A Deadly Slice of Lime: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 6
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Authors: Summer Prescott
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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents
are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious
manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is
purely coincidental.
Copyright 2015
by Maven Publishing - All rights reserved.
All rights
Reserved. No part of this publication or the information in it may be quoted
from or reproduced in any form by means such as printing, scanning,
photocopying or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright
holder.
Table of Contents
“Mom,
can I talk to you for a minute?” tall, golden- haired, Tiara asked, leading
her petite, dark-haired mother, Marilyn, back to the office at
SubLime
Sweets,
the best Key Lime pie shop in Key West.
“Sure,
honey,” Marilyn’s brow furrowed with concern. Her typically bold and brash
daughter seemed unusually subdued. “Is Kelcie handling the front counter?” she
asked, making sure that there was coverage in case any customers came in.
“Yep,
she’s got it,” was the brief reply.
“Is
there something wrong?” she queried, trailing down the hall at her daughter’s
heels.
“No.”
Marilyn
frowned again at the brevity of Tiara’s response, but didn’t badger her.
Reaching the office, she sat down in her creaking leather desk chair, waiting
not-so-patiently to find out what was going on.
“Now,
don’t freak out on me…” Tiara cautioned.
“Oh
my. How do you think I’m supposed to react when you start a conversation like
that?”
“Okay,
it’s really not a big deal, or anything, but…”
Marilyn’s
eyes flew open wide and she cut her daughter off abruptly. “Oh no, please tell
me that you’re not in trouble,” she demanded.
“Seriously,
Mom? No. I’m not in trouble, I just have something to talk to you about that
might make you a bit uncomfortable,” she sighed, reluctant to get into the
specifics of whatever it was.
“Okay,
I can’t take it anymore, out with it!” Marilyn commanded.
Tiara
shifted from foot to foot and looked at her mother, pleading for understanding.
“I got a call from Dad today,” she mumbled.
Her
mother took a breath, then let it out with relief. This certainly wasn’t what
she had expected. “Okay…” she said cautiously, waiting for her to continue.
“He’s
coming to Key West on vacation with a friend of his from work,” she blurted,
hoping her mother would take the news well.
Marilyn
blinked, absorbing the information, and not quite knowing how to feel about it.
“When?”
“Tomorrow,”
Tiara said, and winced, waiting for the inevitable explosion.
“Tomorrow?
He’s coming here for a vacation and he can’t be bothered to even let you know
until the day before? Wow. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” she shook her
head in disgust.
Her
daughter sat down on the corner of the desk, looking troubled and a bit
forlorn, which was entirely out of character for the strong, confident young
woman.
“Look,
Mom, I’ve harbored some really negative feelings about Dad for a very long
time, and I’m smart enough to know that that’s not healthy. He called and said
that he just wants to see me and try to get to know me now that I’m an adult,”
she began.
“Yes,
of course, now that I’ve done all of the hard work of raising you on my own,”
Marilyn interjected bitterly.
“Yeah,
he actually acknowledged that, and apologized for it,” Tiara stared hard at her
mother. “He seems to have changed a lot, and I want to give him the chance to
at least have some sort of relationship with me. It’s not like we’re going to
be best friends, and he’ll never be to me what you’ve been, but I owe it to
myself to find out what my father is like. This isn’t about him, Mom, it’s
about me,” she said gently, hoping for understanding.
Marilyn
nodded slowly, clearly hurt and trying not to show it. “I understand, sweetie,”
she said. “Your relationship with your dad is completely up to you. If you feel
that it’s important to establish some kind of connection, I think that you’re
making a very mature decision, and I respect you for that and support you one
hundred percent,” she smiled, her eyes moist. “I’m sure you’ll understand if I
practice avoidance maneuvers though.”
“Yeah,
I get it, and from what I saw when I was growing up, I don’t blame you at all
for feeling the way that you do. Thanks for understanding, Mom,” Tiara knelt
next to the chair and gave her mom a hug.
“I’m
your mom, it’s my job,” was the tearful reply.
“Kelcie
would probably appreciate some help,” her daughter stood, wiping her eyes with
the back of her hand.
“Undoubtedly,”
Marilyn agreed, swiveling back and forth in her chair, staring into space long
after her only child left the office. She hadn’t seen Daniel, Tiara’s father in
years. He’d been unfaithful and unkind to her before she left, and she moved
out of state, never looking back. Florida had been a literal escape to paradise
for her and her young daughter. She knew that he contacted Tiara every now and
again, and on occasion, she received a birthday card with a small amount of
money from her father, but he somehow hadn’t found the time to visit since
they’d left the mainland, and Marilyn had figured that her daughter was
probably better off without him.
