Key Lime Pie (28 page)

“A rather lame attempt at a disguise, I’m afraid,” Sadie explained. Steeling herself for the shock, she flipped down the window visor, sighing with relief when she saw there was no mirror. She vowed to wash her hair as soon as she could.

“So, whe’s ya fella?”

He’s not my fella,
Sadie wanted to say once she realized Monty was asking about Eric, but she knew that would be rude. “I don’t know,” she said with a heavy sigh. “He was going to meet us—the guy at the park and me—tonight at the Speedway, but now that I’ve found Megan—”

“Who be Megan?”

“Oh, my . . . fella’s daughter. We’ve been looking for her.” She’d forgotten that she hadn’t given Monty many details when she’d given him the overview back at the park.

Monty nodded. “She been lost?”

Sadie considered that. Had Megan been lost? She thought back to what Joe had said about Megan being kept and not taken. “Not really,” she said. “At least, that’s not what seems to have happened, but her father thought she was.” It was impossible to boil the story down to make any sense, mostly because there were still so many holes. Why would Megan leave in the first place? Where had she been? Sadie knew why she was in Miami right now—she needed the surgery to save her babies—but why was she alone? She said she had other boys, but they couldn’t be hers. And who was Joe, and why did he want Megan found, but didn’t want to be the one who found her?

“An’ de man from de park?” Monty said. “’E be helpin’ your fella?”

“Kind of,” Sadie said, trying to figure out the right words. “He wanted money for what he knew. My friend was having a hard time getting it together.”

“But you found de’ girl, right? You don’ need de money now.”

“Yes,” Sadie said, but there was uncertainty in her voice. “But Joe—the man in the park—probably had more information. He could have helped make sense of why things happened the way they did. Without him, I’m just not sure how things fit together. I’m not sure what to do next.”

Monty was quiet as he made a right-hand turn. Sadie wondered where they were going, but was mostly glad to be far away from the hospital. What she needed now was a new plan. No matter how much Monty insisted on driving her around, she couldn’t justify allowing him to continue helping her. Sadie didn’t know much about taxi drivers, but she knew that most cities only allowed a certain number of people to carry taxi licenses. She imagined that once a license was lost, it was lost for good. This was his career, his livelihood, and she was putting that all on the line for him, knowing it likely wouldn’t end well.

It was time to part ways; it was the best option. She opened her purse and grabbed her wallet. When she opened it, however, she frowned. She only had eighty dollars in cash. Surely she owed Monty more than that. She’d spent most of her travel cash at the hospital. She fingered through the bills to make sure that was all she had, but although she did find the buy-one-get-one-free KFC meal coupon, she didn’t find any spare hundred dollar bills.

“I’ve only got eighty in cash,” she said, embarrassed to be making excuses after all he’d done for her today. “How much do I owe you?”

He tapped the fare machine: $112.50. “Sorry. It be the com’ny car, and dey track de fares so I can’t give a discount.”

Sadie wondered how on earth people survived in big cities if they took taxies everywhere. Then again, they likely didn’t spend two hours driving all over town.

“Oh, I understand,” Sadie said. “Can you take me to an ATM?” She was tempted to ask Monty to find the nearest Globe Bank so she wouldn’t have to pay the two-dollar ATM fee, but there was no point in getting cheap now. She’d just spent twenty-four dollars on a scrub top she’d worn for eight minutes, not to mention the fact that she had left the brush and lotion behind as well.

“Sho’,” Monty said, and took another right. Sadie couldn’t be sure but she thought they were moving toward the interstate. That reminded her that she still hadn’t called Eric, and another thrill rushed through her. Complicated or not—and it most certainly would be complicated—she’d found Eric’s daughter.

She took a deep breath and picked up her phone, staring at it for a moment before dialing Eric’s number. It amazed her how much could happen in an hour.

Sadie?”

She wondered if the frantic tone in Eric’s voice was fueled by relief to hear from her or fear that her calling him was a bad sign. “Where are you? What’s happened? He let you call?”

“Eric,” she said very slow and even, making a calming motion with her hand, even though only Monty could see it. “I have something to tell you, and I need you to listen very carefully.”

“Did he hurt you? Are you okay?”

“Are you listening?” Sadie said, frustrated that he wasn’t paying attention.

“I’m listening,” he finally said, but the words were obviously difficult for him to say.

“I found Megan.”

The other end of the line went completely silent.

“You what?” Eric asked after a few seconds.

Sadie took a breath, both excited and scared to death about what this news meant to him. “She’s at the University of Miami Hospital,” she said. “In the Labor and Delivery unit.”

Silence again. “What?”

Sadie recounted everything about her meeting with Megan, stopping only to breathe when she absolutely had to. When she finished, Eric was, once again, silent.

“I can’t believe this,” Eric said. “I . . . what about that guy?”

“Um, don’t worry about him,” Sadie said as lightly as possible. “I got that all wrapped up, but I think you should get to the hospital as quickly as you can. I had a little trouble getting out of there after I talked to Megan, and I’m worried they might try moving her to a different room or something.” Immediately she realized that there was one person who might be able to stop all that from happening. “You need to call Mathews.”

Eric let out a breath. “I can’t believe this,” he said again. “I just . . . I don’t know what to do.”

“Go to the University hospital!” Sadie said loudly. “Go now! But call Mathews on your way, okay? I think you’ll need him to get into her room. Tell him everything I told you.”

“Okay, I’ll call him, and I’ll head to the hospital. Where are you? Are you okay? I can pick you up on my way.”

