Eric pulled on the door, paused, and then pulled again before stepping back and moving his head as he scanned the doors. “They’re locked,” he said.
“How can sliding doors be locked?”
Eric didn’t answer, instead he continued scanning, his eyebrows pulled together, before he moved forward and bent down, running his fingers along the interior panel of the door.
Sadie watched him, not sure what he was feeling for, when suddenly he stopped. Sadie moved so she could get a better view as Eric pulled back a six-inch portion of wood paneling on the edge of the door. She crouched down to get a better look at the keyhole hidden beneath the piece that seemed to fit into place like a tongue-and-groove wooden floor.
Without a word, Eric snapped his tool kit off his belt and flipped it open, choosing a smaller bobby pin than the one he’d used on the front door. Sadie watched in fascination as he wiggled the pin into the lock. She was going to learn how to pick locks some day; it was such a useful skill. Almost immediately the lock clicked. Eric slid the door back, and Sadie moved around him so she could see what had been so expertly hidden.
“Wow,” she breathed as she scanned the floor-to-ceiling equipment built into the closet. She recognized several printers of different sizes as well as a computer, but there were half a dozen machines that she didn’t recognize at all. She looked at a pile of papers sitting on top of the computer keyboard. Larry’s current work in progress, perhaps? Or maybe his own ID that would take him away from all this.
“I’m no expert,” she said, cocking her head to get a better look at the papers without having to touch them. “But this looks like a birth certificate to me.” The top sheet had the state seal of Delaware on the top.
Eric stood beside her and picked up a square piece of plastic that had been sitting next to the keyboard—perhaps on the only empty space on the built-in countertop. Sadie wasn’t sure getting his fingerprints all over it was such a good idea, but Eric didn’t look to be in the mood for advice. He turned the plastic over, and Sadie realized that it was printed with the back of a driver’s license. The front was blank.
“I can’t believe this,” Eric said softly under his breath, shaking his head. Sadie watched Eric’s face as the details of the betrayal sank in. He turned the plastic over in his hand, from the blank side to the printed side and back again. “Larry,” he said, as though it were a sigh.
“What?” said a voice from the doorway.
Both of them whipped their heads around to see Larry standing there, looking very much like an office employee at the Speedway and nothing like the identity broker they’d just realized he really was.
Chapter 40
Sadie sucked in a breath.
Eric lifted his chin defiantly.
Larry just stared at them. He held a grocery sack in one hand; Sadie didn’t know what was inside it, but it explained his leaving the house. They’d thought he was going to the track to help with the event, instead he’d just gone around the corner. Despite having struck what Sadie assumed was supposed to be a casual pose, leaning against the door frame the way he was, Larry looked uncomfortable—a mix between the insecure man from the police station and the confident one from Max’s porch. She wondered now, though, if part of his discomfort at the station had been due to his “extracurricular” activities. If he’d made the ID from the wallet found with the body, did he worry the police would somehow trace it back to him? Was that why he was leaving now?
“What did you do with Megan?” Eric finally said, his voice low enough that it sounded like a growl, which was probably a pretty good description of how he felt.
“I did what she wanted.” There was resignation in Larry’s voice, as though he’d avoided this conversation for a long time, but could tell he had little choice but to admit to what he’d done now that he’d been asked a direct question.
Eric did growl this time, deep in his throat. His jaw tightened, and Sadie sensed the rest of him following suit. She put a hand on his arm, hoping it would calm him. He pulled away, and she let her hand fall to her side.
“I don’t believe that,” Eric said.
“You think I somehow forced her to take on a new identity and start a new life?”
Eric clenched his jaw but didn’t answer. Sadie was surprised he didn’t have a comeback.
“She wanted a new life,” Larry said when Eric simply continued to glare. “You saw it, Eric. You saw her stuck inside Layla’s world—it was killing her.”
Eric shook his head. “She was doing fine.”
“No, Eric, she wasn’t,” Larry said, an edge to his tone.
