Live and Lime Die: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 8 Read online

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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 & Summer Prescott Books - 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

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 1

  Marilyn Hayes groaned and tried to open her eyes slowly enough that it wouldn’t cause her pounding head to hurt any worse. The petite brunette prided herself on having a strong constitution and never coming down with the irritating, but mostly harmless, illnesses that other folks endured. Right now, however, it seemed that she was living proof that pride comes before a fall - the flu bug had knocked the wind out of her sails so badly that she could barely get out of bed.

  After spending the morning flinging the covers off because she was burning with fever, only to draw them up around her neck, moments later, teeth chattering with chills, she had tried as best she could to sleep through the misery. Her head and body ached, her throat hurt and she was as weak as a newborn kitten. It took seemingly superhuman effort to even reach over to the bedside table for a drink of lukewarm water that had been sitting there overnight.

  Her phone was next to the water, and her headache was so profound that even the innocuous chime, which indicated that a text had come in, shattered her cocoon of silence and made her wince. Reaching over to pick it up, just so she wouldn’t have to hear the chime again, she saw a message from Cort, the handsome Key West detective whom she’d been dating for the past few months.

  “Can I bring you anything?” the text read.

  Marilyn was touched by his concern, and inadvertently smiled, causing waves of pain to ripple over her face, forehead and skull. The headache tablets she had taken didn’t seem to be doing their job.

  “No, thank you though. I just need to rest J” she replied, her fingers hitting the wrong keys so many times that she nearly gave up.

  Cort obviously understood what she was going through, because he was kind enough not to reply. Tiara, her lovely, golden-haired daughter, who was taking care of Marilyn’s Key Lime pie shop, SubLime Sweets, in her absence, had left a crock-pot of homemade chicken noodle soup warming on the counter. With the goal of grabbing a bowl of the delicious soup, she slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed, and rose gently to a sitting position. That simple act was enough to cause her to feel lightheaded, and she took a moment to catch her breath, swallowing painfully.

  Standing up, Marilyn felt as though she had aged a hundred years, but she slowly made her way to the bedroom door and down the stairs, clutching the hand rail for support and stopping to sit and rest more than once. Heading to the kitchen, she hoped that she’d be able to lift the lid off of the crock pot, and once she’d served herself, that she’d be strong and steady enough to transport her bowl to the breakfast bar.

  Slumped over her bowl, one hand working the spoon, the other supporting her head, Marilyn took nourishment from the piping hot soup that felt great going down her sore throat, even if she couldn’t smell or taste it. She managed to consume the entire bowl before succumbing to the exhaustion that gripped her. Unable and unwilling to make it back upstairs to bed, she grabbed a chenille throw that was tossed artfully on one end of the couch, and burrowed under it, falling asleep almost immediately.

  **

  Marilyn awoke with a start. The light in the room had dimmed, and after having fallen asleep on the couch, it took her a moment to figure out where she was. She heard sounds in the kitchen and sat up slowly to see what was going on.

  “Hey sleepyhead,” Tiara smiled, putting food onto plates. “I was hoping that you’d wake up in time for dinner.”

  Her mother blinked sleepily, a bit confused. “Dinner? But I just had lunch and took a nap like ten minutes ago,” she murmured. “What time is it?”

  Her daughter chuckled. “It’s just after seven. I came over to check on you after I closed the shop and went home for a shower. I pretty much knew that you wouldn’t have eaten dinner yet, so I made mashed potatoes, meatloaf and green beans, with a hot-out-of-the-oven corn bread. I figured that those foods wouldn’t hurt your throat too badly.”

  “My goodness…how long have you been here? And what did I do to deserve this kind of treatment?” Marilyn gave her a wan smile.

  Tiara put down the spoon that she’d been using to plop fluffy white mashed potatoes onto their plates. “Every time I was sick, or sad, or just needed you, you’ve been there for me. Now it’s my turn to stuff you full of comfort food. I even snuck a pie out of the shop for us,” she waggled her eyebrows comically. “Besides,” she continued. “The sooner I can nurse you back to health, the sooner you can get back to the store and help,” she winked. “Business is booming, and Kelcie and I can use all the help that we can get.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” Marilyn nodded. She’d been worried about sales after a video food blogger had given them a bad review for not agreeing to the terms of his bribe, but things seemed to have calmed down, finally, and business had picked back up. “Oh my, this looks delicious,” she said, making her way slowly to the table. Unfortunately, she was only able to appreciate the texture of the food, but managed to eat a few bites of everything anyway, feeling much better afterwards.

  “Ready for pie?” Tiara asked, clearing the plates and putting them in the dishwasher.

  “It would be a tragic waste for me to eat Key Lime pie when I can barely taste anything,” Marilyn declined ruefully.

  “Truth,” her daughter nodded in agreement. “I’m actually too stuffed for pie, myself, so I’m going to head out, now that the kitchen is clean. Do you need anything before I go?”

