Chapter 28
I’d spent all day at the bread shop, pondering everything I’d learned about Ben Nader, Sandra Mays, Esmé Adriá, and Meg McGinnis. I felt like I had all the ingredients to make a killer loaf of rosemary bread . . . minus the rosemary. The answer would come to me.
Miguel had taken the evening off from the restaurant. He’d been working himself ragged and needed a little reprieve. I planned to bake us a loaf of bread to go with the soup he’d brought home from Baptista’s. I drove, thinking about how much more I appreciated Santa Sofia as an adult versus when I’d been a teenager. Even with the tourist element, it was a quaint, comfortable coastal town that held my heart. It had an eclectic mix of neighborhoods, which was one of the things I loved best about it. My Tudor was part of the historic district. Queen Anne Victorians, Craftsman style homes, a few mid-century moderns, and homes like mine lived on the tree-lined streets there. Cute little cottages defined the Beach Road area. The closer you were to Pacific Coast Highway, the smaller, and more expensive, the cottage. High-end gated communities with massive properties dotted the mountains, and traditional suburban homes sprawled inland, stretching the boundaries of our little coastal town.
One of the most desirable areas was Bungalow Oasis in what the locals called the Upper Laguna District. It was one of the town’s oldest neighborhoods and held the highest concentration of traditional bungalow architecture. The area was filled with single-story, low-rise houses with curving roads, verandas, and mature landscaping. Malibu Street sat to the east and Riviera to the south, and an architectural review board was an active part of the Santa Sofia Bungalow Oasis Neighborhood Association.
Miguel had bought his house in Bungalow Oasis as a major fixer-upper. He’d worked painstakingly to restore it to its historical beauty, redoing the stucco siding, landscaping the knoll it sat on, painting the house, along with the single-car garage at the lowest point on the right, and resurfacing the red terra-cotta-tiled stairway on the left leading up to a wrought-iron gate. He’d planted green leafy shrubs on both sides of the railing that led up the front steps, and he constantly tended colorful flowers in the massive cement pots on the pillars at the top of the steps.
I loved my house, but I also loved his house. What we’d do if we ever broached the subject of spending our lives together, who knew? I couldn’t see either of us willingly giving up our respective homes. Miguel’s Mediterranean-style house had a courtyard with a single tree, manicured shrubs, and bountiful flowerbeds. The veranda, which gave him a picturesque view of the Pacific, was draped with cascading flowers. The whole place sent a gentle breeze of relaxation through me.
Miguel greeted and kissed me in the doorway, then ushered me in, taking the reusable shopping bag I had slung over my shoulder. I’d brought my preferred flour, a jar of yeast, my proofing bowl, and the rosemary and olives I’d need for the bread I’d be making.
We walked through the entry to the living room. He had the sliding glass doors opened to the veranda, the cool ocean breeze billowing in. Miguel had made the outside a welcoming living area with potted patio trees and more flowers. Miguel, former military man and current restaurateur, loved flowers.
He’d created two distinct areas on the veranda. One had a small bistro table with two chairs on a round sisal rug. The other had a rattan loveseat, two matching chairs, and a small outdoor coffee table. The square sisal rug defined the seating space as separate from the dining space. I breathed in the salty air, feeling it spread through my body all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes.
Downtown Santa Sofia was to the south and was walkable from Bungalow Oasis. Miguel often rode his bike to the restaurant. That was a definite perk of living in this area, but the real gem was the view straight ahead. The Pacific lay vast and wide, a reminder of how small we all are in the scope of our world. I gazed out at the horizon, wishing I’d brought my camera. I wanted to capture every sunset so I could look back on each one and remember the moment.
Miguel came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. The stubble on his face pricked and tickled my skin, sending a quiver through me. It was a sensation I never wanted to live without. How had we been lucky enough to find each other again?
“I need to start the bread,” I said after I’d had my fill—at least for now—of him and the ocean.
He led me through the living area, past his dining table, to the galley kitchen. It was smaller than mine, and shaped differently, but it was efficient. Everything was within reach and there was plenty of counter space. Miguel had spared no expense with his commercial-grade stainless steel appliances. They blew mine out of the water and I loved cooking with him here.
I got to work as Miguel poured us each a glass of wine. He sat at the table, half watching me work, half mapping out the specials for the month ahead.
I pounded down a mound of dough in his kitchen. He watched me with one eyebrow cocked. “Glad you’re taking that aggression of yours out on that dough.”
