Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books!

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  But Skye had been right. Another picture could fill the spot. Best of all, Kathy would walk away happy. More importantly, she’d write a glowing article about my store. I took a deep cleansing breath and tried to dispel all my anger. It was tough, but I forced myself to calm down.

  MJ waved a plastic food storage container at the reporter. "Kathy? Let me pack up some of this food for you."

  That’s MJ, a pragmatist to the core.

  "Nice," said Kathy, “I’ll share it with my roommate, Darcy.”

  Behind the young woman’s back, MJ made little walking motions with her fingers. The leftovers were being offered to encourage Kathy to leave.

  Skye handed me the picture. "See? It's no big deal. I have other photos I can mat. We prepped extra frames, remember?”

  At the cash station, Kathy Simmons said, "Don't worry, Cara. I realize you have your reasons for not wanting to break up the display. No one will know you sold anything early. Once people see my article tomorrow, they'll be falling all over themselves asking to come to your VIP event."

  She was right: A favorable news article could pack the store with new customers. Once they were here, I would wine them, dine them, and wow them, the way I’d been trained to do at the restaurant.

  Usually ringing up a sale makes me happy, but this time I fought my sense of irritation. It wasn’t like I’ve never had difficult customers before. I have. My father had taught me to first take care of their emotions, and then to fix the problem. However, Kathy wasn’t just a difficult customer. She was a bully, who had threatened me to get what she wanted.

  I carefully covered the framed picture in tissue paper, before slipping it into one of our new biodegradable shopping bags that look like plastic but are made from plant starch.

  The drama didn't end there.

  Kathy’s first credit card was declined. A penny bounced out of her wallet, and I automatically searched for it on the floor. My Italian grandmother always taught me that a found coin brought good luck. Kathy withdrew her second credit card and thanked me for returning her penny. That card was declined, too. The process was embarrassing for both of us. I had almost come to the conclusion that Kathy wasn't going to get that picture after all, when her third card was accepted.

  “Thank you so much for coming to our media event," I said, as I handed Kathy her purchase. "We’re eager to see what you write about The Treasure Chest. I hope your mother likes the picture.”

  “Bye, Kathy. See you Friday at the VIP event,” said Skye. She’d been staring up at the bare spot on the wall, with one hand to her chin, studying it for size.

  “Here you go,” said MJ, as she handed Kathy a plastic container of food.

  “Why don’t I walk you to the door?” I said. I wanted Kathy out of my hair. As we moved toward the front of the store, the rain sounded urgent, pounding away for all it was worth.

  “Gee, it’s really coming down.” Kathy tied a scarf around her head, although it wouldn’t offer much protection.

  "The shopping bag will protect your purchase at least. Is your car out front? Let me grab an umbrella and walk you there. After you,” I said as I opened the front door. The rain hit me smack in the face, like a cold dose of reality. Kathy didn't seem to notice, but I was getting soaked.

  We moved forward in an awkward pas de deux toward an old Toyota, more rust than metal. I held the umbrella over her head while she unlocked the driver's door. “I’ll call you if I have any questions when I get back to the office and start writing,” she said.

  “I’ll look forward to seeing your article tomorrow,” I said.

  “Trust me,” Kathy said. “Before it’s all said and done, you're going to make Florida history.”

  Boy, oh boy. Was she ever right about that!

  6

  ~Lou~

  Mid-January

  7:50 a.m. on Thursday

  A parking space behind the Gas E Bait in Stuart, Florida

  Staring down at the body, Lou turned to Cara and said, “Looks like we’ve found our missing reporter.”

  “Eeyew,” Cara moaned. She clapped her hand over her mouth. Her face became a sickly color of green. After she took two staggering steps away from the old Toyota, Cara’s eyes rolled back in her head. Lou made a lunge for her, but she evaded his grasp as she toppled over backwards.

  Jason Robbins’s reflexes were faster than Lou’s. The project manager grabbed Cara on her way down. He swooped her off her feet, in a move reminiscent of Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind.

  “Cara!” screamed Skye, running to her friend’s aid.

  “She fainted,” said Jason.

  “Are you sure?” asked MJ. “I can call an ambulance.”

  “I had medical training in the service,” said Jason. “Trust me. She just passed out.”

  Since Cara seemed to be in good hands, Lou turned his attention to the crime scene. Kathy’s raincoat had jammed the locking mechanism. That explained why the thing hadn’t closed properly.

  “Long gone,” he muttered to himself, looking at the young woman.

  Lou started to construct a timeline. On Monday night, Kathy Simmons had attended the media event at The Treasure Chest. She had subsequently disappeared for three days. And now here she was, dead, on a Thursday.

  “Time to secure the scene,” said Showalter, the ever-present voice of Lou’s late partner. In life, Lou had relied on his old mentor for sound advice. Even now, whenever Lou was in the thick of things, Showalter came through loud and clear, the voice of reason and experience.

  Lou had figured that he’d found the missing reporter’s car when he spotted the SHORELINE NEWS sign in the back window. The detective had called in the license plate to verify his hunch. The faint odor surrounding the vehicle suggested that he was dealing with a dead body. He shouldn’t have walked away from the car to go and get Cara. That was totally against procedure. But he’d been willing to take the risk because he could keep an eye on the car while standing in Cara’s back room.