  Her mother shook her head. “Nope, thanks for taking care of my honey,” she said as her daughter came over for a goodbye hug.

  “Anytime,” the lovely young woman grinned on her way out the door.

  Chapter 2

  A well-groomed redhead walked into SubLime Sweets, her expensive perfume announcing her arrival before she ever even reached the front counter. Dressed in white capris with a cerulean blue silk top and matching kitten heels, she seemed clearly out of her element in the casually cozy shop that was painted in bright island colors. She held her designer clutch delicately in one highly manicured hand and approached the front counter.

  “Hi, may I help you?” Tiara asked, smiling at the well-heeled stranger, who looked to be her age, or maybe a bit older.

  “I suppose so,” the woman made a face, looking around uncertainly, as if she thought a cockroach might come scurrying over her toes at any moment. She spoke with her jaw
thrust forward, as though she had perhaps been taught diction and enunciation at a New England prep school. “I’m having a function on my father’s yacht, and I have no idea why, but he has a strange obsession with Key Lime pie. I think he anchored here specifically because he’d heard of the famous pies,” she said, shaking her head at the strangeness of it all.

  Tiara grinned and nodded. “That happens more often than you might think. We have tourists come in here all the time, telling horror stories about only having access to Key Lime pie that’s actually green. They love finding the real deal.”

  “Well, what color are they supposed to be? I don’t eat dessert, so I never heard of such a thing, but one would assume that it might be green because of the limes. And I am in no way a tourist. Why my father decided to stop here, other than his silly pie, I can’t fathom, but I can assure you that you won’t see us wearing socks with sandals and drinking from a plastic straw stuck in a coconut,” she snipped disdainfully.

  Tiara paused for a moment, taken aback by the woman’s negativity. Most of the people who came into the shop were happy to be there, anticipating their dessert and delighted by the whimsical designs on the walls and bistro sets. “Well…real Key Lime pie isn’t green, because the inside of the lime isn’t really green, it’s more of a light yellow with just a slight tinge of green,” she explained.

  The rude woman waved her off. “I’m aware of the color of a lime, they grace the rims of my vodka tonics,” she said impatiently. “I just want to place an order and get out of here. Can we do that?” she raised an imperious eyebrow.

  Biting her tongue, Tiara nodded and turned away to reach for an order form. “Of course we can,” she responded coolly, ever the professional. “I’ll just need to get some information from you.”

  “Can we make this quick?” the redhead grimaced, taking her phone out of her purse to check the time.

  “I certainly hope so,” was the acidly sweet reply. “Name?”

  The woman sighed. “Jenna Winston.”

  “Address?” Tiara looked at the form rather than at the fidgeting redhead.

  “Key West Yacht Club. I don’t remember which slip, you’ll have to ask the DM,” Jenna examined her flawless nails.

  “The DM?” Tiara was puzzled.

  “The. Dock. Master,” the nasty woman pronounced each syllable in a slow, exaggerated fashion.

  “There’s nothing wrong with my hearing or my level of understanding, thanks. I just don’t happen to speak “yacht,” Tiara was beginning to simmer. “Phone number?” she asked, hoping that the wisp of a woman in front of her didn’t have a “catchphrase” for her phone number, like 1-800-IMADIVA.

  “I’m not giving you my phone number,” Jenna stated, raising her eyebrows.

  “We have to have a phone number in case we have questions about the order, or there’s a delay, or…” Tiara began to explain.

  “Well, let me tell you something, there WILL NOT be any delays or problems with my order, is that quite clear?” she put a hand on her hip and jutted her chin forward even further.

  Tiara was using every ounce of professionalism within her to not throw this impossible creature out the door bodily. She was not, by nature, a violent person, but her patience with being treated like a lesser being was rapidly dwindling.

  “Fine,” she replied with a shark-like smile. “I’ll just need full payment up front then.”

  “Absolutely not,” the spoiled woman exclaimed, looking as though she were about to stomp her foot. “You’ll get half when I order, and the other half when I have those pies, that’s how this is going to work,” she insisted.

  “If you give me half payment, you’ll receive half delivery, that’s how it works,” Tiara refused to budge. “Unless of course you want to give me your phone number,” she crossed her arms and smiled sweetly. The truth was, she’d made the full payment policy up on the spot, simply because she refused to allow this vile woman to come into her domain and attempt to belittle her.

  Jenna clenched her teeth and glared at Tiara so hard, that for a moment, it seemed as though she might just walk out the door, which would be a relief, but unfortunately, such was not the case. A look of realization came over her, and a slow, grinchy smile spread over her delicate, aristocratic features.

  “You want a phone number? Fine, I’ll give you one…my father’s. These are his stupid pies, if anything goes wrong with something that’s so simple a monkey could do it, you can just call him about it,” she sneered with a smile.