Sadie took a step back. With about fifteen feet between the two men, she didn’t want to be caught in the crosshairs of an altercation if it came to that, and, gauging Eric’s tension, it might just come to that.
“So you sold her off? Pulled her out from under me, sent her on her way, and let me live without knowing the truth all these years?”
“She’d wanted it for a long time, and I finally ran out of excuses not to help her.”
“What do you mean?” Sadie asked, trying to collect important information before Eric lost his temper.
Larry’s eyes settled on Sadie. “Megan knew I was dealing in documents.” He waved toward the equipment staring back at them from the closet. “She was fourteen, and staying with Layla and me for the weekend, when she came across some papers.” He glanced at Eric. “You were spending a week in Atlantic City with, what was her name, Rita?”
Sadie looked up at Eric, whose neck reddened as he held Larry’s eyes. He said nothing. After a few seconds, Sadie couldn’t take it. “Who’s Rita?”
“Just an old girlfriend,” Eric said, insinuating with his tone that it wasn’t important. And it wasn’t. Sadie had dated, was even engaged six months ago, and dating someone else up until two days earlier. It was the defensiveness in Eric’s words that caught her attention and gave her pause.
“Not just a girlfriend,” Larry said. “A girlfriend Eric took up with before he divorced Layla.”
Sadie lifted her eyebrows and looked at Eric again. He was shooting such daggers at Larry that she feared he’d lunge toward the other man at any minute. Sadie thought back to Eric’s explanation of how Larry had been angry with Eric when he learned about the divorce, feeling as though he’d abandoned Layla. Perhaps Larry had a good reason to feel the way he did.
Larry continued, directing his words to Sadie. “Let me guess, he told you he was a saint during that marriage, right? That he took care of Layla, did everything he could to help her get better?” The sarcasm was sharp. “The truth is that he resented Layla for not being who he wanted her to be, and he left her with nothing but monthly disability checks that barely paid for a one-bedroom apartment.”
“Larry,” Eric said in a warning tone.
Larry ignored it. “He also said he left purely for Megan’s sake, right?” He shook his head before Eric or Sadie could respond, turning his attention to Eric and narrowing his eyes. “Megan’s never believed that, and neither have I.”
Sadie was trying to think of what to say when Eric beat her to it. “I made some mistakes,” Eric said, shaking his head but sounding more angry than repentant. “But no one knows what it was like watching Layla ignore Megan every day. No one can understand how hard it was trying to pretend we were still a normal family.”
“I do,” Larry said. “But even when I reached my breaking point, I didn’t abandon Layla.”
“You didn’t have a daughter to worry about,” Eric said.
Sadie reflected on the words Eric had used when he’d explained things to Sadie: “slowly drowning.” She didn’t doubt that was true, even in light of this new information, but . . .
“That’s not why you left,” Larry replied, his words even sharper.
“I did my best for as long as I could,” Eric continued, but he didn’t meet Sadie’s eyes despite her watching him closely. “And I finally broke. It was no good for Megan, and—”
“No,” Larry broke in. “You didn’t leave for Megan. You left for yourself—for Rita, then Karen, and then Naomi. Megan wanted to stay. She told you that.”
“You can’t understand!” Eric practically yelled. “And it was better for Megan to leave, even if she didn’t want to. It was too much for her to try to make sense of.”
“But she could come stay with us on the weekends when you had better things to do?” Larry asked in a mocking tone. “She could spend her summers here when you wanted to hit the beach with whoever your hottie was that season?”
Eric’s cheeks began turning red, and Sadie found herself not wanting to talk about this anymore. She had no reason to know these things about Eric, but wasn’t sure how to segue into something else.
Larry continued, “You can’t have it both ways, Eric. Layla wasn’t good for Megan except when you didn’t want her cramping your style, then it was okay for her to have a relationship with her mother.” He waved toward the equipment again. “You think I do this because I like it? Because this is the kind of contribution I want to make to society? I did what it took to make sure Layla was okay, Eric. I risk my future every day to make sure she’s taken care of.”
