Key Lime Pie (13 page)

“Oh,” Larry said, obviously still confused. “Well, have a safe trip. It was nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Sadie replied. He stood there for another moment, then glanced at Layla and although he seemed to consider saying something, he didn’t. Instead he nodded at Sadie one last time, and then headed for the door.

Sadie watched him leave and tried to talk herself out of the burning curiosity in her gut. What was Larry’s story? And why was Layla, who didn’t seem to have many feelings at all, so angry with him?

As the minutes stretched on, Sadie started tapping her foot and tried to keep from clenching her jaw; she hated waiting. She thought of the phone call she’d promised Gayle. She must be on pins and needles waiting to hear from Sadie—that is, assuming she and Pete weren’t playing tennis together.

She shook the image from her mind. What was done was done and she needed to come to terms with that. Sadie pulled her phone from her purse. To her surprise, she’d missed a text message. To her even greater surprise it was from Eric. She furrowed her brow. How had he managed to send her a text while he was arguing with Mathews? Then she realized it had been sent over an hour ago: 11:06 to be exact. Sadie had looked at the dashboard clock during her deliberately detoured drive back to the police station at 11:32, which meant this text had been sent before Eric showed up at Layla’s house.

Her heart rate increased immediately. She took a breath as she opened the message, glancing quickly at Layla to be sure she wasn’t reading it over her shoulder. Layla was engrossed in her magazine and paid no attention to Sadie.

I promise 2 explain everthng as soon as I can. Plz don’t tell Mathews anthng else. I swore not 2 involve cops—Meg’s life might depend on it. Once I explain I think u will understand y.

Sadie blinked.
Megan’s life might depend on it?

Just then muffled voices seemed to explode into the station, causing Sadie to jump as she quickly returned her phone to her purse. Eric backed out of the room, glaring at Mathews who was only a few feet away, coming toward him. “You’ll regret this, Mr. Burton,” Mathews said, and Sadie noticed a sheen of sweat on his bald head. “If I have to arrest you to keep you from making a bigger mess of this—”

“If you could arrest me, you would have already.” Eric turned his head as though looking for someone and immediately focused on Sadie. She saw the tiniest bit of relief soften his expression and liked that her presence could give him a little comfort. Eric turned back to Sergeant Mathews. “When I have something to tell you, I will.”

He immediately headed for Sadie, who stood up quickly. “Come on,” he said, grabbing her arm.

Sadie couldn’t even come up with a protest before she was stumbling to fall in step with him. She glanced over her shoulder to see that Layla had stood up as well and was following behind them. She’d left the orange soda on the chair next to her, but still had the magazine in her hand. She was watching them but didn’t seem upset despite the intensity of the moment.

“Mrs. Hoffmiller.”

Sadie craned her head around at the sound of Sergeant Mathews’s voice. Eric didn’t stop, which annoyed her even further. Pulling her arm quickly so as to catch him off guard, she managed to escape from his grip. When Eric looked at her in surprise, she gave him a pointed look and turned back to Mathews, who continued speaking once he knew he had Sadie’s attention.

“You said he didn’t tell you what was going on and there was good reason for that. He’s gotten himself in trouble, and if you go with him you’ll be putting yourself right beside him. I would strongly suggest you reconsider.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Sadie said evenly. “But I’m not going anywhere
with
him. I’m going to my car, which will then take me to the Miami airport.” If she were being totally honest she would admit, at least to herself, that Eric’s text message had eased her of some of her confusion, reminding her just how high the stakes were. “But thank you for your concern.”

She could tell Mathews didn’t believe her; she sensed Eric didn’t either. Did she believe herself?

Layla walked past her and when Mathews didn’t say anything else, Sadie turned toward the front door, aware that every cop in the room was watching her. Eric reached for her arm again, but she stepped out of his reach and gave him a look that made her point. He hung back a step and followed Layla out of the building. Sadie didn’t look back again, nor did she stop to put on her sunglasses when the Florida sunshine attempted to blind her. Instead she fumbled through her purse as she walked, nearly tripping over a crack in the pavement due to her inattentiveness and the distraction of such thick, heavy air. How did people get used to this humidity? Enough sweat had mixed with the moisture that she felt sticky all over.

Layla headed for Sadie’s car and, after a moment, Sadie remembered that Eric had come to the police station in a police car and therefore had no way home either. Perfect.

“I’ll give you a ride to Layla’s,” she said to Eric, who was a few steps behind her. “You have four blocks to attempt an explanation.”

Eric nodded, looking penitent, and slid into the backseat of the rental car, allowing Layla to get in the front. Sadie buckled her seat belt and put the key in the ignition. “Four blocks,” she repeated as she shifted into drive. She caught sight of Sergeant Mathews standing just inside the glass door of the police station, watching them. She grimaced, certain he thought she’d lied to him about not going with Eric.

Checking her blind spot, she pulled away from the curb as Eric moved to the middle of the backseat. He leaned forward between the front seats. She didn’t look at him, but was only too aware of how close he was.

He took a deep breath and then let it out, seeming to signify the heaviness of what he had to say before he actually said it. “I think Megan’s alive.”

Sadie wasn’t that surprised to hear him say it, even though she thought she probably should be. Megan had been missing for three years. She’d never contacted him, but would he be up to his eyeballs in trouble like this if not for the fact that he thought it would take him to his daughter? What other reason would make sense of his actions? Not that she was saying his actions made sense.

