Page 85 of Hidden Depths

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Once Frank drove around the corner, Sara twisted in her seat and watched out the back window, confirming no one was following. Then she leaned her head on the seat as her anxiety retreated. They’d gotten clear without anyone knowing.

“Where should we go?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know. We need to find somewhere no one will see us—then I’ll explain more fully. Maybe you could park somewhere no one can see the car. It’ll give me some time to decompress and figure out where to go from here.”

“Hmm. I think I know just the place.”

They drove in silence until they pulled into a large boat yard. “I know the owner,” Frank said. “There should be an empty spot in here somewhere.

After driving halfway across the lot, he found an awning that wasn’t occupied by anything other than a few oil cans stacked against the back.

“Feel better?” Margaret said once they were under cover.

“A little.”

“Well, we can’t stay here forever, but if it takes the pressure off of you, we can hang out for a while.”

“We don’t have to park here for long. In fact, if you two know of somewhere you can stay, even if it’s for a few days, it would make me feel better. You’ll probably be fine at home, but I just don’t know. And if anything happened to you—”

“First of all,” Frank said, “nothing’s going to happen.”

“And second of all,” Margaret said, giving him a look. “We have friends at Plantation Key who we’ve been meaning to catch up with for a while. If it puts your mind at ease, they’ll be happy to house us for a couple of days. But we think you should come with us. You look exhausted, and you have nowhere to go.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I can’t. I’m sure they’ll have a police check on the way.”

Frank pulled out his phone. “There’s one way to find out. There’s a Facebook page with all sorts of local info.”

“Since when are you on Facebook?” Margaret said, astonished.

“You know me, I’m hip with all the new tech.”

Sara snorted, but the smile slipped away when Frank’s face slackened.

“You told us you didn’t do anything,” he said.

“What is it?” Margaret took the phone as Sara recalled her encounter with Dodd.

The whole event was a blur, but there would have been plenty of witnesses. “Is that on the bridge?” she said meekly.

Margaret turned the phone and replayed the short video that showed the gun falling from her hands as she jumped into the water.

She dropped her head. “He was going to hurt me. I only shot the tire. I had no way to get away.”

“I think you had better start from the beginning,” Frank said.

Sara couldn’t believe the patient smile that curved the corners of his mouth.

“You believe me?”

“I believe I’d like to hear your side of the story.”

Sara nodded, then kept an even voice as she told as much as she could remember, beginning with the night her parents were killed until the moment she shot the sheriff’s tire.

Margaret and Frank looked at each other, and Frank said, “That’s a lot.”

“It is. And I know how it sounds, but I promise you I’m telling the truth.”

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