Live and Lime Die: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 8 Page 6
She wouldn’t be idly perusing the selection of candidates tonight, however. There was vengeance to be had, and she was intent upon exacting it. Perhaps after her work was done, she’d look for some recreational pain, depending upon how long her mission took.
It was just after 8 a.m., so morning rounds would be over, and breakfast would be served, even for patients who would be going home today, because paperwork typically didn’t make it up to the various nurses stations until at least ten, so her best bet would be to pose as a cafeteria worker in order to get up to the ward, then she could pull out her nurse credentials once inside.
The stacks of hundred dollar bills that she carried in her bag ensured that the hospitality worker with whom she traded clothing would be cooperative, and the information and access key that the delighted young worker bee had provided was priceless. Jenna was on her way up to the seventh floor in the utility elevator faster than one could shake a stick. She had a sinister little smile on her face, knowing that her satisfaction was just around the corner. Her stomach grumbled, and she opened the metal lid on the tray that she was carrying. Setting the tray down on the floor, she snagged a fresh, hot cinnamon roll and devoured it, then replaced the lid and picked up the tray.
When the elevator ground to a halt, Jenna left the tray inside it, feeling much better now that she’d had a bit of sugar, and pulled her nursing credentials out of the pocket of her turquoise scrubs. The doors shushed open, and she glanced about, making certain that no one would see her getting off of the service elevator. Following the explicit directions that the food service gal had given her, she knew which corners to take and could stride through the halls with confidence.
She passed an older doctor and dazzled him with her sweetest smile. Usually when you looked at a doctor like that, they didn’t feel compelled to look down at your badge to verify your identity. He walked past, but then turned quickly around to get her attention.
“Excuse me,” he called, and Jenna stopped dead in her tracks, pasting on another smile before turning slowly to face him. “Are you new here? I don’t remember meeting you,” his eyes narrowed.
Time to turn it up. She blasted him with another blazing smile, heart pounding furiously. “Yes, just transferred in from Seattle. And you’re Doctor…?”
“Prentiss, Seymour Prentiss. Neurology,” he replied, still looking at her uncertainly.
“You’re Doctor Prentiss? Oh my goodness, what an honor! Your work is very impressive,” she nodded, dipping her head and trying hard to blush as though she was star-struck.
“Oh? Well…you’re very kind. Thank you,” he finally cracked a smile. “Listen, Room 716 needs a bath kit, there’s been…an incident. Could you possibly…?”
“Oh, of course. Say no more, I’ll take care of it right away,” she nodded eagerly. “It was such a pleasure meeting you,” she said as he turned away and resumed his former pace, raising a hand in farewell. Sucker.
Eyes on the prize, she continued on her way, fingering the vial in her pocket that she had pilfered from the yacht’s medical cabinet. Since the Winstons employed a full-time doctor onboard, they had a state of the art medical office with all the drugs that a lone doctor at sea might need to cure whatever ailed the rich and shameless.
Chapter 18
Marilyn had fallen asleep in the recliner across the room from Tiara’s hospital bed. She hadn’t meant to, but with her lack of sleep from the night before, she was exhausted. Knowing that she and her daughter were safely surrounded by locked gates and security personnel, she allowed herself to drift off in the warm, dark room, while Tiara snored softly.
Neither of the sleeping women stirred when a flame-haired woman dressed as a nurse slipped into the room after flirting heavily with the security staff, and talking about how she had to check on this patient before she hurried over to attack the mess that awaited her in 716. Liberally applying Doctor Prentiss’s name to the conversation with the taser-armed men, she had giggled her way into Tiara’s room, pulling the door shut behind her.
Jenna hadn’t counted on Cort’s girlfriend being in the room with her daughter, but, after observing her breathing for a few minutes, she relaxed, confident that the old hag would sleep through the entire incident, eventually waking to find that her precious daughter had passed away in her sleep. She took a syringe out of her pocket, uncapped it, and plunged the needle into the bottle that she’d brought with her from the yacht.