  Now he had an eyewitness to Kathy climbing into this very vehicle on Monday night. A side benefit had been getting Cara’s reaction. Unless she was one heck of an actress, she’d been stunned by their discovery.

  Lou called his boss, Detective Sergeant Nathan Davidson, head of the Criminal Investigations Division.

  “On my way. I’ll notify the Medical Examiner and the crime scene techs,” Davidson said.

  “We’ll also need a car transport vehicle,” said Lou. “Our dead body is wedged in the trunk.”

  “They’ll have to take it to the processing garage,” said Davidson.

  As Lou hung up from talking to Davidson, he heard Skye ask Jason, “Could you get Cara to her apartment?”

  “No problem,” said Jason. His tee shirt sleeve had hiked up to reveal a tattoo on his bicep: Semper Fi.

  “Figures,” said Showalter. “That guy carries himself like a Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

  “All the way up to the second floor?” asked MJ, batting her lashes at Jason.

  “Of course, I can.”

  “This way,” said Skye, gesturing toward the store.

  “I’ll need to talk with Cara,” said Lou. Seeing the look on Skye’s face, he added a lame sounding, “Later.”

  She glared at him.

  Lou was pretty sure that he knew why she was so angry.

  On Tuesday morning, he had been sitting in the back room, sipping a cup of coffee with Skye. When he asked her how the media event had gone, she’d laughingly related how persistent Kathy Simmons had been about buying a photo and how Cara had dug in her heels.

  When the reporter went missing, that anecdote proved to be a critical bit of information. Without it, Lou would have never known that Cara was one of the last people to see Kathy before she disappeared. Or that she’d personally walked the reporter out to her car.

  So he’d used what Skye had told him against Cara.

  Big deal.

  To Lou’s way of thinking, Skye was far too
protective of Cara. Lately she’d been fretting too much over her friend. According to Skye, Cara had been running herself ragged, worrying about the store, and dealing with a broken heart. To make matters worse, Cara hadn’t been sleeping. Skye complained that Cara never took time off, and she only went outside when her dog, Jack, needed a potty break.

  Sure, Lou felt sorry for Cara, but he still had a job to do. By getting Cara to look over the car, he’d gotten valuable information. He now had her as an eyewitness to Kathy Simmons’ last known movements.

  As he mulled this over, Skye kept walking toward The Treasure Chest. She was almost at the door when she abruptly turned and marched back to him.

  “This is all your fault,” she said, jabbing an index finger at him. “You knew there was a corpse in that car, didn’t you?”

  “How could I know?” Lou turned over his palms in a “who could tell” sort of gesture.

  “You suspected as much. It was a test, wasn’t it? To see how she’d react?”

  “Just doing my job. Clearing suspects,” said Lou.

  “Suspect? Cara is my friend. Yours, too,” said Skye. “At least she was. Before you pulled this little stunt.”

  7

  ~Cara~

  When I was little, my dad used to carry me to bed. So one part of me snuggled closer to the masculine chest. I felt reassured. Safe. Even if it was only a dream.

  But it wasn't my imagination. A big strong guy actually was carrying me.

  I didn't have the energy to struggle. Then I remembered: Kathy Simmons was dead!

  “Kathy!” I yelled.

  “Shhhh. It’s okay, Cara.” Skye’s voice seemed to come from far away.

  “W-w-what? Who?” I stared up into the face of the man carrying me.

  “Jason,” he said, smiling down at me. “I’ve got you. You took a little tumble.”

  “Put her down on the sofa, please,” said Skye, and at her instruction, Jason did just that.

  “Skye? Did you see? Was it her? I mean, I think it was, but she looked weird.”

  Skye sank down next to me on the sofa. “It was probably Kathy. She’d been in there a while.”

  “I can’t believe…”

  “Hush. Don’t think about it.”

  Jason pulled up a folding chair and leaned forward in it with his knees spread wide. “Your first dead body?”

  Skye and I exchanged glances. She took my hand and gripped it, hard. A reminder of the experience we shared when we first met.

  “No,” I said. “But I’ve never seen anyone like that. The smell…”

  “Yeah,” he said solemnly. “The heat causes accelerated decomp.”

  “Ugh,” I said.

  “That was disgusting,” said MJ, pulling up a chair next to Jason. “Totally gross. By the way, we haven’t met formally. I’m MJ Austin and that’s Skye Blue.”

  Jason shook hands with both women. Skye paid him only polite attention, but MJ ogled him like he was a piece of meat in the butcher’s shop.

  “I’m going to run downstairs and see that the doors are locked. We don’t need anyone wandering in,” said Skye. “Sid won’t be here for another hour and a half.”

  “I’ll stay with Cara.” MJ patted my arm awkwardly, as Skye left. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?” She looked nervous. Being motherly did not come naturally to her.

  “Do you have any tea?” Jason asked me. “I think a hot cup of it with a lot of sugar would do you a world of good. I’d be happy to make it.”

