Key Lime Pie (10 page)

Sadie blinked and read her name again, then scanned a little farther down the page where the printed name below the swirling signature read Eric Burton. For a few seconds she tried to come up with all the reasons he would have done this—but only one was certain.

Eric expected her to come to Florida. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but now she realized why Sergeant Mathews had let her come in with Layla, why he’d told her all the details. And she’d thought they just did things differently here?

Mathews cleared his throat and Sadie looked up. How could Eric have known she would come to Florida when she herself hadn’t known until a few hours before her flight left?

“He signed this yesterday?” Sadie asked, having noticed the date when she’d scanned the page.

“We met yesterday morning and, among other things, we discussed who would have privileged access to the case. As you can see, Mrs. McCallister is . . .
limited,
but she is still Megan’s mother. Therefore it’s helpful for us to have other people authorized to receive information in case, like today, for example, Mr. Burton is unavailable.”

After looking at the form again, Sadie felt her embarrassment rise as the word
busybody
marched through her head. Did everyone see it but her? Did Eric somehow know she’d come?

Should she be somehow flattered that he knew her this way? She wasn’t. She felt foolish, but didn’t know if that was warranted either.

“Perhaps you should give him a call,” Mathews suggested.

Talk to him?
Sadie thought to herself. What would she say?

Mathews continued. “You must have been quite worried to come all the way down here, and after hearing these details I must admit I’m rather concerned as well. With the attention Mr. Burton has given to his daughter’s disappearance, I can’t understand why he wouldn’t be here by now.” He jabbed his finger at the top of the desk. “Perhaps learning you’re in town will get his attention and help us both understand what it is he’s involved in.”

It was difficult to argue with his logic, so despite her own reluctance to talk to Eric until she’d sorted out her thoughts, she nodded, pulled out her cell phone, and dialed his number. Hopefully he wouldn’t answer the phone so she could have more time to think of what to say.

Her hopes were dashed when, after the second ring, her call was answered.

“Sadie?” he said, a smile in his voice that annoyed rather than softened her mood.

She didn’t know what to say. Finally, she settled on formal. “Hi, Eric,” she said before pausing to take a breath. “I’m here.”

He was quiet. “Here? In Florida?”

“Yes,” Sadie said, testing the waters, trying to feel her way through the confusing thoughts in her mind. “Didn’t you know I was coming?”

“Well, I hoped you were,” Eric said easily.

“What do you mean, you hoped I was?”

“Well, you know, I thought maybe you’d want to come at some point.”

Sadie paused and reviewed quickly the events that had brought her here: Eric’s phone call, his asking her for favors but not telling her why. An uncomfortable thought came to mind. “Did you . . . set me up?”

He laughed.

Laughed! Sadie felt herself stiffening even more and thought back to the mantra she had beat into her kids’ heads when they’d reached dating age, “Dating is a time to get to know another person, find out if you are compatible.” She and Eric weren’t dating, but one of the reasons she was here was certainly related to finding out more about him and more about how the two of them worked together. So far, things were not going well in that department.

“I wouldn’t say I set you up,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “But I’m sure glad you came.”

Sadie blinked, making sure she was listening carefully to what he’d said. “You told me enough to get me interested and knew I wouldn’t be able to resist, didn’t you? You knew I’d fall for it.”

He seemed to clue into the fact that she wasn’t nearly as entertained by this as he was. “I just—”

“You knew I’d look in the box,” Sadie said, aware of Sergeant Mathews watching her. She ducked her head in even more embarrassment.

“I didn’t
know
you would look in the box,” Eric said quickly. “And I never imagined you’d come all the way out here without telling me you wanted to help. I just thought, maybe, if you
did
look, you’d want to be here. That’s all.”

Sergeant Mathews cleared his throat, drawing Sadie’s attention. Recognizing him as the savior she needed to rescue her from this uncomfortable moment, she handed the phone across the desk. Besides, he was the one who’d wanted her to call. Mathews didn’t hesitate in taking the phone and putting it to his ear.