Marilyn was having a terrible dream. A cold wind was blowing in the windows of her house, bringing death with it, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. She woke slowly, swimming up from the dense fog of her dream, and when she saw a figure standing over Tiara, she thought she was still dreaming. When she rubbed her eyes and caught a glimpse of fire-red hair, sleep fled and instinct took over. She recognized Jenna Winston, dressed as a nurse, about to inject something into Tiara’s IV, and leaped from her recliner, the chair slamming against the wall.
“Noooooo!” she roared with all the fury of a lioness protecting her cub, startling the cool, calculating redhead into dropping the syringe. She turned to flee, but Marilyn was too fast for her, tackling the younger woman to the floor as Tiara woke up from a dead sleep and screamed in terror at the scene unfolding in front of her.
Lights flipped on and medical and security personnel flooded the room. By the time that they reached Jenna, however, Marilyn already had her on the ground, face mashed into the floor, arms behind her back. The petite mother had swiftly and thoroughly subdued her daughter’s would-be killer, despite being at a size and age disadvantage.
It took a couple of security guards to gently disengage the furious mother from the deranged woman beneath her, tears of rage flowing down her cheeks as she fought hard to keep from damaging her prisoner. She was too overcome with anger to do anything but shake, when at last they allowed her to her feet.
“Mom?” Tiara’s tearful voice reached her ears, snapping her out of her enraged state. Marilyn went immediately to her daughter’s side, wiping her tears and trying to calm the pounding of her heart.
“Sweetie, are you okay?” she asked, stroking the golden strands of Tiara’s hair from her face.
The young woman nodded, taking deep breaths to calm herself.
“I didn’t know you had that in you,” she teased shakily.
“That makes two of us,” Marilyn laughed, still trembling, then glanced down and saw the syringe.
“Hey,” she grabbed a security guard. “She was trying to inject that into my daughter’s IV,” the once again irate mother stared venomously at the well-restrained redhead, who merely smirked back at her. A nurse with gloved hands reached into the front pocket of Jenna’s scrubs smock, and pulled out the vial that she had used to fill the syringe, showing it to one of the security guards. Another guard produced plastic evidence bags and carefully collected both the syringe and the vial.
“Can I please just go home now?” came Tiara’s plaintive voice from the hospital bed.
“Yes, honey,” Marilyn answered, defying anyone to disagree with her. “I’m taking you home.”
Chapter 19
“Oh my, you are a sight for sore eyes,” Marilyn smiled, when Cort walked into SubLime Sweets, wearing a sling, but otherwise looking like the picture of health.
“Likewise,” he grinned shyly, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry about not being able to get you in for a visit, but the guys on the force were a little bit hardline after the assassination attempt,” he shrugged.
“I completely understand. I’m just glad that you and Tiara are safe and that little psycho is behind bars where she belongs.”
“I feel bad for her father – he’s pretty shaken up over the whole thing, but yeah, I’m with you on that,” he nodded. “How’s Tiara?”
“I’m awesome!” the young woman herself dashed into the front of the shop from the kitchen. “Mom, look at this!” she waved an official-looking envelope in front of Marilyn’s face.
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��Okay, okay,” I’ll look, her mother laughed. “Why don’t you cut us all a big fat piece of pie while I read whatever it is,” she directed, waving a hand toward the display case.
“I’m too jazzed to eat anything, but I’ll fix some for you guys,” Tiara replied, practically bouncing with excitement, as Marilyn and Cort sat down at a gaily painted bistro table.
The young woman set the slices of pie down in front of them, and watched for her mother’s reaction. Marilyn looked up from the letter and blinked at her.
“This is a job offer,” she said, dazed.
Tiara nodded joyfully.
“In California…” her mother said softly.
“It’s a great opportunity, Mom,” her daughter replied, pleading with her eyes.
“Yes it is, honey. I’m proud of you,” she stood and pulled Tiara into a hug, her tears a mix of pride and pain.
Pulling back and wiping her eyes, while Bernard watched the interaction, downing his pie, she asked, “When do they want you to start?”
