Murder in Paradise (Paradise Series) (2 page)

Zach Lazarro is my boyfriend, practically from the first moment I laid eyes on him. We had a fun relationship, although lately I had to remind him more often that I wasn’t a stay-at-home, bake cookies kind of girlfriend. I bought them from the bakery and passed them off as homemade.

“You have a driving style all your own that the previous pimp owner of this auto would never emulate.” Zach lifted me up, our bodies fitting together, softness against hardness. “Why in the hell didn’t you call me?” He pushed me away, his deep blue eyes checking me over.

I licked my lips, staring at his, hoping to forestall the lecture that waited on the tip of his tongue. “Talking and driving is out of the scope of my skills and although there’s a phone inside, I need the owner’s manual to learn all the tricks.”

“What strings did Brick attach to this little baby?” Zach looked over the Hummer in appreciation for its mechanical capabilities. I choose it for its hotness. “Why couldn’t you go to a regular rental car place and get a nice two-door sedan?”

“Brick takes insurance.”

Zach laughed. “I put a man on locating your SUV. We’ll get it back, then beat the hell out of the guy and drag him to jail.”

Zach, a former Navy Seal, owned AZL Securities, which boasted an impressive clientele and provided a wide variety of investigative and security services, including extreme ass-kicking.

“How’s Mother?” I asked.

Recently, she sat at my kitchen island with her drink of choice, a Jack on the rocks, while lighting up a cigar she knew I forbid inside the house. I decided not to mention it because her topaz-colored eyes had turned a deep brown when mad, like my own. She issued a new order that under no circumstances was she to be the last person to “know” anything. Or she’d kick my adult butt.

“I saw her wagging her finger in Brad’s face and knew you were in trouble again. I only exhaled when Brad assured me you hadn’t been shot,” Zach said.

“On the angry scale, one to five…”

“You skated again. Whatever Brad told her, she relaxed. Then he made her laugh and put his arm around her.” Zach nibbled on my bottom lip, covering my mouth with his. “I can’t believe you’re throwing your mother’s birthday party here at Jake’s. She doesn’t have the same attraction to dive bars that you do.”

“Jake’s is the perfect place. We have the best Mexican food in The Cove and all the Jack Daniels Mother can drink. Haven’t you noticed the improvement?”

“What are you going to do when Jake slithers back to town and wants his bar back?” Zach bit my earlobe.

“That’s going to be a problem. We’ll have to work out a co-ownership or something. I have big plans for this place.”

“I knew it,” Zach groaned, “You couldn’t be happy to just pop the top on a beer and slide it down the bar.”

“Party-face time, honey. We can argue later,
after
sex.”

We walked through the door; Mother spotted me and ran over. I held out my shopping bag two step-lengths in front of me.

“Gift,” I said.

“Oh, stop. I’m happy you’re here and in one piece.” Mother looked me over. “You better go make up with Fab. She’s not happy she wasn’t your first phone call. That boyfriend of hers wished me a happy birthday in French; so sexy sounding.”

“I think Didier could say, ‘Take out the trash,’ and make it sound sexy.”

Mother had changed her look; she still had the blonde bob, but gone was her usual conservative knee-length dress, replaced with a wildly colorful three-quarter length tropical sheath with deep slits. I eyed her open-toed striped linen wedges, thinking they’d look good in my closet.

A finger tapped me on my right shoulder. Only one person had that annoying habit. I looked left. “No chance to shoot your jacker?” Fab slinked up behind me.

“By the time I picked my butt up off the ground he had disappeared. Wait until you see my rental.”

“Brick?” Fab smiled knowingly, scooping up her waist-length brown hair and putting it behind her shoulders. She traded her cars in every three months or so in exchange for unspecified jobs that she never talked about. I knew some of her methods pushed the limits—others were outright illegal—but sometimes you have to stack the deck when dealing with a dirtball.

Liam ran up and threw his arms around me. I groaned, several places on my body tender to the touch. “When Brad told us the story, I was happy to hear you were okay.”

“We have a date for the aquarium this weekend. I’m not missing that.”

Liam was fourteen going on thirty, an atypical teenager. Mother and I already claimed him as our grandson-nephew even though his mother, Julie, and Brad were only in the dating stage. Neither of us entertained the idea that Liam wouldn’t always be a part of our family.