“I’m fine,” Sadie said. She paused before continuing, part of her waffling on her goal. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“But, that guy—”

“Go to your daughter,” Sadie interrupted. “She needs you
right
now.
”

Without giving him a chance to voice any more arguments, she clicked the end button on her phone and stared at it as she returned to her internal ponderings. She hoped that after she gave her statement to the police she would be able to see Megan and Eric together—a visual closing on all that had happened today.

Had this really all happened in a single day? She thought back and realized she hadn’t caught her flight to Miami until five o’clock last night. A quick glance at the dashboard clock told her it had been just over twenty-four hours since she’d decided to come to Florida. It seemed impossible for so much to have happened in such a short period of time.

She startled when her phone rang. She took a breath, feeling unprepared to talk to anyone right now. She didn’t know the number, but it was a Florida area code, and her phone recognized it, which she quickly worked out to mean that it had to be Mathews again. She’d liked the idea of Eric being the one to break the news to the sergeant, but realized he’d have had to call her for verification. She pushed the talk button and accepted that she couldn’t simply avoid the things she didn’t want to do.

Mostly Sadie listened to Mathews explain to her that she needed to go to the police station right that minute and make a full report; Eric had called him and apparently told him everything he knew.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Mrs. Hoffmiller? We need a full statement from you before you leave town.”

“I understand,” Sadie said, letting out a breath that seemed to hold all her hope of getting herself untangled from all of this. She wanted to ask about Joe, but not yet. Not until Monty was safely out of the picture. “I won’t leave until I’ve been told I can. I’m on my way right now. Are you at the police station?”

“Yes,” Mathews said, sounding relieved—as though he’d expected her to argue.

“Okay,” Sadie said. She looked around the freeway for a sign that would tell her how far she was from Homestead, but there weren’t any signs close by so all she could do was gauge the time. “I think I’m about forty minutes away.”

“I’ll be waiting for you,” he said before hanging up.

For all her determination to do the right thing, the idea of confessing her part in Joe’s situation made her insides shrivel. And Monty—what would she do about him? He was the one with the billy club, but the last thing she wanted to do was get him in trouble. However, lying in her statement wasn’t an option either.

“I’ll wai’ fo’ you ’ere,” he said a few seconds later as he pulled into a parking lot near an ATM.

“Thanks,” Sadie said, letting herself out of the car. She hurried inside, put her card in the machine and entered her PIN. It took less than a minute to complete the transaction. She used that minute to plan what she needed to do. She had to let Monty go, even if he was her one security right now.

When she returned to the cab, she went to the driver’s window instead of the passenger side. Monty rolled down the window. She handed him two hundred dollars in cash. “This should make up for all the trouble I’ve been,” she said.

He looked at the money he’d taken from her, then looked at her with a question in his eyes.

“If you get pulled over and I’m not in the car,” Sadie explained, “you might have a better chance of getting out from under this mess.” She thought of something else and pulled her mini-notebook out of her purse, removed the specially sized pen from the spiral binding at the top, and proceeded to write down her number. “If you do get in trouble for all this, call me, okay? If I can help you, I will.”

Monty shook his head and put his hand out the window and over her hand, stilling it in the process of writing down her contact information. “I not be leavin’ you ’ere, lady.”

“I feel horrible enough already,” Sadie said. He wasn’t looking at the whole picture. “You could lose your license for this; I can’t live with that responsibility and you’ve already done so much. It’s better that I let you get back to work.”

Monty was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “To ’ire my cab for de’ day is four hun’red dollas.” He nodded toward the ATM. “You get dat much fo’ me, and I be your cab driver, no one else. I’m a good storytella, and I not be getting in any trouble fo’ dis, I promise.” He paused. “Dis city be full a’ people you can’t trus’. I can’t be leav’n you to dat.”

Sadie was torn. He seemed to mean what he’d said, and she’d given him every chance to move on. She also had lots of reasons to believe that finding anyone else she could trust in this town would be just as hard as he’d said. From what she’d heard so far—and based on all the episodes of
CSI Miami
she’d watched over the years—it seemed as though everyone here were a criminal of one kind or another. Monty was willing to help her, and he had already proved himself reliable. Would it be foolish for her to turn her back on that?

She lifted her eyes and scanned the buildings around them, focusing on three teenage boys at the bus stop across the street. Had they seen her withdraw cash out of the ATM? She’d told Monty she was worried that if the cops pulled him over with her in the car it would be bad for him. But she had a connection with Mathews, and she would be able to verify what she’d been doing, and in the process, she might be able to lobby for fair treatment of Monty. The deciding factor was that Monty was already in trouble for helping her, and while he might get in more trouble for staying with her, he certainly wasn’t going to be in any less trouble for what he’d already done.

She looked back at his dark eyes that were watching her carefully. He seemed to genuinely want to help her. “Are you sure?” she asked, giving him one more chance.

Monty broke into a grin. “I’m sho’.”

Sadie couldn’t help but smile at the relief she felt. She wouldn’t be alone. That was powerful. “Okay. Let me get the rest of the money.”

Monty nodded and sat back in his seat, satisfied with their arrangement. It only took another minute to enter her PIN, but she’d hit her daily ATM limit and hoped she wouldn’t need to make any other withdrawals. She sat in the front seat again and handed him the rest of the money. He folded the bills over and put them in the back pocket of his worn-out jeans.

“Can you take me to Homestead?” Sadie asked.

“What be in ’omestead?”

“Something I wish I didn’t have to do,” Sadie said with a sigh.

“Sho’, I can take you to Homestead.”

They were ten minutes into the drive when a chime from Sadie’s phone informed her that she had a text message. It was from Gayle, which was a surprise; Gayle hated texting.

You haven’t called me back. Are you okay?