Key Lime Pie (19 page)

Good save, Eric,
Sadie thought, wondering if she’d ever be able to tell him that to his face. To do so would mean telling him she was the one who had set off the alarm, and she wasn’t sure she wanted him to know that.

There was silence, and she waited, sure they’d go back inside and finish their discussion now that Eric had given a plausible excuse for the alarm being set off. Then she would sneak out past the doors and down the alleyway where Monty would whisk her back to the gas station. It was a good plan. A really good plan. But moments later she heard what sounded like a gut punch and a groaning exhale. A scuffle followed, ending with a metallic thud that Sadie imagined was the sound of someone being pushed up against the building. Her heart sank. It didn’t seem likely that Eric would be the one to take a swing at the tipster.

“The alarm doesn’t go off unless someone tries to break into the car,” the unidentified voice said. He was definitely angry this time. “Who came with you?”

“No one,” Eric groaned, though he sounded angry too. “You saw me pull in. No one else was in the car.”

Sadie cringed as she heard another sound, one like a closed fist against Eric’s head. If only she’d have let Monty come with her. Looking around for any means of escape, Sadie came to the quick and devastating reminder that she was fenced-in on every side. Literally.

How did she get herself into this situation in the first place? If not for the fact that she was hiding, she’d have screamed in frustration. Why, oh why, was she not on a plane right this very minute?

The internal tantrum lasted only a few seconds before it burned out, and she was forced to face the full reality of her present situation.

She was trapped. Eric was pinned. She let her eyes drift closed as she sent up a silent prayer for help to get herself, and Eric, out of this one. Poor Eric. And yet, she couldn’t help but shoot him a little “I told you so” in her mind. She’d said this meeting was a bad idea, but her caution didn’t change the fact that Eric wouldn’t be pinned against the wall if she hadn’t followed him here. She willed the man to let Eric go.

She winced at the sounds of another hit, another groan, and another round of shouted questions. It was more than Sadie could stand. She couldn’t wait here and listen to Eric take a beating because of her. The alternative wasn’t all that appealing either, but Sadie was crafty and thought she could pull it off.

Without allowing enough time to second-guess herself, Sadie stood up and took two steps to her left, leaving the security of the metal stuff that had given her sanctuary. Just as she’d thought, Eric was up against the building with a man standing in front of him, one hand holding the front of Eric’s shirt against his neck. The man’s back was to Sadie, so she couldn’t see his face, but Eric saw her over the man’s shoulder, and his eyes went wide, which caught the attention of his attacker. The other man turned and looked at Sadie, surprised to see her there, but not at the expense of his anger.

“I’m s-sorry,” she said quickly, trying to stay above the fear that was grasping at her with ten-fingered hands. “I was looking for a bathroom and hit against your car. I’m afraid the handle caught on the edge of my purse.” She lifted her wine-colored, boxy purse for emphasis. “When the alarm went off, I kind of panicked. Please don’t hurt that man on my account.”

Don’t hurt me either,
she nearly added. Then all she could do was steel herself for his response and continue praying silently for deliverance.

The man holding Eric against the wall was of average height and frame, shorter than Eric even, but the muscles in his arms and the set of his chest showed that Eric—who wasn’t out of shape by any means—didn’t stand much of a chance. Sadie had become used to seeing every shade of brown and black skin since arriving in Florida; this man ran in the lighter end in the spectrum, but had dark eyes and longish, dark hair anchored in a ponytail at the back of his head—not unlike Eric’s own hair, though this man’s head was shaved beneath the ponytail itself.

He wore a leather shoulder harness, but there was no gun in the holster. A closer look, however, revealed the gun to be in the hand not pressing Eric against the siding. It always amazed Sadie how fake real guns could look. This one was black and small, but with what she could only assume was a silencer on the end, making the barrel unusually long. She pretended not to notice the gun at all. This was Miami, after all; everyone waved guns around, right?

“I’m so sorry,” she said again, moving toward the strip of driveway which was the only way out of the yard. “I, um, saw a cabinet shop across the street. I’ll see if maybe they’ll let me use their restroom instead.”

“No,” the man said suddenly, releasing Eric as he took a step back and holstered his gun in one fluid movement. “You can use ours,” he said, and though his tone was friendly, his eyes were not as he watched her intently. He had a slight accent—nothing like Monty’s—but still apparent in his words. He was in his late-thirties, she’d guess, with lines around his eyes and the beginning of jowls he would not appreciate in another fifteen years.

Eric attempted to smooth out his shirt, but the part of his neck the man had been pressing against the wall was red, showing the force that had been holding him there. He wasn’t looking at Sadie; she wondered if that was on purpose. She was avoiding Eric’s eyes as well, not wanting to give anything away. It took every ounce of internal strength for Sadie to keep from running back to the cab. “It’s okay, I don’t want to disturb you any—”

“You’ve already done that,” the man said, folding his arms across his chest as he continued to stare her down. He moved to the door and pulled it open. “May as well not waste any more time by making all this irrelevant.”

Sadie paused, studiously avoiding looking at Eric for fear he would betray their connection, while desperately searching for a way out of this. “Thanks anyway,” she said, swallowing the fear and trying to convince herself that everything was fine. She moved forward, but the man moved in front of her, blocking her way.

“I insist,” he said evenly, and Sadie realized that other than screaming and attempting to run, she had no choice. Taking a deep breath, she tried to convince herself everything was okay, that he was simply testing her story. If she really needed to use the restroom bad enough to have come back here, she’d follow through, right?

“Okay,” she said, hoping she sounded brave. “Thanks.”

She’d go into the bathroom for thirty seconds, then thank him and make her getaway. It was possible for it to be that simple, right? She tried very hard to believe it as she walked into the building, the man close enough behind her that she could hear him breathing. She suppressed a shiver and thought courageous thoughts, taking confidence in the fact that Eric was here. If worse came to worst, he’d defend her.

