A Deadly Slice of Lime: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 6 Read Online Free PDF Page B

the water.
I felt sick to my stomach and hoped that whatever had happened didn’t involve
Brad,” he paled and swallowed hard, taking a minute before continuing.
    “Was
it Brad? Was it his body that had been in the water?” Tiara asked softly, her
eyes filled with compassion. Brad may have been awkward and a bit strange, but
he and Daniel were quite obviously very good friends.
    The
muscles in his jaw flexed as Daniel worked to maintain his composure, and too
overcome to speak, he merely nodded, looking down at the floor.
    “Oh,
Dad, I’m so sorry,” she said, moving in to give him an awkward hug. They hadn’t
been close for quite some time, but her heart went out to her father in his
grief.
    Marilyn
stood back, observing. While, as a human being, she felt sad about the man
named Brad who’d suffered an untimely demise, she couldn’t quite bring herself
to feel anything but a vague uneasiness toward the man who had emotionally
manipulated her for almost the entirety of their marriage. She knew his
potential for cruelty on an emotional level, but didn’t know whether she
thought that he was capable of terminal foul play. One thing that she did know
for certain, was that she didn’t want her beloved daughter anywhere near him
until she found out.
    “Do
the police have any idea as to how he…died?” she asked quietly, as Tiara
disengaged from his embrace and went to grab them all a bracing cup of Costa
Rican coffee.
    “That’s
the strange part,” Daniel shook his head. “They pulled his body from the ocean,
but he didn’t drown…his throat had been slashed.”
    Marilyn
glanced away from her ex-husband, not wanting him to recognize the fear that
flared in her eyes at his statement. She knew for a fact that he carried a
razor-sharp hunting knife wherever he went, not because he was a hunter, but
because it was the only item he’d kept when his father passed away several
years ago, when Tiara was a baby. She knew that Daniel could be very protective
toward people that he either cared about or felt that he owned, and she
couldn’t help but wonder if Brad’s sad attempt to flirt with her daughter had
been a fatal mistake.
    “That’s
awful,” she murmured, glad that Tiara came back at that moment with three cups
of coffee.
    “The
worst part is that there was this one detective…Cortland, I think his name was,
that kept looking at me like he thought that I was the one who offed Brad,”
Daniel choked off the last part of his sentence, seemingly overcome with
emotion.
    “Here,
Dad, come sit,” Tiara led him to the nearest bistro table and exchanged another
troubled glance with her mother.
    “I
can’t believe this is happening,” he shook his head as he sank into the gaily
painted lemon and lime chair.
    “I’m
sure the police will figure out who the real killer is soon enough,” she
soothed, looking at her mother for back-up.
    “Sweetie,
I have to run the leftovers out to the shelter and the children’s home. You two
take as much time here as you need, and just lock up when you leave, okay?”
Marilyn asked, not waiting before escaping to the kitchen. Tiara told her
father that she’d be right back and followed her.
    “Are
you seriously going to bail on me right now?” she whispered, cornering her
mother in the back office.
    Marilyn
stared hard at her daughter. “Just what is it exactly that you’d like me to do
here, Tiara?” she demanded. “Am I supposed to dote on him and keep him company?
Because if that’s what you’re expecting, I’m going to have to profoundly
disappoint you.”
    “Can
you at least put in a good word for him with Detective Cortland? He likes you,
your endorsement could help them start looking in the right direction instead
of suspecting Dad of killing his own friend,” she whispered, looking over her
shoulder as though she expected to see Daniel standing in the hall behind her.
    Her
mother said nothing, trying to make her expression as neutral as