The Lime and the Dead: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 3 (3 page)

Marilyn
came out of the kitchen, furious, and strode to where Sabra seemed to be trying
to convince Tiara to come out to Hollywood to audition for a reality show.

“You
have to take that out,” she decreed, staring the producer down.

“Take
what out? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sabra looked at Marilyn
curiously.

“The
part where that…” she glanced at her daughter and decided to use a different
word. “That…rude young woman said that my pie was terrible. How could you let
her say that when you’re filming in my shop?” she demanded. “And how could you
allow her to treat my daughter that way?”

Sabra
looked at Marilyn over the top of her horn-rimmed glasses. “I don’t control
what the girls say or do, it’s spontaneous, that’s the nature of reality TV,”
she explained slowly, as though she was talking to a child. “And I must say,
your daughter not only did a wonderful job of handling the situation, but
looked fabulous on camera while she was doing it,” the producer beamed. “I
think she could go a long way in Hollywood.”

“She’s
an intelligent young woman with a college education, she’s definitely not going
to Hollywood, and I don’t care if she handled it well, there was absolutely no
reason to allow that…woman to treat her the way that she did,” Marilyn fumed.

“Yes,
she’s an intelligent and educated, hot and sassy young woman working in her
mother’s obscure little pie shop, you’re right, that’s so much better,” Sabra
mocked.

Tiara
saw her mother open her mouth to reply and stepped in before things got really
heated. “I’m just fine, thank you very much, and I’ll be the judge of what I do
with my life,” she looked at them both pointedly. “Is there anything left that
we need to do for the show?” she asked Sabra, placing herself between the
producer and her glaring mother.

“No,
I think we have all we need…unless you can spare one of those pies,” she
replied hopefully, looking at the display case.

“You’ve
got a lot of nerve…” Marilyn began, aghast.

“Of
course, it’ll be our pleasure,” Tiara interrupted, silencing her mother with a
meaningful glare. She boxed up a pie and handed it to Sabra with a smile.
Handing her a card, the producer instructed the young woman to call if she
changed her mind about auditioning, and went out the door behind her cameraman.

“If
they put that on the air, we’re ruined,” Marilyn sank into a chair after the TV
crew left.

“Don’t
be so dramatic, Mom,” Tiara replied. “Do you honestly think anyone cares what
that snarky little snot thinks? It’s free advertising for us, and we may
actually have people come in out of curiosity now, so whether she liked it or
not is irrelevant if it brings in more business,” she reasoned.

Marilyn
sighed. “I suppose so. I just hated the way that she treated you,” she frowned.

“I’m
thinking that she probably has a negative comment about everything that she
encounters. Besides, Amber loved the pie,” she reminded her mother.

“Yeah,”
was the still-peeved response. She looked her daughter up and down. “Well, you
wear it well,” she teased, trying to let it go.

Tiara
laughed. “Not as well as Bella,” she grinned wickedly. “Why don’t you go ahead
and take off? We have all the pies we need, and I can take today to train Kelcie
on the register,” she suggested, knowing her mother needed to get away and cool
off.

“You’re
probably right, as usual,” Marilyn admitted, nodding. If you really think that
the two of you will be okay, I guess I will head home to simmer down a bit.”

“We’ll
be fine,” her daughter assured her. “Tomorrow, after the show airs tonight,
we’re going to be swamped, mark my words, but for now…we got this. Go to the
beach or something,” she shooed her mother out the door.

Marilyn
trudged home, weary and disappointed, vowing to never allow any part of the
television world near her daughter or her shop ever again. She planned to treat
herself to a gin and tonic on the patio, with a good book and perhaps a nap. If
she felt the urge to go to the beach, she’d probably wait until after the shop
closed and try to entice Tiara to go with her. Lost in thought, she stood in
front of her front stoop, digging in her purse for keys, not even noticing the
figure standing in the shadows.

“You
didn’t give me a fair chance,” Tim Eckels accused quietly, stepping out from
behind a fluffy fern.