“It’s down that hallway,” the man said, his arm extending past her shoulder as he pointed straight ahead to an unlit hallway with two doors on either side. “Second door on the right.”

Sadie nodded, unable to verbalize a second thank-you with her heart thumping in her throat. He continued to follow right behind her as she headed for the door. She half-expected him to go into the bathroom with her, but he stopped right outside the door.

“I’ll wait for you here,” he said, managing a smile that gave Sadie no comfort. Eric had followed the two of them as well, but Sadie still refused to look at him, though she could sense his tension. As she stepped over the threshold and pushed the door closed behind her, she remembered her chiding him about going to this meeting at all, about how unsafe it was. What a hypocrite she was.

The door clicked, and Sadie turned the lock. For a moment she listened, wondering if the man was staying right outside the door. She didn’t hear him walk away, but maybe she wouldn’t be able to hear through the door.

She glanced around the small room. Now what? She didn’t have much time. That’s when she remembered Monty’s card in her back pocket. Moving carefully, she pulled the card from her pocket and then slowly opened her purse and pulled out her cell phone.

She hoped that Monty texted. Gayle didn’t like to, which, despite Sadie’s lack of skill when it came to texting, was very annoying when a text would be easier and faster than having a conversation. But Monty was young, and from what Sadie had learned about young people, they always had texting enabled.

Using her foot to flush the toilet, she typed as quickly as she could.

Come inside in 3 minutes.

She wanted to add “please” as a way to abate the presumptuousness of her request, but the toilet stopped flushing, and she was out of time. Monty would know the text was from her, right?

She went to the sink and turned on the water, using it to mask the sound her phone made as she sent the text. She watched the screen of her phone as long as she felt she could, but no one washed their hands for more than twenty seconds, so she finally had to put it away. She shoved Monty’s card back into her pocket and the phone back in her purse. After running her hands under the water, she pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and dried them before unlocking the door and pulling it open, startled to find the man planted in the doorway only inches away from her.

His arms were folded across his chest and although he was only a few inches taller than Sadie, he might as well have been eight feet tall for the imposing figure he cut. With her peripheral vision, Sadie saw Eric standing against the far wall of the hallway, a few feet closer to the exterior doors. She didn’t need to make eye contact to feel how tense he was—or perhaps
angry
was a better description.

“Where are you from?” the man demanded.

“Uh, I’m from Georgia,” Sadie said. Since she was trying to keep her connection to Eric a secret, admitting she was from the same state Eric was from, assuming the man knew where Eric was from, didn’t seem wise. Then again, she didn’t talk like someone from Georgia and felt the need to strengthen her story. “Well, not originally,” she said, offering a slight smile. Her mind was whirling with ideas on how she could make herself sound more believable. “My husband and I moved there from Wyoming a few years ago. You know, snowbirds and all that. We sure do like the sunshine, though; it does wonders for my husband’s arthritis, which was just about as bad as it could be that last winter we spent in Cody.” She’d managed to confuse people before with too many words and hoped she could be so lucky again.

“What are you doing in Miami?” the man asked, having not moved even a fraction of an inch away from her. She could smell his cologne and didn’t like it.

“Um, we’re . . . buying a car,” she said, remembering the used car dealership half a block down the street. “We came out to visit Neil’s brother in our old Dodge, but it broke down about fifty miles out of town. We had to get it towed to his brother’s house, if you can believe it, and, rather than fix the old hunk-a-junk, Neil decided to get us a new car—well, new to us anyway. I can hardly stand listening to him haggle, though, so I decided to take a walk.” Her story, rather than getting stronger, felt as though it was unraveling.

“Alone?” he asked.

She added the rest in her mind—
in downtown Miami?

“Neil was trying to get another five hundred dollars taken off the purchase price,” Sadie explained. “I didn’t want to interrupt him—five hundred dollars is five hundred dollars after all—but I still don’t like to listen to all that, so I walked down the block. I was on my way back when I saw a car pull into this lot so I thought you must be open and, if you were, you might have a restroom I could use, and it would probably be cleaner than whatever the used car lot had to offer. I’m not much of a fan of public restrooms, if you know what I mean. Then my purse caught on the handle and all that drama ensued.” She made her smile a little bigger and waved her hand through the air in hopes it would make it all seem silly. “Sorry for interrupting your meeting, though,” she said, more eager than ever to leave. She finally dared glance at Eric, worried that at this point, not looking at him, and therefore not including him in her apology, would look more suspicious than ignoring him. His right cheek was red and a little swollen, but she was glad he didn’t look too mad. Instead, he looked really nervous—scared even, and that undid some of Sadie’s confidence.

The man still hadn’t moved, so she took a step forward and slightly to the left, hoping he would step aside. He didn’t.

Sadie glanced at Eric, who looked even more anxious. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. She didn’t let her eyes linger very long before she looked up at the man blocking her way. “I’d better get back to my husband,” she said, unable to keep the fear out of her voice any longer.

He still didn’t move, and Sadie found herself holding her breath, worried that Monty didn’t have texting on his phone after all and wasn’t coming. Surely it had been three minutes by now, right? Maybe he’d given up on her altogether and left with the twenty dollars she’d given him.

Finally, the man began turning to the side, allowing just enough room for her to slip past him. But as soon as she took a step forward, he moved like lightning, raising his right forearm and pressing it against her neck while pulling his gun from the holster with his left hand and pointing it at Eric’s head before Eric had time to do so much as flinch. Sadie attempted a scream, but the arm crushing her trachea prevented any sound from coming out of her mouth. She could only make a gurgling, coughing noise as she stared up at her captor with shock and fear rushing through her veins.