“But you’re leaving now, too, aren’t you?” Sadie cut in quickly, watching as guilt sprang into Larry’s eyes. “Everything that’s happened has made your situation precarious, so you’re leaving.”
“That’s right,” Eric chimed in, obviously looking for a way to turn things on Larry. “You’re willing to take off and leave now that the heat is on. Some hero you are.”
Larry didn’t have an answer for that, and Sadie wondered if he’d thought through his actions in that light or if he was just in a panic, seeing circumstances closing in around him.
“Megan came to see Layla the night she disappeared, didn’t she?” Sadie asked, worried Larry would clam up if she didn’t keep pushing.
Larry looked surprised but didn’t say anything.
Eric, on the other hand, turned to look at Sadie. “What?” he snapped, as though he had some reason to be angry with her.
Sadie glanced between both men, one surprised and one confirming her suspicions by the look of surrender on his face. “Megan wasn’t a party girl, and she missed her mother,” she began. “Maybe going away to school was her attempt to break free, I don’t know, but she was suddenly a few hours away from home, feeling insecure, and so she came back to the one thing she wanted more than anything—her mother.”
Both men just looked at her, stunned for different reasons. “How do you know that?” Eric finally asked, sounding offended.
“Megan was twenty-two when she chose to go away to college,” Sadie said, looking him in the eye and silently pleading with him to open himself up to the possibilities. “She visited her mother every chance she could get. She was obviously looking for something, Eric, and running away from it at the same time.” She paused for a breath and glanced at Larry, who was hanging on her every word, before focusing her attention back to Eric. “You said you left Layla because you broke under the pressure. Megan broke too. She broke that night she came back here, but she needed more distance than you did.”
Eric shook his head. “Her car was still at the motel.”
“That doesn’t mean she didn’t leave by choice,” Sadie said, feeling a mixture of frustration and compassion. He needed to accept the possibility that Megan could be that unhappy if he were going to deal with whatever else was lying ahead of him. “It wouldn’t have been difficult for someone to return her car to the motel. Her friend didn’t look for it until the next morning anyway.”
She looked at Larry and asked quietly, “She always came back to Layla, didn’t she?”
She waited for Larry to refute what she’d said so far. He didn’t. “You said she’d wanted to leave for a long time, and that she knew you could help her. Why did you run out of excuses to help her that night?”
He blinked, but then lowered his head and allowed his shoulders to fall forward—his first sign of defeat. “She did go to school in an attempt to get away from her past. She hoped that college would fill her life and help her forget how much it hurt not to matter to her own mother.”
“That’s not true,” Eric cut in, shaking his head. “She went to school because she—”
“I’m the one who talked to her a few times a week, Eric,” Larry said, slapping his own chest for emphasis and squaring his shoulders once again. “You shut her down every time she tried to talk to you about how she felt; you told her not to worry about it so much. You told her that she needed to move on. She couldn’t move on, and I was the only person she could talk to about it because I understood—I couldn’t move on either. I couldn’t make peace with what had happened or simply pretend that Layla wasn’t Layla anymore.” He looked back at Sadie. “Megan just wanted to sit next to her mom on the couch and watch TV that night—just be close to her. She didn’t even realize she was wearing that stupid bracelet until Layla saw it. Tia called me around two o’clock, freaking out and telling me Megan was hurt. When I got to the house, Tia was holding a bloody dish towel to Megan’s arm—apparently Layla had tried to cut the bracelet from Megan’s wrist.”
“That’s why there were no knives in the kitchen,” Sadie said, remembering the broken rolls they’d had with the barbeque chicken. She also pictured the ugly scar she’d seen on Megan’s forearm that hadn’t been in the police report. “You didn’t take her to the hospital?”
