Key Lime Pie (24 page)

“You’re all right,” Gayle said with relief. “I got nervous when you didn’t call. Is everything okay?”

At the top of the papers was a seal that read University of Miami Hospital. Why did Joe have hospital admission forms?

“Everything’s fine,” Sadie said, distracted. The patient’s name on the form was Liliana Miriam Montez. She was twenty-nine years old.

“So, what’s happening?” Gayle asked. “How’s Eric?”

Eric’s name broke her out of her distraction as regret washed over her again. He was either worried sick or incredibly angry right now. Maybe both. While she was tempted to share her burden with Gayle, it seemed impossible to explain. Things were completely different than she’d imagined they would be since the last time she’d spoken with Gayle.

“Well, it’s complicated,” Sadie finally said.

“Really?” Gayle’s tone was brimming with intrigue.

“I’ll have to tell you about it later,” Sadie said, forcing her thoughts away from Eric and back to the name on the hospital forms—Liliana Miriam Montez. Was this woman Joe’s wife? He hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring. Could Liliana be his sister?

“I called Pete.”

Suddenly Gayle had Sadie’s full attention again. “Oh?” she said as evenly as she could manage. “How did that go?”

“Okay, I guess,” Gayle said. “I think he might need more time than you thought, though. He mostly asked me about you. He said he’d stopped by your house this morning, but you weren’t home.”

“He stopped by?” Sadie repeated, a hopeful flutter tickling her heart. She’d been so sure when she left Garrison that Eric was the direction her heart was leading her. Now she wasn’t so sure. Was Pete unsure too? “Did he say why he was looking for me?”

“No,” Gayle said, sounding a little disappointed. “I mean, we talked about going to the Renaissance dinner—he’s going to call me back when he checks his schedule—but he seemed more concerned about where you were.”

The word “concern” sparked a whole slew of them in Sadie’s mind. “You didn’t tell him I’d come here, did you?” Sadie asked in a panic. Would Gayle throw Sadie under the bus in hopes of bettering her chances with Pete?

“Of course not,” Gayle said, allowing Sadie to exhale. “But the conversation as a whole just didn’t bode well for eternal bliss between him and me, ya know?”

“I’m sure that’s not it,” she said, though the feelings competing inside her chest were confusing. “He can be difficult to read sometimes.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s it,” Gayle said. “So, what are you doing right now? Was Eric glad to see you?”

“Um, yes,” Sadie said, answering the last question instead of the first one. “But I need to go—can I call you later?”

“I guess,” Gayle said. “Oh, and I finished cleaning the trailer.”

“Oh, right.” She’d forgotten all about the trailer. “Thank you. I’m sorry, Gayle, but I really do need to go.”

“Okay,” Gayle said. “But don’t leave me hangin’. Call me as soon as you can.”

“I will,” Sadie said and hung up the phone. Pete had stopped by? She shook her head. No time to think about that, never mind that if Pete knew where she was and why she’d come, he wouldn’t be stopping by ever again.

Sadie went back to the paperwork, scanning all the details she could find. She froze when she read that Liliana had been admitted to Labor and Delivery yesterday. Liliana was pregnant? Why would Joe be running around town if a woman important to him had just had a baby? He said he needed the money to leave. What about this woman? What about the baby?

Gayle and Pete were suddenly of very little consequence. She read through the form again, aware that Monty was waiting for her and that she was taking a lot longer than she should be. At the bottom of the second page was Liliana’s signature. Sadie barely glanced at it at first, nearly convinced she was being silly to think these papers were important, but then something stood out and she gave it a second look. Well, a
first
look, since she hadn’t
really
looked at it before. It was just a signature, in swirling letters. What had drawn her eye?

Wait.

Her eyes went to the M at the front of the middle and last name. Something was familiar, and instantly Sadie had a flashback of the gas station receipt she’d glanced at when she’d been pawing through the box at Eric’s house. Megan had signed the receipt with a typical signature except for the swirly M at the front of her name. Sadie had never seen anyone get that creative with the letter M, which is why she’d noted it in the first place. The M in
Miriam
and
Montez
were exactly like the M on Megan’s gas receipt.

A rush of adrenaline ran through her veins as Joe’s words filtered back to her. “She’s safe,” he’d said. “For now.”

Megan was Liliana Montez—and
she
was having—or had already had—a baby.

Sadie paused for only a moment, and then began scouring the car. This was Joe’s car, so it had to have important information in it. Information the police would need. She opened her purse and threw the GPS device into it; she could look up those coordinates Joe had given Eric and the police. There were a few receipts in the middle console and she stuffed those in her purse as well. A briefcase or planner would have been nice, but she didn’t find anything like that. Even the trunk was empty except for the basic roadside necessities. She slammed it closed and jumped at the sound it made—louder than she’d expected it to be.

“Deep breaths,” she told herself. Her nerves were getting the better of her so she consciously slowed down her movements and stopped trying to rush.

She moved to the front seat for a final look, but she had already taken everything of interest. Finally, after having spent way too much time on this—Monty had to be freaking out by now—she reached to close the driver’s side door when she saw a piece of paper wedged between the middle console and the driver’s seat. She leaned back into the car, pulled out the paper, then shut all the doors. She scanned the paper on her way back to Monty. She was only halfway there when she froze in her tracks. The paper was an itinerary—a flight plan for a reservation made online.

“Paris?” Sadie said. The flight left from Miami tomorrow morning, stopped over in New York, and then continued on to Paris. The itinerary was for one person by the name of Hugo Montez.

Montez? Like Liliana Montez?

Was Joe’s real name Hugo? And was Hugo Megan’s husband?

“You’re back.”

Sadie looked up, having forgotten all about Monty for a minute. She started walking toward him again. She folded the paper and shoved it into the side pocket of her purse; she’d already zipped up the fuller-than-ever interior. “I’m sorry that took so long,” she said, shaking her head. “I got . . . distracted.”

There was no time for any more distractions now, though. During the search of the car, Sadie had made some decisions, and she needed to follow through with them.

“I need his phone,” Sadie said when she reached Monty. She put her heavy purse on the picnic table and moved toward Joe, who didn’t seem to have moved at all other than his head being a bit more to the side. It couldn’t be good that he’d been unconscious this long. She thought back to Eric’s explanation of Layla’s injury, how he’d said it hadn’t been a serious accident, but it had been enough. Monty stepped in front of her and shook his head before kneeling down in her place. Such a gentleman.

“’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.