Tres Leches Cupcakes (23 page)

In the garage, Sadie shifted into park but let the car idle. “Caro,” she said, quietly, “I’m sorry that I can’t talk to you about all this stuff anymore. It’s—”

Caro looked at her with red eyes. “Why can’t you? I’m not going to tell anyone else. I thought we were a team.”

“We were when I was working on the reports, but now with the police involved and everything, it’s complicated.”

“But to not tell me
anything?
Nothing at all? Why don’t you trust me anymore?”

Sadie didn’t know what to say. Her goal of not hurting Caro wasn’t working, but she didn’t know how to fix it either. The truth would hurt her just as much. “Of course I trust you, Caro. It’s just gotten complicated and legal and stuff, and I just can’t talk about it,” Sadie said, trying to choose her words carefully. “I’ve been . . . told not to involve you.”

“You have?” Her voice shook, and she wiped her eyes. “What did I do wrong? I know I said too much about my relationship with Rex last night; I could tell you were uncomfortable with it. Is that why you won’t talk to me?”

Sadie touched Caro’s arm. “It has nothing to do with that,” she said, though she feared the discord between Rex and Caro was a big part of Rex asking Sadie to leave. “I wish I could explain.” Caro was assuming it was Pete or the police who had instructed her to stay silent. If it was one of them, Sadie could at least promise to fill her in later, but she couldn’t even do that. What would Caro say if she knew it was Rex?

Because it
was
Rex, the temptation to just tell Caro was strong; it would let Sadie off the hook, and perhaps save their friendship from being damaged, perhaps beyond repair. But the potential fallout of Caro’s marriage was too high a price. “I’m so sorry,” Sadie repeated quietly.

Caro looked away, staring at the door that led into the house but making no move to go inside.

Sadie turned off the car and pushed the button that closed the garage door behind them. “I’m going to Albuquerque tomorrow. There are some things I need to do down there,” Sadie said, hating to drop the bombshell when Caro was already upset, but thinking maybe it was better than upsetting her all over again tomorrow. “I’ll still be able to help Lois with her booth at the Fiesta, but I think it’s best for me to leave.”

Caro nodded, still looking away.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done to help me, Caro. Staying in your home is the most comfortable I’ve felt in a really long time. You’re one of the kindest women I know, and I’ll always treasure your friendship.”

“You know, I could find out what’s going on myself,” Caro said, almost too quietly to be heard, though what she said was more shocking than the tone of her voice.

“Excuse me?” Sadie said, stalling as she processed her surprise at what sounded like a threat.

Caro finally turned toward her and lifted her chin, though it was still trembling. “You’re not the only one with skills, you know. I can help you with this. I know I can.”

“It’s not about that, Caro. And I’m not investigating. The police are. I’m out of it, and you need to stay out of it, too.”

Caro turned away and let herself out of the car without another word.

Sadie watched her go through the door to the house and hung her head.
Please let it be the champagne that fueled her threats of digging into this.
Maybe she should just go to Albuquerque tonight, rip off the Band-Aid all at once. But she had two months’ worth of living to pack up, so she may as well get to it. Luckily, Caro worked tomorrow, so Sadie would be able to avoid another difficult exchange.

She got out of the car and entered the house. Rex’s big black truck had been in the garage, but Sadie couldn’t hear the TV. The house was uncomfortably quiet, and Sadie imagined that Caro had already gone to her room, where she was probably crying.

Sadie was a few steps into the kitchen when her phone signaled a text message. She continued toward her apartment while pulling her phone out of her purse, but stumbled when the name of the sender registered as Margo.

I’m fine. Back off. Don’t talk to anyone.

Sadie stared at the text, catching her breath before hitting reply. She’d already typed out part of a response asking if Margo was okay before pausing mid-word. Was it really Margo on the other end of this conversation?

A door shutting somewhere deeper in the house reminded her she was still in the kitchen. She hurried to her apartment and shut the door so she could concentrate and try to put the stress associated with Rex and Caro aside for a moment. She threw her purse on the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

Sadie:
Where are you?

Margo:
With a friend.

Sadie:
Where?

Margo:
None of your business. Back off.

Sadie snorted. Not likely. How could she determine if this were Margo or not?

Sadie:
I got your message on Monday. What did you want to talk to me about?

Margo:
Nothing. Never mind. Just give me my space.

Sadie:
I came over like you asked me to. You weren’t home.

Margo hadn’t asked Sadie to come over—the
real
Margo would know that.

Margo:
Something came up. I’m fine.

This wasn’t Margo, which meant Sadie needed to stay focused while drawing out as much information from the person as possible. She couldn’t think about
why
it wasn’t Margo.

Sadie:
What happened Monday night?

Her shoulders tensed over the next several seconds as she waited for a reply. She braced herself for the response.

Margo:
Back off!!!!!!

Sadie:
I’m trying to help.

Margo:
Youv been warned.

A rush of heat washed over her. Warned?

Sadie:
Who is this?

She waited nearly thirty seconds, enough time to receive a response, then sent another text message.

Sadie:
The police are onto you. They found Margo’s Land Cruiser.

Margo:
You have no idea what you’re dealing with.

Sadie:
Unless I do, and then it’s the other way around. Where’s Margo?

Margo:
Keep this up and she’s dead.

