A Deadly Slice of Lime: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 6 (10 page)

Swiping
at her eyes with the back of her hand, trying desperately to pull herself
together before she had to get out of the car to fetch Tiara, Marilyn strongly
advised herself to just quit with the pity party and be an adult, but the genie
of emotion had been loosed from its bottle and was hard to stuff back in.
Getting out of the car, she had a vague premonition of doom that she chalked up
to the extreme emotions that she had experienced of late. Knocking on the door,
the feeling of unease grew stronger, and she put a hand to her forehead to see
if she had a fever or something.

“Hi
Mom!” Tiara answered the door with a smile. “You’ll never guess who’s here,”
she swung the door open wide so that her mother could enter, and Marilyn
stopped dead in her tracks. Captain Robert “Bob” Jensen was sitting at her
daughter’s kitchen table, calmly sipping a soda.

“Hey
there, pie lady,” he called out, raising a hand in welcome.

“Captain
Bob,” she replied, trying to summon every ounce of willpower within her to keep
her voice from shaking. Quite obviously, Tiara had no idea that she was having
an afternoon snack with a killer, and tipping her off to the fact that
something was wrong could put both of them in mortal danger. “What brings you
to this neck of the woods?” she asked, hoping that he hadn’t detected the
slight tremor in her voice.

“Mom,
are you okay?” Tiara asked, before he could answer.

“I…I
haven’t had anything to eat yet today…and, I think I might be coming down with
something,” she said faintly, putting a hand to her thundering heart.

“Well,
then, come sit down lass,” the captain gestured to a chair across from him as
Marilyn tried to read his eyes.

“Thanks,”
she tried to smile as she sat down across from the murderer.

“Captain
Bob came out to see if I’d heard from Dad,” Tiara said, giving her mother a
meaningful look.

“Oh?”
Marilyn gulped at the iced ginger-ale that her daughter had set in front of
her, welcoming the distraction.

“Your
ex owed me money. You don’t suppose he’d skip town without paying, do ya?” Bob
inquired casually.

“I
have no idea,” Marilyn shrugged. “I haven’t known Daniels habits for several
years now,” she said truthfully.

“I’m
thinking perhaps he left a check for me in the packet of papers that he passed
on to your lovely daughter,” he leaned forward, his eyes drilling into hers.

Marilyn
swallowed, the sides of her throat sticking together and making a tiny clicking
sound as she searched frantically for a response. She had hoped that Tiara
hadn’t mentioned the packet. “Well…I certainly hope not,” she said finally,
smiling a tight rictus of a smile. “Because that packet went up in flames in my
fireplace this morning,” she shrugged. “I’d be happy to write you a check for
the balance due on his account if you’d like.”

“Mom!
You didn’t!” Tiara gasped, astonished. Captain Bob slowly raised his glass to
his lips and took a sip of his soda, the condensation from the outside of the
glass running past his fingers and down his arm.

“I
want no part of whatever excuse Daniel intended to give for his deplorable
behavior,” she said, staring her daughter down, hoping that she’d catch on.
Marilyn never referred to Tiara’s father by his first name when she spoke to
her daughter.

“I
can’t believe you did that,” the young woman shook her head, still not getting
it. “He gave that to me for a reason, and now we’ll never know what was in
there,” she accused, perfectly pointing out what her mother wanted the murderer
to hear. If she could convince him that the two of them knew nothing about him,
perhaps he’d go on his way, and they’d live to tell the tale.

“She
didn’t,” Bob stated flatly, glaring at Marilyn.

“What?”
Tiara was confused, and looked from her mother to the captain and back again, as
she held the man’s gaze without wavering.

“Your
mama may be many things – a good cook, a successful business woman, and darn
pretty…but she can’t lie to save her life, apparently,” he said, his tone
turning sinister.

Tiara’s
eyes grew wide, realizing that something was wrong. “What…what do you mean?”
she asked, sounding younger than her twenty-two years.