“Mr. Burton,” he said into the phone. “We’ve received information from the medical examiner and . . .”

Sadie tuned out his voice, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath so she could better analyze the situation. What was she angry about? The fact that Eric had set her up, or the fact that she’d fallen for it? Perhaps both.

I shouldn’t have come,
Sadie said to herself, folding her arms across her chest.
Busybody.

She thought of all the things she’d done to make this trip work—the money, the time, the exhausting flight, not to mention giving Gayle permission to take Pete to the Renaissance dinner—and she felt utterly ridiculous. What had she been thinking?

“Mrs. Hoffmiller?”

Sadie looked back at the sergeant, pushing away the insecurity that crowded her mind. That was what bothered her so much—that Eric seemed . . . sneaky, purposely leaving out information to lure her in. It was her own fault it had worked, that the curiosity center in her brain was so hypersensitive, but it still felt like he’d used it against her and that made her pull back and reconsider what had brought her here. Maybe it had been a mistake to have trusted in those tingly feelings Eric inspired in her.

“Mrs. Hoffmiller?” Sergeant Mathews said again, wiggling the phone in his hand to get her attention. “Mr. Burton would like to speak with you again.”

She took the phone and put it to her ear. “Yes?” she said as formally, as carefully, and as un-foolishly as she could.

“Call me as soon as you’re alone,” he said quietly into the phone. “I need to talk to you, but I don’t want Mathews to overhear.”

“Why wouldn’t you want Mathews to overhear?” she asked out loud, feeling defensive and not liking Eric’s assumption that she would play along with his games. Mathews raised his eyebrows. “I’ve told him everything I know and I have no reason to keep anything from the police.”

Eric groaned slightly on the other end of the line. “Sadie,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper now. “Things are complicated and—”

“Why are things complicated?”

“Sadie, please,” Eric said, his voice both pleading and annoyed. “I’m sorry, okay? Can we at least talk about this before you overreact? I . . . are you still in his office?”

“Yes, I’m still in Sergeant Mathews’s office,” Sadie said innocently. “Is that a problem?”

Eric didn’t say anything which told Sadie she’d sufficiently made her point. “Good-bye, Eric,” she said quickly, then pulled the phone from her ear and clicked the end button. She could feel emotion rising in her throat and did her best to swallow it. Now was
not
the time for a self-pity cry.

When she looked up, Sergeant Mathews was watching her with enough surprise in his expression to remind her that, yes, he was human, after all, and sympathetic to her discomfort.

She smiled in what she hoped was a polite and confident way even though she didn’t expect him to see her as anything more than a chump.

“You didn’t tell me you looked in the box,” Mathews said.

“I didn’t?” Sadie said, thrown off-track as she searched her memory. She didn’t remember
not
telling him, but didn’t remember telling him either. “Probably because it wasn’t anything important. Just some clothes, school papers, and a couple photographs.”

“But you brought it to him,” he reminded her. “It must have something important for him to want it and for you not to trust it to a shipping company.”

“I thought he was in trouble,” Sadie said quietly, feeling vulnerable. “And I can’t seem to get through my thick skull when it’s better to just leave well enough alone.” She stood up quickly, not wanting to let her mouth run away. She was off-kilter and needed to be careful about saying too much. She thought about the other reason she’d come to Florida: because she had feelings for Eric.

Stupid girl,
she admonished herself even as she admitted that it was flattering that he wanted her here. She just wasn’t sure if that cancelled out everything else, and she couldn’t help thinking, with a fair amount of regret, that Pete would not have used her this way—even if he’d known he could. She hoped Gayle would admire that about him.

The rising heat of tears coming to her eyes would not help anything. “I’m sorry,” she said, turning toward the door. “I wish you the best of luck in this.”

“Wait,” Mathews said. She knew he’d stood up before she turned back to face him, but was reminded of what an imposing man he was when she had to look up to meet his eyes. He held out a notebook to her. “Will you please write down your full name, address, and phone number for the file?”

“Okay,” Sadie said, taking the notebook and the pen he handed to her, eager to complete the task and be on her way.