“Oh!”
Marilyn screamed, dropping her keys onto the flagstone path. “What on earth are
you doing on my porch?” she demanded, her heart pounding with adrenalin and
anger.

“Why
didn’t you give me a fair chance?” he asked, stepping toward her, his carp eyes
seeming lifeless behind his glasses.

Clearly
he was unaware of just how rough her day had been, and just how little patience
she had for being interrogated on her doorstep.

“You
have no right to be lurking around on my front porch and demanding answers from
me the second I get home. You had the same chance that everyone else had. I
hired who I hired, you’re just going to have to accept that,” she stared him
down, despite the uneasy feeling that she had every time that she encountered
her strange neighbor.

“This
isn’t over,” he commented, so tonelessly that he may as well have been
remarking about how warm the weather seemed.

“Oh
no, you’re wrong,” Marilyn was seething. Her anger at having been surprised by
him in the back yard, surprised by him at work, and surprised by him just now,
boiled over, leaving her less than inclined toward cordiality. “This is
absolutely over. I have nothing more to say about it, and I’ll thank you to
kindly drop it,” she retorted, feeling her cheeks redden with temper.

“No,”
he replied, crossing his arms and staring at her.

Marilyn’s
mouth dropped open slightly at the man’s audacity, and she realized that she
was very much alone with someone who seemed to be more than a bit unbalanced.

“Get.
Off. Of. My. Porch,” she demanded in a low voice, hiding the creeping sense of
fear that threatened to overtake her.

Tim
Eckels kept his eyes locked on hers, and slowly walked down the steps, drawing
closer. When he got to the bottom, she refused to step aside to let him pass.
He was the trespasser here, he could walk around her. He got close enough that
she could smell the faint cinnamon scent of his cologne – so close that she
imagined that she could feel the heat of his breath fanning her – then he
stepped deftly to the left, just in time to avoid running into her, though the
hairs on his arm brushed lightly against her skin, giving her chills of
revulsion.

“Thanks
for the pie,” he said softly, moving down the sidewalk.

Marilyn
was thoroughly rattled by her new neighbor’s strange behavior, even if she did
a fantastic job of hiding it. The guy was an odd duck, she’d never encountered
anyone quite like him. Shrugging off the bizarre encounter on her front porch,
she put a scoop of Key Lime filling and a spoonful of fresh whipped cream in a
blender with some ice and made a decadent smoothie. Changing into her swimsuit
with the goal of basking in the sun on her lounger while she enjoyed her tart,
sweet treat, she headed for the back porch, earbuds in, book in hand.

Settling
in on her lounger with her tunes, her book and her smoothie, Marilyn was more
than ready to enjoy a period of time where she did absolutely nothing. She
planned to escape into the safe and comfortable world of her latest chick lit
novel, even out her tan, and possibly head to the beach with Tiara later. She
sprayed on her dry tanning oil and was smoothing it into her glistening skin
when a movement over to her left edged into her peripheral vision. She froze
for a moment, then slowly took out her earbuds, and turned her head to the
left. There it was again! The bushes rattled as though someone was spying on
her.

“Hello?”
she called out, upset that it was probably Tim the Terrible. The bushes rustled
more frantically, and her heart nearly leaped out of her chest when a small
tabby cat leaped out toward her.

“Oh!”
she exclaimed, more than a bit startled, then laughed at her paranoia. “Well,
hi kitty,” she cooed, as the tiny creature regarded her curiously.

She
sat up in the lounger and patted the side of her leg, beckoning the cat, who
mewed in response, then sidled over noncommittally. The thin but
healthy-looking animal wound around Marilyn’s legs and she picked it up,
scratching it between the ears.

“You
must be Maisie,” she observed, holding the cat up and looking into its huge
green eyes. “Poor thing,” she mused. “As much as I hate to do it…I have to send
you back,” she said, carrying the purring feline to the gate, opening it and
shooing her outside, toward Tim’s cottage. She nearly fainted with fright again
when she swung the gate open to let the cat out of the yard, and her neighbor
was standing just outside of it.