A jolt shot down Sadie’s spine. The possibility of having something to do with Margo being hurt or killed was staggering. Sadie dropped her phone on the bed and pulled her knees to her chest. She stared at the phone, wondering what she’d just done. After nearly a full minute had passed, Sadie reached for her phone again and took a completely different approach.

Sadie:
What do I need to do to keep her alive?

She waited for a response, and waited and waited and waited. After a full three minutes, Sadie put her hands over her mouth and tried not to panic, but her heart was beating double-time. She had to go through her calming exercises in order to get control of herself before she called Pete.

“Detective Cunningham,” he said, but Sadie heard the sleepy tone of his voice. A quick glance at the alarm clock made her realize it was after ten o’clock. He was likely still trying to catch up from the drive to Santa Fe and back yesterday.

“I’m sorry to wake you, Pete,” Sadie said, wondering if she shouldn’t have called at all.

“It’s okay. What’s wrong?”

Sadie relayed the information to him about the text conversation. “What do I do?”

“Call Marcus.”

“This late?”

“Yes,” Pete said, sounding resolute. “A threat has been made. He needs to know.”

“Okay,” Sadie said, her stomach in knots. Marcus had not seemed happy with her earlier. “Have you talked to him since this afternoon?”

“Just for a minute,” Pete said. “He understands why we didn’t tell him everything about the BLM right off the bat, and Agent Shannon filled him in as well. It’s okay.”

“Really?”

“Really. Call him right now, okay?”

“Okay.”

She hung up, took a breath, and called Marcus. He sounded just like Pete had, meaning Sadie had woken up two police detectives in the last ten minutes. Awesome. She quickly told him about the text conversation she’d had with Margo’s phone. When she finished, he was silent, Sadie’s anxiety building with every moment.

“Come into the station tomorrow morning at eight.”

“Tomorrow? Um, Pete said that since a threat had been made it was urgent.”

“Pete isn’t the detective assigned to this case,” Marcus said in a controlled voice. “And there’s nothing we can do about it tonight.”

“Can’t you track where the texts came from? Isn’t it important to act quickly?”

Marcus was quiet for a few seconds, and it wasn’t hard for Sadie to imagine him cursing her in his mind. “Tomorrow morning at eight,” he said before hanging up.

Sadie closed her eyes, embarrassment and frustration arm wrestling each other for priority. She stared at her phone. Should she call Pete back and tell him what Marcus said? What would Pete do if she did? Would he call Marcus and try to convince him to deal with this right now? Sadie moaned at the very idea. That would be almost as bad as Pete trying to convince Rex to let her stay. Sadie dropped her head into her hands and closed her eyes, aching for some direction on this.

What should she do?

What
could
she do?

No inspiration came, and though she tried to have faith in Marcus’s directive that it could wait until tomorrow, she knew she wasn’t going to sleep with this burden weighing so heavy on her shoulders. Eventually she found herself at her computer. She pulled up Shel’s BLM report and searched through information she felt she’d already memorized. What had she missed? His recent hire at D&E was still suspect, but that in and of itself didn’t tell her much. That he was at Ethan’s showing tonight was forefront in her mind, however. What was their connection?

Her eyes scanned the page until they rested on Shel’s unfinished college experience: University of New Mexico. She pulled Ethan Standage’s brochure from her purse; he’d attended UNM from 2000 through 2006. It took nearly twenty minutes for her to confirm that Shel had declared his major as anthropology while attending UNM—the same major as Ethan Standage—and that the years he’d attended the university overlapped Ethan’s. It took twenty more minutes to find a single picture online that featured a young Ethan and a long-haired Shel taping beer bottles together at a frat party.

This was the connection she’d been looking for. And yet Benny, not Ethan, had bailed Shel out of jail. Maybe Ethan had sent Benny in his place. Hadn’t Ethan said he’d just gotten back to Santa Fe this morning? Someone had given Shel a tip that led him to dig even after the first body was found, but Shel claimed to have never met Benny before he’d posted bail. Had Ethan given Shel that tip, or had it been someone else entirely?

And then, within an hour of Sadie talking to Shel about trying to find Margo, someone had tried to pose as Margo with those text messages. Perhaps hoping Sadie would fall for it and back off? Who had Shel talked to after leaving the gallery? He’d said Langley’s name before he left. Had he found him? Was Langley the person behind the text messages?

After affording herself a few minutes to write up her theory that Ethan, Shel, Benny, and Langley were all somehow connected, she reread her words and noted one more missing piece from this complicated relationship pedigree she was creating—Margo.

She closed the window she’d used to research Shel and opened up a fresh browser. She’d never worked up a report on Margo for the BLM—she’d been one of the last nine people on Sadie’s list. If nothing else, maybe Sadie could spare the police trying to fill in the blanks themselves.

Chapter 23

Her daughter was abducted and murdered,” Sadie said the next morning as she handed Marcus the stack of papers she’d printed off as part of Margo’s background check. “The killer was caught, but he never gave up the location of her daughter’s body. He was killed in prison before he told anyone.”

Sadie didn’t know whether or not to be impressed with her stoic tone. She certainly hadn’t been so calm when she discovered the information that put Margo’s emotional behavior on the dig site into so much clarity. That was why Margo took archeology so seriously. She was finding her daughter over and over again, perhaps even trying to build the Karma that would eventually demand the same respect be given to her daughter’s remains as she gave to the countless people she dug from the ground. Sadie’s eyes were still puffy from the tears she’d shed over Margo’s loss.