“So where is she?” Sadie asked, keeping her voice even for fear that showing any emotion would somehow give up some of her control of the situation. Layla didn’t react at all; she simply looked out the windows, watching the businesses and homes pass by. Eric’s eyes were framed within the rearview mirror and he didn’t even glance at Layla, watching Sadie intently instead. She was uncomfortable with him staring at her and tried to avoid looking in the mirror.

“I don’t know that part,” Eric said. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Why not tell the police?” Sadie asked calmly, though she was itching to hear the details.

Eric shook his head but kept watching Sadie in the mirror. His eyes boring into her made her increasingly uncomfortable. “The information I have is from someone who wants nothing to do with the police.”

“Maybe you should take that into consideration. If whoever gave you this information is some kind of criminal, then they can’t be trusted.”

Eric looked away as Sadie made the final turn onto 4th Avenue. She couldn’t help but frown a little. Her home on Peregrine Circle was the best-kept of any of her neighbors, while the homes in Layla’s neighborhood sported untended flower gardens and more than a few yards had cars put up on blocks. The flat-roofed brick home across the street from Layla’s even had a floral-patterned couch on the front porch, complete with a portly man watching them while he sipped his soda.

Sadie pulled to a stop in front of Layla’s house, but didn’t even shift the car into park. The police had removed the fire can and all its contents, as well as taken numerous photos—basically they’d done all they could do. Other than cordoning off the patio, they’d deemed the house cleared and no longer a crime scene. Sadie suspected their efforts at clearing it quickly had to do with Layla and why everyone seemed to treat her with a little more care than seemed necessary.

“Tia made chicken for sandwiches and a pasta salad for lunch,” Layla said, opening the door of the car and swinging her legs out. Her sandals crunched on the gravely road while Sadie wondered, again, who Tia was.

“In a minute,” Eric said, almost dismissively.

“It’s past lunchtime,” Layla said, surprising Sadie with the frustration in her tone—it was one of the few times there’d been any texture to what she said. “Tia made enough for everyone.”

“Okay, Layla,” Eric said in a somewhat patronizing voice as though he was talking to a little girl and not his ex-wife. Nothing like how Larry had treated Layla. “I want to talk to Sadie for a few minutes, and then we’ll come in.”

We’ll come in?
Sadie didn’t like his assumption that she was staying. Layla didn’t look pleased either, and Sadie wondered if, in her own way, she was jealous. After another moment Layla shut the car door and went inside the house, pausing to pick up the cat sitting by the porch. She didn’t seem to give the splintered wood of the door frame a second look.

Eric immediately leaned forward between the seats until Sadie didn’t have any choice but to look into his face.

“I’m really sorry things happened this way,” Eric said. “I shouldn’t have presumed so much, and I swear I didn’t mean to offend you.”

But he
did
presume and she
was
offended, although she didn’t like that word very much. Offense was rarely intentional, and often something the offended party came up with. And seeing as how she was the offended party, her own definition implied that she was
choosing
to be offended. And wasn’t it Sadie who’d looked through a box that she didn’t have permission to look through?

“I don’t know what to think about all this,” Sadie said. “I feel like I’ve been . . . taken advantage of somehow.” She remembered how he had laughed on the phone, acting as though this was funny, like she was the butt of some joke.

“What, exactly, are you mad about?” Eric asked.

“You put my name down on the permission form,” Sadie reminded him. “To me that says you
knew
I’d come out here, which makes it all feel very manipulated.”

“I put your name down because other than Larry you’re the only person I could think of that I’d trust the police to talk to. I admit I was hoping you would reconsider my invitation, but the last thing I expected was a call from you saying you were
here.
”

Hmmm. That was an obnoxiously plausible explanation. She circled back to her early question of herself—was she more upset that he’d assumed she would come, or that she had come in the first place?

Busybody.

So much for Gayle’s romantic notions; that part hadn’t come to fruition at all and if anything she felt cautious with Eric rather than connected as she’d hoped.

When she didn’t say anything, Eric continued, “Look, I knew there was a chance you would look in the box if I asked you to ship it. And I knew if you did that you might . . . want to be involved. I meant it when I said I wanted you to come with me.” He smiled a soft, vulnerable smile that made Sadie feel a little soft and vulnerable too. “Have you thought about
why
I put your name on that paper? Why I invited you to come in the first place?”

In fact Sadie had not thought about that at all but didn’t want to admit it so she just looked at him expectantly.

“You have a gift, Sadie,” he said.

Sadie pulled her eyebrows together.
A gift?

“You have a heart with room in it for other people’s problems, you sincerely want to help, and you will do almost
anything
it takes to do the right thing. I understand why you wouldn’t come with me when I asked you back in Garrison, and I respect that.”

Sadie felt her cheeks heat up at the reminder of the almost-kiss two days ago, and she glanced away, but only for a moment before Eric took her chin in his rough hand and turned her to look at him. She felt herself slipping—he was such a smooth talker. Too smooth for her peace of mind sometimes.

“I also knew you truly wanted to help me, that you had sincere sympathy for what I was going through. It meant a lot to me to have that kind of support. It still does—more than ever.”

Sadie liked the way he was summing this up, smooth talk or not. It was much better than being called a nosy busybody, but she still felt conflicted and didn’t know what conclusion to draw from all of this.

Eric let go of her chin and pulled back a bit, looking out the car window at Layla’s house. “Coming back to this world isn’t easy for me. I moved to Garrison in hopes of starting a new life. I left my past here in the swamps of Florida.” He smiled at his own description, but it quickly faded. “My past is now my present, and the next few days will be very difficult, regardless of what I learn about Megan. I could really use someone on my side, someone as genuine and compassionate as you. A little more of that Bonnie and Clyde thing we had going for us in the past.”