Putting
her hand over her heart, she admonished the strange man. “You have got to stop
surprising me like that, my heart can’t take the adrenalin overload!” She took
a deep breath. “Well, the mystery is solved, I’ve found her,” she said, trying
to be nice.

“What?”
Tim seemed alarmed. “Found who?”

Surprised
that she had finally rattled the cool-as-a-cucumber neighbor, Marilyn raised
her eyebrows. “Maisie…your cat,” she explained when he gave her a blank look.

He
looked at her quizzically, then followed her gaze down to the animal who was
busily head-butting Marilyn’s ankles and twining figure-eights around them.
“Oh. That’s not my cat,” he said, regarding the cuddly creature with utter
disinterest, then turning and walking away. She stood staring after him,
wondering what he was up to, and why he’d been loitering outside her gate. She
hoped that she wouldn’t have to take formal action to keep him away from her
property, but if his eccentric behavior continued, it would certainly be a step
to consider.

By
the time Marilyn returned to her lounger, her smoothie had melted into a
sickly-sweet, lukewarm, pale green soup.

“Great,”
she said with a grimace, taking the ruined treat into the house and dumping it
into the sink. Contemplating her next move, she decided that the best option
for trying to salvage some sort of peaceful time out of this day, would be to
indulge in a little retail therapy, so she changed out of her swim suit, pulled
on white linen capris and a lime green tank top, locked her doors and windows
and headed for the mall. It was a relief just to get away from the pressures of
work, and the weirdness of her new neighbor. She didn’t have anything specific
that she was looking for, but knew that getting away from it all, “girl-style,”
could only help lift her mood.

When
Marilyn walked into her favorite store in the mall, a women’s clothing store
called “
Cheeky Chic
,” she noticed some sort of commotion in the center
of the store, and followed the crowd that was gathering to see what was going
on. Sighing when she recognized the camera crew and producer from
Real
Girlfriends of the Yacht Club,
she turned quickly away, fully intending to
get out of the store before anyone recognized her.

“Marilyn!
Marilyn Hayes! Wait!” she heard Sabra Remington’s nasal voice, and turned to
see the diminutive producer running after her.

“We
meet again,” Marilyn said, without even a trace of a smile.

“Oh
my goodness, I’m so glad to see you,” the woman panted, hands on her knees
trying to catch her breath.

“I
can’t even begin to imagine why you’d be glad to see me,” she replied dryly.

“Do
you think your drop-dead-gorgeous daughter might agree to fill in for us on the
show today? Bella Fontaine didn’t bother to show up, and we really need to have
someone that Amber can shop with. She’s buying clothes for her doggie,” Sabra
explained, pleading.

“Absolutely
not. The footage that you insist upon showing tonight is not going to reflect
well upon my business because that dreadful young woman had to open her nasty,
judgmental mouth. I don’t want my daughter to have anything to do with this
program,” Marilyn shook her head in disgust. “What in the world is so darn
fascinating about someone buying clothes for their dog, anyway? When did that
kind of nonsense become entertainment? It’s utterly ridiculous. You make a star
out of some ill-mannered person like Bella Fontaine, and you want to drag my
daughter into that toxic mix? Forget it! I wish I’d never agreed to any of this
in the first place,” she fumed, turning to go.

“Marilyn…wait!”
Sabra caught her wrist as she tried to make a beeline out of the store.

Reclaiming
her arm, Marilyn slayed the producer with a look. “What part of no do you not
understand?” she blinked at the woman in disbelief.

Sabra
lowered her voice. “What if we edit out the part where Bella is making fun of
the pie?” she asked, desperate.

Marilyn
raised an eyebrow. “You’d actually do that?” she asked suspiciously.

The
producer made a face. “If that’s what it’ll take to get that talented young
daughter of yours to participate…of course,” she shrugged.

“Well,
I have no idea if she’ll agree to it or not, but you can call her and ask,”
Marilyn conceded.

“She’s
going to be a star, I just know it,” Sabra grinned.

“I
certainly hope not,” was the muttered reply.