Larry shook his head. “Megan was afraid Layla would get in trouble so Tia and I bandaged up her arm as best we could. Megan was an absolute wreck.” He looked at the floor for a moment as he put his hands in his pockets. “Layla had attacked her, and it caused everything to implode. Megan couldn’t stand it anymore and begged me to help her, begged me to make her into a new person the way I’d been doing for other people. She wanted me to use my contacts and send her somewhere she could start over—really start over—and she was willing to leave everything behind to make it work. I couldn’t say no.” He looked at Eric, and Sadie saw the glimmer of him wanting Eric to understand. “She was so miserable.”
“You should have talked to me,” Eric said, still angry, still tense. “If I’d known she was struggling, I’d have gotten her help.”
“That’s just it,” Larry said, sounding frustrated. His expression, which had softened moments earlier, hardened again. “You didn’t know, but it was so obvious. She planned to contact you when the police had stopped looking for her and she was strong enough to explain what she’d done and why. By the time she was ready, you’d already left Florida and started over in Colorado. Your old numbers were disconnected—it sent a pretty strong message.”
Eric finally got it. He’d been on the defensive, but he now looked as though he’d been punched in the stomach. Sadie wanted to reach out to him, but wondered if he needed to fully face this, no matter how painful it was.
“Don’t you get it?” Larry cried now that Eric seemed to understand what he’d said. “Layla’s abandonment was painful, but it wasn’t something she did on purpose—it was a horrible accident. But you abandoned Megan in a completely different way. When I agreed to help her that night, she didn’t want you to know where she was because she didn’t think you would let her go. And because of what you’ve done since then, she still doesn’t trust you. How did you think she’d contact you if she were alive, Eric? Did you even once consider that moving halfway across the country might make it impossible for her to come back? To find you?”
“I thought she was . . .”
“Dead,” Larry finished when Eric didn’t. “And you know what, she wasn’t the only one who thought maybe you wished she was. Maybe you wished you could free yourself of the problem of Megan just like you’d freed yourself from the problem of Layla.”
Eric looked down, and it seemed as though he’d shrunk two inches in the last thirty seconds. His bursts of defensiveness had been spent. Larry had finally made his point, and Eric w
as reeling, perhaps looking at himself in a new light—a very painful one.
“You kept in touch with her?” Sadie asked Larry, purposely keeping her voice calm, hoping it would ease some of the tension in the room. She took a step toward Eric and reached for his hand. He let her take it, but didn’t return the squeeze she offered him. The other women Larry had mentioned came to mind, but Sadie wasn’t worried about that. She wasn’t Eric’s girlfriend—would never be one of those women—but she was his friend, and he needed to know he wasn’t alone.
“Occasionally,” Larry said, and he was the wary one now. “I had to be very careful. As time has gone by, she contacts me less and less. She doesn’t want the connections to her old life anymore.”
“Did you send her to Puerto Rico?” Sadie asked.
Larry shook his head again. “A friend in Texas helped her out in the beginning. Puerto Rico came later.”
“A friend?” What kind of friend helped a man with something like this, Sadie wondered.
“A client,” Larry clarified. “He coordinates documents with me, then helps people become established.”
“Hugo Montez?” Sadie guessed, causing Larry’s eyes to go wide and his mouth to open for only a moment. “The tipster,” she said to Eric as he looked at her with confusion. “His license plate was from Texas, and he was trying to help Megan be found.” He was also somehow related to Megan—well, to Liliana anyway.
Larry looked between the two of them before folding his arms across his chest. “Hugo found her a job at a bakery in Galveston. She worked there while I set up her identity.”
“Lucile Powell,” Sadie said. The name from the driver’s license found with the body.
Larry nodded. “She found friends who didn’t feel sorry for her because they didn’t know they should. She took a lot of pride in her work at the bakery and moved into her own studio apartment. Once she’d been known as Lucy long enough to have confidence in the new identity, she called me and said Hugo had found her a nanny job in Puerto Rico.” He flicked a glance at Eric before turning his attention back to Sadie.
Key Lime Pie Page 26