“If I have any questions, I assume it’s okay to call?” he asked as she handed the notebook back to him.

“Sure,” Sadie said, but her mind was already on its way back to Miami—leaving seemed to be her only solution. Thank goodness no one but Gayle knew what she’d done. Sadie was reminded of the old fable about the dog that drops its own steak in hopes of getting the bigger one that was reflected back to him in the water. Sadie had given up all claim on Pete, a good man who may have made her happy, in order to go after the man who made her blood run a little hotter. Pete had stepped aside to let Sadie figure things out, and now Sadie felt as though she were standing alone, looking at both Eric and Pete off in the distance.

“And here’s my card,” Mathews said, holding the small rectangle out to her. “Call me for any reason.”

She took the card and slipped it into the side pocket of her purse. She half-expected Sergeant Mathews to stop her again as she headed out of his office, but he didn’t. She fished her keys out of her purse and strode deliberately to the front door, planning out the next few hours of her life. She still had the airline’s number on her phone. She’d call them on her way back to the interstate and hopefully be just as lucky in getting a flight home as she’d been in getting the flight that brought her to this madness. Beyond that she could only hope that by the time she got back home, she would have worked through her feelings about all of this. She wondered if Gayle would laugh when Sadie told her what had happened. Sadie almost hoped she would. If Gayle found it funny, maybe Sadie would one day feel the same. At least Eric had the box now. She’d accomplished one of her objectives and that made her feel better.

The thick air hit her yet again when she pushed through the outer door, and she squinted into the sunlight before digging her sunglasses out of her purse, glad she’d come prepared. She pushed the glasses onto her face before heading toward her car, but then paused when she saw Layla stand up from the wrought-iron bench a few feet from Sadie’s rental car. Sergeant Mathews had said Layla would walk home and Sadie hadn’t given it another thought. However, the woman had a strange effect on Sadie, calling out to her motherly instincts despite the fact that Layla wasn’t much younger than Sadie. It wouldn’t be hard to drop her off on the way out of town. Sadie smiled as she approached the bench. Layla just watched her.

“Would you like a ride home?” Sadie asked.

“Yes,” Layla said. She headed for the passenger side of the car. Sadie unlocked the door and they both slid in, pulling their doors shut at the same time. If it had been Gayle or Sadie’s daughter, Breanna, they’d have laughed at how perfectly in sync they were. But motherly instincts aside, Sadie didn’t know this woman. There were no inside jokes to share.

They drove in silence, which didn’t seem to bother either one of them, and as they rolled to a stop in front of the house, Sadie turned to her passenger. “It was nice to meet you, Layla. I hope everything turns out okay.”

“Would you like to come in? Tia made chicken for sandwiches and pasta salad for lunch.”

The mention of food reminded Sadie how sorely neglectful she’d been of her stomach these last twenty-four hours. All it had had since yesterday afternoon was processed garbage. Maybe she’d find a decent restaurant on her way to the airport where she could order some
good
key lime pie—she still needed to redeem the Denver airport’s interpretation. She also patted herself on the back for appropriately deciphering the smell of chicken from Layla’s house earlier. But who was Tia?

No more questions,
she told herself.
Go home.

“Thank you,” Sadie said with a sincere smile. “But I need to get to the airport. I’m heading home.”

If she’d been on the receiving end of such a statement, she’d have wondered why the woman who had just arrived was leaving. But Layla didn’t seem to notice the oddity of it. “Okay,” she said, opening the door and letting herself out.

“You’re welcome,” Sadie said even though Layla hadn’t thanked her. She watched Layla for a moment, then began pulling away when something caught her eye and caused her to press her foot on the brake instead of the gas. The screen door was in place, but the front door was open, allowing Sadie to see into the house. When they’d left, nearly an hour earlier, Layla had shut and locked the door, Sadie was sure of it. For half a second she argued with herself; it wasn’t her business, it was probably the mysterious Tia who’d left it open. But Sadie hadn’t even finished presenting that side of the case before her eyes were drawn upward and she saw something else.

Smoke.