Robert
Jensen ignored her and zeroed in on Marilyn, who was still valiantly trying to
maintain a calm façade. “You opened it, didn’t you, lass? You saw everything
that they were going to use to blackmail me out of my business, didn’t you?” he
leaned closer. So close that Marilyn could smell the sea salt in his clothing
and the sweat patches that darkened his shirt under the arms.

“Didn’t
you???” he yelled in her face, making her flinch, but still, she remained
silent. “Oh, that’s how you want to play it?” he mocked her. “You need to be
roughed up before you’ll talk? Well, we can take care of that, lass,” he raised
his hand to strike her, and, ever the tough girl, Tiara grabbed his arm.

“No!”
she screamed. “Don’t you touch my mother!” she had both hands clamped around
his wrist and he tried to shake her off.

“Tiara,
stop!” her mother screamed. “Get away, please!” she pleaded. “He’ll kill you
too,” she shouted as her daughter struggled to maintain her grip while the
older man wrestled with her.

Marilyn
saw the moment that her remark hit home and Tiara realized what was going on.
Her face paled for a brief moment, then self-preservation skills kicked in and
she fought like a hellcat, scratching, slapping and kicking. Seeing that her
daughter was not going to relent, she quickly grabbed the first thing that she
could find, a ceramic Elvis lamp, and smashed it into the side of Captain Bob’s
head. When he reached up, howling in pain, Tiara seized the moment, jumping
onto his back and kicking his knees until they buckled, spilling him onto the
floor with her on top of him. Wasting no time, the young woman employed every
tactic she’d learned in her college self-defense courses, and soon had Robert
Jensen’s hands pushed up between his shoulder blades, with both of her knees in
his back. Marilyn sat on his legs so that he couldn’t kick his way out, and
started to dial 911 when a fierce pounding sounded at the door, followed by the
welcome deep voice of Bernard Cortland.

“Wow,
Mom, I would’ve thought that you were really tough after the way that you
helped me take out Captain Bob if you hadn’t lost your lunch afterwards,” Tiara
teased, over pancakes at Trudy’s diner.

“You
know how I feel about violence,” Marilyn grimaced, washing down a bite of
pancake with Trudy’s cast-iron coffee.

“But
still…didn’t you find it at least a little bit satisfying to give that awful
man a bit of pain?” she persisted.

“Umm…no,
definitely not. I really like Karma to do its magical work without actively
involving me, thanks,” her mother shuddered. “Now, stop talking about it, or
I’ll lose my appetite,” she ordered.

“Fine,”
Tiara said, attacking her plate with gusto.

The
two ate in silence for a while, then Marilyn spoke, looking at her beautiful
daughter and seeing what a lovely young woman she was becoming.

“I
was awfully proud of you, though,” she said. “Who would’ve guessed that I’d
raise such a tough chick?” she teased. “Did you have any idea what was going
on?”

“Are
you kidding? The second that you referred to Dad as Daniel, I knew something
was up, and after what Captain Bob said, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to
figure it out. I had to do something – it was either win or die trying,” she
shrugged as her mother shuddered again, tears springing to her eyes at the
thought of losing her precious daughter.

“Well,
all’s well that ends well, I suppose,” she conceded. “But can you please at
least try to leave apprehending the murderers to the police from now on?” she
grinned through her tears.

“I
suppose I could do that, since I’m going to be busy running a newly expanded
store soon,” she winked at her mother. “Guess that makes me proud of you too,
even if you are kind of a wimp when it comes to self-defense,” she laughed.

“Gee,
thanks,” Marilyn rolled her eyes.

“So
about that handsome detective…” Tiara began.

“Don’t start with me young lady,” her mother raised an
eyebrow and smiled.

A letter from the Author

To each and
every one of my Amazing readers:
I hope you
enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.  Let me know what you
think by leaving a review!

I’ll be
releasing another installment in two weeks so to stay in the loop (and to get
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Stay
Curious,

Summer Prescott