Familiar arms wrapped around the front of me, turning me around. “This place looks like someone actually cleaned it.” Creole scanned the restaurant and each guest; it would make his night to haul in a drug dealer. Only a handful of people knew he was an undercover cop. “Food’s good; I came in the back and sampled my way through the kitchen.” His lips looked ready to zoom in on mine. I turned my face away at the last second and he kissed my cheek.

“If you start a fight with your best friend at Mother’s birthday party she won’t be happy.”

“Zach just gave me the finger. It’s nice being friends again, but he knows if he screws up and you dump him, I’ll be banging on your door.” 

Creole, aka Luc Baptiste, is an unofficial cousin in our family; only family knew his real name. My Aunt Elizabeth had adopted him with her heart, giving him protection from an abusive home life. As a young boy, he grew up several houses down from her. They formed a bond that was as close as mother and son. Mother had warmly welcomed him into the family. He was actually a good fit, which annoyed Zach. Creole dripped sex, had caramel-colored skin, and he’d cut his black ponytail that hung down to the middle of his back, in favor of shoulder-length hair.

Creole ran his hand slowly down my back to my waist. “Where’s your gun?”

“Thigh holster.”

“Why is Mother kissing that criminal?” Brad pointed to Mother’s boyfriend, Spoon.

“He’s a reformed criminal,” I said, patting Brad’s shoulder, “How could you not know? She’s been sneaking around with him for forever. She’s terrible at it.” My brother is a straight-up nice guy with sun-bleached hair from long hours spent out in the Gulf waters as a commercial fisherman. No one ever says a bad word about him.

Spoon and Mother shared the love of a good cigar. They started out as smoking buddies. Brad couldn’t help but notice Mother looked happier since her hook-up with a younger, edgier man.

“There’s a nice doctor and CPA in town, they’re both single,” Brad fumed. “She’s not going to date him anymore.”

“I dare you to go over there and get the ‘I’m a grown woman’ speech,” I taunted. If only Brad would stop being so hard-headed and get to know Spoon. Well, he still wouldn’t approve, but he’d stop with the wishful thinking that Mother would hook up with a nice older gentleman.

Brad pushed his chin forward and started in their direction.

“Toss back a beer with Spoon and you might be surprised,” I called after him.

Zach and Creole answered their phones at the same time. Work probably beckoned the both of them. Creole turned a short-term assignment with the Miami Police Department into a permanent one. He mingled with drug dealers and other lowlifes, climbing the ladder of dirty dealings to the man at the top. They were both now staring at me. I groaned inwardly. Now what?

Zach walked over to me. “The fire is out.”

“My house?” I ran for the front door. “What about Jazz?”

Zach caught me in his arms. “Cat’s fine, it’s not your house. Cottage ten caught fire and burned down. The good news is the front steps are still intact, and thankfully, there’s no damage to the rest of the property.”

I sighed with relief, “Good thing it was empty.” Brad moved to my side and heard the conversation.

“Go check on the property,” Brad said as he hugged me. “Get back as soon as you can. Julie and I will make sure everything goes fine here.”

* * *

I took the shortcut to The Cottages. There was no reason to drive along the beach, since there was nothing to see at night except for total darkness. I saw Fab and Didier sneak out of the party earlier for some more of their jungle sex as she liked to call it. Late one night, I’d gone down to the kitchen for a snack and heard them giggling, Didier making animal noises. My cheeks turned bright red and I raced back upstairs.

As it turned out, Brad and Julie were the only ones to stay behind and clean up after Mother’s party. Brad called to tell me he’d bring the birthday cake to my house. My mouth watered at the thought of eating a piece of the strawberry perfection: white cake, hollowed out, filled with sliced strawberries, and iced with whipped cream.

Liam rode with me and set my radio stations, got the time right on the clock, and was currently setting my home address on the GPS.

“Wow look at that!” Liam said in awe. “Glad it wasn’t our cottage. Mom and I like living here.”

I parked the Hummer on the street in front of the office. Cottage ten was now a burned-out hollow shell. “How does an empty cottage burn down?”

Liam shrugged and jumped out before I shut off the engine.

Tomorrow it would be a tourist attraction. It sat closest to the street, separated by the barbeque area. Thank goodness an individual parking space separated each cottage or the fire could have leapfrogged down the driveway.