It
had been so difficult being a single mom at first. Daniel hadn’t allowed her to
finish college, and baking was the only thing that she knew, so she made a
living for herself and her young daughter by first, selling pies out of her
tiny kitchen, then moving into a rented space, and finally, being able to
afford to buy a prime spot across the street from the beach for her shop. She’d
worked hard and lived lean for a long time in order to singlehandedly send her
only daughter to college, and she felt more than proud when the lovely young
woman had graduated with highest honors. Tiara worked at
Sublime Sweets
,
taking care of the books, business plan and marketing, while sending out
resumes in search of her dream job. She’d done such an amazing job that, in the
brief time that she’d been on board, business had grown to an extent that they
were now working toward expansion within the next year.
Marilyn
was startled out of her reverie by the sound of feet pounding down the hall
toward her, and Kelcie, her lovely, young, mocha-skinned assistant, calling out
to her with an urgency that was alarming.
“Ms.
Hayes! Ms. Hayes! Come quick, we have an emergency!”
Marilyn
was out of her chair like a shot, running down the hallway behind Kelcie,
through the kitchen door and out into the front. As soon as she stepped behind
the front counter, she caught a glimpse of a frail-looking elderly woman lying
on the floor, in front of the door, moaning.
“Oh
my goodness!” she exclaimed, dashing over to the woman, whose purse had spilled
its contents all over her entryway. “What happened, are you okay?” she asked,
kneeling down.
“There
was water on the floor. I slipped and I think I might have fractured my hip,”
the white-haired woman dressed entirely in lavender replied. She frowned at
Marilyn, seeming more angry than hurt, but when the concerned shop owner
offered to help her sit up, she shook her head and refused, demanding that an
ambulance be called.
“Of
course, right away,” Marilyn assured her, pulling her cell phone out of the
back pocket of her jeans.
She
called 911 and requested an ambulance, going through a litany of questions
regarding the incident and the woman’s condition. When she gave the woman’s
name, Elizabeth Melman, the operator replied, “Oh, it’s Lizzie.” Puzzled,
Marilyn was about to ask the operator how she was acquainted with Elizabeth,
but the woman cut in, telling her that a unit was en route, before she had the
chance.
“Okay,
Ms. Melman, the ambulance is on its way,” Marilyn soothed. “Is there anything
that I can do to make you more comfortable? Would you like some water? Or, can
I put a towel under your head or something?” she asked.
“You
can wrap up a pie to go,” Elizabeth muttered. “I’m sure I’ll be hungry when
they get done with me at the hospital. I’m not paying for it though,” she
insisted. Marilyn was surprised at her rude tone and unusual request, but,
knowing that some people handle their pain differently than others, she just
asked Kelcie to box up a pie.
It
took just a few minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and the EMT’s both had
strange looks on their faces when they saw the patient. They greeted Elizabeth
not only by name, but by a nickname, referring to her as Lizzie, which seemed
to only heighten her anger. The techs carefully examined her and lifted her onto
a board, amidst much moaning and wailing, taking her away in the ambulance,
clutching her purse and the box containing her pie. Marilyn watched them go,
arms folded across her middle, hoping that Elizabeth would be okay.
“Something
isn’t right,” Tiara mused, standing beside her mother.
“Oh,
don’t say that, honey. It’s possible that she just bruised her hip or
something,” she replied optimistically, absently patting her daughter’s arm.
“No,
that’s not what I mean. I mean, that something about this whole “accident”
seems really off kilter,” Tiara shook her head, glancing around the eating
area.
“What
do you mean, sweetie?” Marilyn asked.
“I
mean, she said that she slipped in some water on the floor, but I don’t see any
water, do you?” she asked, looking closely at the floor, and then at the
ceiling, which was clearly dry, so apparently nothing had dripped down, and she
observed that it wasn’t raining outside.
“Well,
no, but maybe her clothes absorbed it all,” her mother shrugged, not seeing her
point.
“I didn’t
see any dark, wet spots on her light purple outfit either, but it’s more than
that,” Tiara frowned. “She acted like she was angry, not like she was in pain,
and some of the time it seemed like she forgot that she was supposed to be hurt
and was just acting completely normal.”
“Are
you saying that Elizabeth was faking?”
“I
can’t be sure, I’m not a doctor, but that’s certainly what it looked like to
me,” she nodded.
“Kelcie,
did you see what happened?” Marilyn asked.
“No
ma’am, I was standing with my back to the door, taking some Lime Tarts off of
the tray and putting them into the display case when I heard the door. By the
time I turned around, which couldn’t have been more than a second, she was
already on the floor, yelling at me.
“She
yelled at you? What did she say?” Tiara asked, eyes narrowed.
“She
said that somebody was going to pay for this, and asked what kind of shoddy
business this was and said that broken hips are expensive,” Kelcie recounted,
eyes wide.
“That’s
a rather odd response,” Marilyn mused. “You’d think that she’d be crying out in
pain and saying that her hip hurt, or asking for help or something. What did
you say to her?”
“I
told her that I’d be right back and then I went to the office to find you.”
“You’re
right, Tiara, this does sound like an odd set of circumstances,” her mother
nodded. “Well, I hope she gets to enjoy the pie, at least.”
