “Are you on your way back to Colorado?”

  Sadie wished she could tell him she was about to get on a plane right that minute. “No,” she said simply.

  He waited for more, but she remained silent.

  “Then where are you?”

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant, but I can’t tell you that.”

  Chapter 28

  Mathews was quiet for what felt like a long time. Sadie shifted in her seat trying to shake off the tension that built with each second Mathews didn’t say anything.

  “Mr. Burton is withholding information,” Mathews said, his voice cool. “And while he likes to think that we can’t charge him with anything, he’s mistaken. We’re giving him some space because of what he’s dealing with, but he is not in good standing with us right how. I want to make sure you understand the predicament that puts you in if you are currently acting on the information he’s withholding from us.”

  Sadie swallowed. That was perhaps the most professional reprimand she’d ever heard. There was no way to argue with him about what he’d said, but neither was she inclined to tell him everything that had happened since she’d left the police station. Not yet. “I’m not acting on anything Eric’s told me,” she said. Joe had told her what she was acting on now. “Thank you for your concern, Sergeant.” She hoped she sounded confident but not snotty. She couldn’t believe she was creating problems with yet another police department. “I appreciate your concern, and you’ll be the first person I call if I learn anything concrete.”

  Mathews let out a breath laced with disappointment and frustration. “That’s not good enough,” he said. “I know you understand how serious it is to withhold information, Mrs. Hoffmiller. It would be a shame to add a charge so soon after the one you received in Colorado.”

  Sadie felt her cheeks heat up. “Sergeant Mathews,” she said. “I swear I’m not trying to be difficult, it’s just that what I know won’t be helpful unless I—”

  “I am asking you to come into the police station as soon as possible. The case may rest upon you following this direction.”

  “I don’t know where Eric is,” Sadie hedged. “And I don’t know what he’s involved in other than he really wants to find his daughter and he believes that working with the police will prevent that.”

  “I need to know what you know,” Mathews said.

  “I don’t know anything,” Sadie said, and it was true. She didn’t know a single thing, but she suspected several things, and she was working on confirming those details. “When I do know something, you’ll be the first person I call.”

  “Mrs. Hoffmiller,” he said in a warning tone.

  She felt horrible doing it, and could only imagine the trouble she was getting herself into, but she pressed the end button, hanging up on Sergeant Mathews. She hoped he’d assume the call had simply been dropped at an inopportune moment.

  She stared at the phone in her hand. “Did I really just do that?” she asked herself out loud.

  Yes, she answered herself silently. I did.

  Ugh, she hated being so disagreeable, but she wasn’t sure how to explain what she was doing, or what had happened with Joe.

  She wished Sergeant Mathews could understand that she wasn’t being coy or trying to hide something; she had to make sure she didn’t ruin Eric’s chances of finding his daughter. Sadie didn’t know what she would do if Liliana Miriam Montez wasn’t Megan. And knowing that Megan didn’t necessarily want to come home made this meeting an even more precarious situation.

  “Main doe’s?” Monty asked, and Sadie looked up to see a huge white building half a block in front of them.

  “Wow,” she whispered in awe, unable to answer him directly. The sunlight reflecting off the windows and white stone—or stucco—walls made the building look as though it were glowing. There were palm trees reaching toward the upper floors, and Sadie wondered how on earth she was going to find Megan—or Liliana Montez—amid that many rooms.

  Monty drove up to the main entrance and stopped in front of the large glass doors.

  Sadie took a deep breath. “Wish me luck,” she said, tucking her purse under the backseat and hoping she wasn’t an idiot to leave it behind. She couldn’t pretend to be a hospital volunteer with a purse on her arm, and Monty had given Sadie no reason to distrust him—quite the opposite, in fact.

  “You’ll wait here?” she asked, even though he’d already said he would.

  “Yes, mum,” he said, smiling back at her.

  She stepped out of the car and let her eyes travel up the front of the building. She had butterflies in her stomach as she moved forward and worked on gathering her wits about her. She hated not knowing what her plan was after she found Megan, assuming the woman in the hospital was Megan in the first place. She’d call Eric, certainly, but then what? Would she go to Mathews? Would she return Pete’s call? A glance at the clock behind the receptionist’s desk said it was a quarter after four. She would need to call Eric before he headed for the track where he would not be meeting Joe at six.

  A pink-haired elderly woman at the front desk smiled as Sadie approached. Sadie smiled back at her. “Hello,” she said when she reached the desk, looking at the woman’s name tag that read “Volunteer.” “I’m here to visit with Liliana Montez,” she said. “She was admitted to Labor and Delivery yesterday morning.” Would she still be in Labor and Delivery, though? Having adopted her children, Sadie wasn’t sure how it all worked at a hospital.

  The woman continued smiling and blinked behind her thick glasses. “I’m sorry, we don’t give out patient room information.”

  “She’s expecting me,” Sadie lied. “And with the baby and all, she forgot to tell me the room.”

  “We don’t give out patient room information,” the woman repeated, still smiling.

  “But I just need to—”

  “We don’t give out patient room information.”

  Sadie tried for another two minutes to get the
information she wanted, but the woman wouldn’t budge no matter how many ways Sadie tried to ask her. Where was a plate of Butterfinger cookies when she needed it? No one could resist them; Sadie felt sure that if she had some to offer, this woman would be putty in hands, privacy laws or no privacy laws.

  When the woman’s smile began to fall and her eyes behind the glasses began to narrow, Sadie stopped mid-sentence and took a breath, forcing a smile she knew looked like stone. “Thanks anyway,” she said, determining that since she knew what unit Megan was in, she could find her easily enough. “Thank you.”

  She headed toward the elevators before realizing the receptionist was likely still watching her. She looked over her shoulder to find she was right. The old woman’s eyes burned through her thick glasses. Were Sadie an ant and this woman’s eyes the sun, she’d have been incinerated.

  She kept her smile fixed and headed . . . right, toward the cafeteria and emergency room. There had to be an elevator over there as well so it would be convenient for the nurses to grab an egg salad sandwich when the craving hit them.

  A big sign hung from the ceiling pointing to the elevators ahead. She hurried forward, almost passing the hospital pharmacy and gift shop before she came up short. After the receptionist’s less-than-warm welcome, would Sadie simply be able to walk into Megan’s room? And what was she going to say when she got there? If Megan had left of her own accord, which it seemed she had done, then she was likely pretty uncomfortable being back in Miami.

  Sadie needed a cover. She distinctly remembered Eric mentioning how Layla would brush out Megan’s hair every night before bed back when Megan was little and Layla was still well. Sadie checked her pocket, verifying that she still had her travel cash with her. Perfect.

  A few minutes later, she left the gift shop with a bottle of lotion, a hairbrush, and a plain blue scrub top that she hoped made her seem more official, even if it was absolutely shapeless. With her head held high, she continued to the elevator and became even more optimistic that she could pull this off when a directory sign listed that Labor and Delivery was on the third floor. Perfect. She’d start there since it was the unit Megan had been admitted to, and then move on to Maternity if she didn’t find her.