It wasn’t aggression. It was clarity. With each pound of my fist, I understood a fraction more. “It’s Meg. The woman who helped me with the garden at Crosby House,” I said.
“The short Irish one or the tall dark-haired one?”
“Irish.”
“What about her?”
“It’s her car that ran down Ben Nader. I know it is, but I don’t know why.”
“And Sandra Mays?”
“I keep coming back to Tammy Nader.”
“What’s her motive?”
I sank my fist into the dough for the last time. “They had a falling out. But Mack Hebron overheard Sandra and Ben talking, with Ben saying something about not keeping it a secret anymore.”
My mind circled back to what Miguel had said a moment ago. Meg was Irish. Vivian Cantrell had told me that one of the women had lost her boyfriend and her son. What if—
“What’s wrong?” Miguel asked.
I spun around to face him. “Margaret.”
He cocked an eyebrow waiting for me to continue.
“Tammy Nader said her son’s fiancée died in the crash that killed her son, but the newspaper article I found said she survived.” I stopped. Thought back. Had she actually said the fiancée had died, or had I made an assumption?
“Okay,” Miguel said.
“The fiancée’s name was . . . or is . . . Margaret.”
Miguel’s expression changed, showing his understanding. “Meg.”
“A nickname for Margaret.” A chill ran up my spine. Had we figured it out? Were Meg from Crosby House and Margaret, the mother of little Kevin, one and the same?
Another realization hit me. KM. The K was for Kevin.
I went to the table. Miguel had a lazy Susan filled with condiments. I held up the salt shaker. “Let’s say this is Meg McGinnis.”
“Okay.” He sat down. “Go on.”
Next was the pepper shaker. “Esmé Adriá.”
He pointed to the little bottle of sesame oil. “Who’s this?”
“Tammy Nader.”
“And the spicy chili oil is . . .”
“Mack Hebron.”
“Let’s say that Ben is the soy sauce, and Sandra is the oregano.” I looked at the six objects, feeling like there was a missing ingredient.
“What about the other women with the Bread for Life program?” Miguel asked, holding up the garlic bulb. “You’re sure none of them are involved?”
“None of them have a particular connection to Ben or Sandra.”
“But does this Meg McGinnis have a connection to Sandra?”
I sighed. Heavily. “Not that we’ve found. Em looked at all their backgrounds. They’re all immigrants. Zula’s from Eritrea. Claire’s from Canada. Amelie is from Germany, and Esmé is from Mexico. Only Esmé has a connection to Ben through the shelter. But it was Meg’s car—I know it was—that hit Ben.”
“They’re friends?” he asked, and just like that, I had an epiphany. I’d seen the bond grow between the women in the Bread for Life program, just like the bonds would grow between the women at the shelter. Except . . . Meg had shown me Esmé’s room. She just hadn’t known that all her own stuff hadn’t yet been moved from Esmé’s room to her new one. Or had she? She had, I realized. She had been trying to direct my thinking toward Esmé and away from anyone else.
“I’m not so sure,” I said, answering his question.
I looked at it from Esmé’s perspective. She had disappeared for several days after Ben’s accident. Why? She’d told me she didn’t know what to do, or what to think. Because she’d suspected Meg, which had put her in a conundrum? Had she recognized the blue car? Had she voiced her suspicions to her friend, or had she kept quiet?
I suspected that she’d voiced them, which is why Esmé had become so scattered and distant. She was completely freaked out, and maybe Meg was trying to convince her to keep quiet.
Miguel lifted the bottle of oregano and the soy sauce. “Sandra and Ben were talking about a secret.” He tapped the chili oil. “Which Mack overheard.”
“When I went to see Ben in the hospital, I told him I’d worked with Meg, and that I knew Esmé. He turned pale and I thought he’d reacted to Esmé’s name, but it was Meg.”
Meg was also an immigrant. Just like Esmé, she’d come here before, and she’d come back. It’s where she met Grant Nader. It’s where she had her child. Why had she not been back for so many years? Why had the Naders not helped her to be with her child?
I pictured her face. The angles of her cheek. The scar above her lip. And then something Tammy said came back to me and my blood ran cold.
I grabbed my purse, digging out my keys. They were heavy in my hand. Keys. I turned them over, thinking. Keys. But whatever thought was on the edge of my brain, it was gone. Our dinner was all but forgotten. “Let’s go see Tammy Nader,” I said.