A Deadly Slice of Lime: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 6 by Summer Prescott Page A

her cheeks. She wept for the love that she’d
once had for a carefree young man who turned into a troubled adult. She wept
because her daughter had grown up without the consistent love of a responsible
father. She wept for the death of a crotchety old woman, who was killed by her
own family for the love of money, and she wept because in all of this…she felt
utterly alone.
     

Chapter 24
    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