“Hey, Kev, what the heck happened?” I asked Kevin Cory, a local sheriff who’d been assigned to this area as long as I owned the place.

Kevin and Liam high-fived and did some sort of knuckle-bump ritual. Kevin and Julie were brother and sister. Kevin wasn’t happy that Julie decided to date Brad, until they met and he learned crazy only ran on the female side of the Westin family.

Kevin pointed to the still-smoldering rubble. A fire truck sat curbside. “Who was living in there? It surprised me we didn’t find a dead body or two; wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Somebody died in there?” Liam asked with fascination.

I spoke up quickly, never wanting the dead body subject to come up again. Hey, I didn’t murder the man, but that didn’t make for an interesting story. “It had been out of rotation for plumbing repairs, an insidious leak that turned into a remodel when the floor had to be ripped up.”

Kevin loved to lecture, my guess, about what a poor adult role model I made. He looked at Liam and changed his mind. “Well, someone lived in there. The fire chief stopped by on his way home from dinner, his investigator suspects it was a meth lab.”

That should rule me out as a suspect, I thought; I’ve never done drugs and had a no tolerance policy. “Did you talk to the rest of the tenants and guests?”

The Cottages is a ten-unit property that I inherited from my Aunt Elizabeth, Mother’s only sibling, and to say the regular tenants were eccentric was putting it nicely. The tourist guests, mostly from the UK and Scotland, were repeat customers, along with their referrals who came and went and gave the property a sense of normalcy. Despite the turnstile of trouble the property attracted, the out-of-towners never seemed fazed by the occasional shooting, brawl, or dead body.

Kevin’s blue eyes sparkled with anger. “Not a single damn one of your so-called tenants would answer the door,” he seethed, brushing his blondish-brown hair from his eyes; he wore it longer than most sheriffs did. “I know they’re home. A couple of them had the audacity to turn off their lights after I knocked. And now look, they’re staring out their windows bold as brass.”

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. “What about Joseph?” Joseph, a Vietnam vet, had lived at The Cottages the longest and one of my aunt’s first tenants.

“That piece of shit yelled, ‘Go away,’ and turned off his light. I’m calling his probation officer in the morning.”

“I’ll save you a dime, Joseph’s off probation.” That was the only good thing about his last girlfriend, his first grade teacher. She kept him out of trouble long enough to finally close the drunk driving case. Closing that case also wiped out a grand theft auto charge, a car stolen from a friend of course, drunk in public, and peeing in the alley files.

Kevin motioned to Zach, who walked up. “I’ll let you know when we’re done with the cleanup,” Kevin said. “I’ll take Liam with me.”  

Zach spoke up. “Actually, Julie is at Madison’s with Madeline’s birthday cake. Liam’s expected there.” Zach and Kevin were good friends, so Kevin wouldn’t say “hell no” like he would if it were my suggestion.

I squeezed Zach’s butt cheek in a silent thank you, knowing the last thing Liam wanted was to be left out of the fun. “Kevin, you’re more than welcome to come for cake.”

CHAPTER 3

The advantage to having my bedroom on the second floor overlooking the back yard, I didn’t have to hang window coverings. The early morning sun streamed through the windows, signaling another warm day. Once I turned over, Jazz stuck his face in mine and meowed at the top of his lungs. Cat-speak for, “Get up and feed me.”

If our roles were reversed and I had celebrated being over one hundred years old, would I rule the house, or still be his servant?

Zach had left early. We seldom shared leisurely mornings in bed. He did make a point of telling me for his birthday he’d like me to get rid of Fab as a roommate. I gave him my usual vague response that didn’t commit me to an answer either way. If he had his way, my open door policy would change to “don’t come by uninvited.”

I scooped up the large black ball of fluff and headed downstairs. Halfway down, I noticed a nice-looking man with disheveled brown hair sitting at my kitchen island. “Who are you?”

“Bonjour, mon cherie.” He looked me over in clinical detail.

I felt naked standing in my Dolphins football jersey that hung mid-thigh. He must be another friend of Fab’s––none of mine spoke French; a few had a hard time with English.

He raised a gun up off his lap and pointed it at me. “Take a seat.”

Two days in a row I’d stared down the barrel of a gun; I needed to give my Karma a shining. “What do you want?” I stood rooted in place.