  Tiara forced herself to swallow her automatic response, and took down the number. She recorded the number of pies needed, when they should be delivered, and other details, before giving Jenna the price.

  “That’s for half, right?” the redhead asked, reaching into her bag for a wallet.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Tiara confirmed, not explaining the fact that she’d marked each pie up by almost half, justifying it in her head as a hardship fee for having to deal with the snotty socialite.

  “Highway robbery,” Jenna muttered, finally finding the right card in her stack of several choices, and handing it to Tiara.

  “Oh, I’m sorry…is it that you can’t afford it?” she asked innocently, holding the card.

  “It most certainly is not!” the incensed redhead huffed, offended. “How dare you presume…”

  “Oh, wait!” Tiara exclaimed, interrupting the tirade. “We don’t take Carte Blanche,” she smiled sweetly, handing the card back.

  “You’ve got to be joking,” Jenna’s mouth hung open in utter disgust. “Fine,” her movements were jerky as she dug in her bag once more, pulling out a generous stack of hundred dollar bills and placing them on the counter. “There, is this primitive enough for you? Have you ever seen a hundred dollar bill before?”

  Ignoring the jibe, Tiara took her time counting the money, then inquired if she would care to leave a tip, trying hard to hold back the giggles. She’d gone well beyond furious and now found the woman sputtering in front of her like a wet hen to be hilarious.

  “No, I would not like to leave a tip! I’ve never been treated so rudely in my entire life,” she shook her head, astonished.

  “Well, fortunately, the day is young,” Tiara drawled as she slowly counted back the insufferable creature’s change. “Have a nice day,” she grinned as Jenna slammed the door shut behind her.

  Marilyn stood back to allow the flame-haired woman storming out of the shop to pass her by as she made her way down the sidewalk.

  “Who on earth was that?” she asked her daughter, once inside.

  “The woman who just paid $40 dollars per pie for this weekend,” Tiara snickered.

  Her mother held up a hand. “As long as you’ve got it under control, I don’t want to know.”

  Chapter 3

  Saturday dawned, bright and beautiful. Having fully recovered after a few days of taking it easy, mainly catching up on paperwork, Marilyn was actually looking forward to heading out to the yacht club after having closed the shop at two o’clock. She and Tiara would have to make several trips down to the beautiful boat with armloads of pies, but the sun was out, the sky was blue, and she felt stronger than she had in days. Life was good.

  They met a uniformed crew member on the dock, who led them down to the galley. There was a party going on that seemed to spill over into the entire outdoor area of the boat, and, as Marilyn and Tiara walked through the air conditioned interior of the boat, Tiara gasped and quickly ducked behind her mother.

  “Sweetie, what’s wrong?” she whispered, so that the crew member wouldn’t know that anything was amiss.

  “Did you see the waiter that we just passed?” her daughter whispered back. At Marilyn’s nod, she whispered again. “That was Samuel Freed,” her eyes were wide and scared.

  Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “You mean the little…” she bit her tongue. “The guy who dated you and liked to get into bar fights and leave you defenseless? That guy?” she hissed between her teeth.
/>   “Yes, Mom,” Tiara replied, shushing her with a fingertip to her mouth. “Let’s just do our thing and get out of here before he sees me,” she pleaded. Marilyn nodded.

  They made six more trips to the galley and back, fortunately without running into Samuel Freed. Marilyn would have had no problem at all giving him the dressing down that he so richly deserved for the way that he had treated her daughter, and Tiara just wanted to run away from her memories and shame as soon as humanly possible. On their way off of the boat for the last time, they were intercepted by Jenna.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?” she demanded of Tiara.

  Marilyn appraised the woman coolly, one eyebrow raised, as her daughter responded.

  “We’ve finished the delivery, so we’re heading out. Thanks for your business,” she didn’t even attempt to smile as she stepped forward, intending to go around the tiny woman in her path. Jenna made the mistake of grabbing Tiara’s arm. The younger woman wrenched out of her grasp, and the redhead was furious.

  “You aren’t going anywhere, little pie girl. You neither cut, nor served those pies. Now get back in there and do it,” she demanded, pointing toward the galley.

  Marilyn saw Samuel Freed appear out of the shadows, having observed the interaction, and immediately exit when he saw the look on her face. She then turned her ire to the spitfire who had dared touch her daughter.

  “You listen to me,” she hissed, in full mama-bear mode. “I don’t know who you think you are, but don’t you dare talk touch my daughter or speak to her in that way,” Marilyn stepped closer to the woman, who didn’t move an inch.

  “Her mother, I should’ve known,” the redhead scoffed. “I happen to be the customer who paid dearly for your services and I expect you to deliver what I paid for, is that too difficult for you to comprehend?” Jenna’s jaw jutted so far forward, she resembled a rabid bulldog.