Her daughter got quiet. “As soon as possible,” she tried to break the news gently.
“Oh. My.” Marilyn sank back down into her chair, a hand at her throat, taking it all in.
“I’ve already shown the letter to my landlord, he’s agreed to let me out of my lease, and the company will pay for my move, I just have to schedule it,” her ever-responsible daughter said. Seeing her mother’s stunned look, she knelt by her chair.
“It’s the one, Mom. This is what I studied for, this is what I’ve been waiting for. You understand that, right?” she asked softly, needing her mother’s approval.
Marilyn nodded, unable to speak for a moment. “Of course, sweetie. I’m happy for you…I’m just going to miss you so much,” she admitted, slow tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I was thinking about that, actually,” Tiara took a breath. “I’ve put some figures together, based upon property costs and operating costs out there, and if you wanted to, I think that you could successfully move SubLime Sweets to California,” she suggested, biting her lip.
Marilyn was speechless. The thought of Tiara moving away hadn’t really ever occurred to her, even though she knew that eventually it would happen, but the thought of picking up stakes and starting over at her age…well that was more than a little bit overwhelming. Bernard put down his fork, chewing slowly and watching for her reaction.
“Oh my,” she said, at a loss for words. “Well, you’ve certainly given me plenty to think about,” her mother murmured.
“Well, in the short term, the things that you need to know are what changes are going to be taking place here, in my absence,” the ever-pragmatic young woman pulled a sheet of paper out of a folder that she’d brought with her. “I anticipated an offer coming in for this position, so I planned ahead. Kelcie has been taking business classes, and has a great feel for what’s going on here in terms of budget and projected growth, so I’ve promoted her to manager, to take my place. That means you needed a new baking assistant, so I went through the old applications from when we hired Kelcie and hired a new assistant, who’ll be starting to learn the ropes on Monday, so that when I leave, everyone will be trained and it’ll be a smooth transition. I’ve already started training Kelcie,” she said, closing the folder.
Once again, Marilyn was overwhelmed. “I have a new assistant? Who?” she asked, blinking.
“Tim.”
“Tim??”
“Tim,” Tiara looked at her mother pointedly. “He’s more than capable, and I’ve tried his pies – they’re amazing. You two will be a formidable team,” she promised.
Marilyn stared at her daughter, mouth agape.
“Well, I know it’s a lot to take in, and I’ve apparently interrupted the detective’s visit,” Tiara smiled apologetically at Cort. “So, just take a couple of days to collect your thoughts, and we’ll sit down and talk,” she hugged her mother and left quickly before she could formulate a response.
Marilyn looked over at Cort, who reached for her hand.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, caressing her palm with his thumb. “I’d be much happier if you didn’t move to California.”
She stared at him, too overwhelmed to speak.
“But I’ll support your decision, even if what makes you happy takes you away from me,” he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.
**
Marilyn leaned her head on Cort’s shoulder and watched as her only daughter embarked upon her journey to start a new life in California. Her tears flowed freely, not just because she already missed the sassy blonde, but because she was so darn proud that her baby had grown into a lovely, accomplished woman who was now on her way to the job of her dreams.
As usual, Tiara had been right. Kelcie was doing an amazing job filling her daughter’s shoes as manager, and the addition of Tim to the kitchen brought both comedic and culinary relief to the team. The flow of business had not been impacted at all, and with Tiara’s new marketing plan in place, they’d actually seen an increase in sales. Life was good for Marilyn, except for the ache of missing her favorite girl.
“There she goes,” she said shakily, gazing up at Cort, tears in her eyes.
He nodded and kissed the tip of her nose. “And here we are,” he smiled down at her.
“Now what?” Marilyn asked the question that applied to so many areas of her life at the moment.
“Who knows?” he flashed his brilliant dimples and pulled her into his arms.
Copyright 2015 Summer Prescott, all rights reserved.
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 free books and other fancy stuff) Join my Book club.
Stay Curious,
Summer Prescott
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