  “Let me,” said MJ. “I’m very domestic. Good in the kitchen. And several other rooms in the house.”

  Waving his cell phone, Jason added, “I don’t mean to be rude, but my crew is due to arrive at the gas station any minute. I’m letting my second-in-command know he needs to keep them corralled inside the old building and out of that cop’s hair.”

  MJ clattered around in my kitchenette. First she clanged my tea kettle against the faucet. Next came the sound of water splashing onto my counter. Finally, I heard her muffled curse.

  I raised myself on my elbows. It only took one glance to figure out the problem. MJ wasn’t paying attention to the task at hand. Instead, she kept staring at Jason. Despite the fact I was feeling woozy and upset about Kathy Simmons, I almost started laughing. You’d think after getting married six times that MJ would swear off men. But her bad luck at the altar hasn’t seemed to dim her enthusiasm for the opposite sex.

  Jason didn’t notice her fixation because he was too busy texting a message on his phone. When he finished, he pulled up one of my two chairs, a metal folding one that came with the apartment. Putting away his phone, he smiled at me and then took in his surroundings.

  After moving in, all I bought was a pull-out sofa. The only reason I bought it was so my son Tommy would have a place to sleep when he came home from University of Miami. Otherwise, my entire furnishings consisted of a battered card table, two metal folding chairs, a new mattress, and a dog crate. I hadn’t even painted my walls. Three of them were a tired beige. The fourth wall was an ugly maple paneling.

  Smack in the middle of my living room sat four tall cardboard boxes that had arrived two weeks ago. Inside were items I couldn’t bear to part with—and couldn’t bear to look at, either. Leftovers of my former life. Twenty years of being a good daughter, restaurant worker, and mother in St. Louis. I wasn't able to bring myself to face my past, so they hadn’t been opened. If it had been up to me, they’d still be in the storage locker of our St. Louis restaurant. But the manager (who was buying the business on contract) finally put his foot down, telling me he needed the room.

  "Your grandfather told me that you moved in not too long ago. I guess you haven’t gotten unpacked yet." Jason looked awkward in the too small chair.

  "I've been busy."

  “When will Dick be back from his fishing trip?” Jason asked.

  “I’m not sure. He might be back in time for our VIP event tomorrow night.”

  "Ah, right," he said. “How are you feeling?”

  “A little dizzy.”

  “Let’s prop your feet up. Got any pillows?”

  “In the bedroom. On my bed. One.”

  MJ’s eyes followed him as he left the living room. Silently she mouthed one word: “Hot.”

  I laughed to myself.

  Jason brought back my pillow and a towel. Wedging both under my knees seemed to help.

  “Thanks.”

  “One pillow, one bed. Pretty Spartan, huh?”

  “I keep thinking I'll get around to adding furniture or sprucing it up, but something holds me back,” I said, to myself as much as to him.

  “Lack of time,” said MJ. “Cara works nonstop. She never takes a day off.”

  “I didn’t take time off when we owned the restaurant either. Not really,” I said. My nesting instinct, which had previously been highly developed, seemed to have totally dried up. There’s something holding me back, a hesitancy to commit to this apartment.

  Jason walked over to my window. “Nice view of the Intracoastal. Or it would be, if the windows were cleaned. Great location. How’d you find this place?”

  “My parents and I used to stay here when we visited Poppy. This apartment and the store are full of happy memories,” I said.

  Skye came through my door, and she carried a bright orange tray. On it were a china cup and matching saucer. The tea set was in a perky blue and white calico print. “I made you some Earl Grey.”

  The spicy scent of bergamot attested to her choice.

  MJ glared at her. “I was waiting for the water to boil.”

  “That’s good,” said Skye, as she set the tray on the cardboard box I was using as a coffee table. “I’m sure that Cara will need more than one cup.”

  Jason offered Skye the seat he was in, as he pulled up my other folding chair and sat down.

  Instead, she perched beside me on the sofa.

  “I’ve seen you at Pumpernickel’s Deli,” he t
old her.

  “I work there because I have to. I work with Cara, because I love it.”

  MJ was pouting, so I said, “MJ? Skye is right. I’ll need more than just one cup of tea. This was not the way I wanted to start my day. Not hardly.”

  “While it steeps, I’ll go get Jack,” said MJ. “I can hear him whimpering downstairs.”

  As soon as she closed the door behind her, Skye turned tearful eyes on me.

  “Cara? I am so sorry about what happened with Lou. I didn’t mean anything when I told him about Kathy. It was part of a ‘how was your day’ sort of conversation. Honest. I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble. It never occurred to me that he’d use…that he’d betray…I should have kept my mouth shut. It won’t happen again. Please forgive me.”

  A tear spilled down her face.

  I had felt a little miffed, but I couldn’t stay mad at her. “It’s okay. You didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “That’s for sure,” she sighed. “Just so you know, I gave him a piece of my mind. It’ll be a cold day in Miami before I trust him again.”

  “Can you believe it? Could Kathy Simmons really be dead?" I shook my head.

  "Hush," said Skye, reaching out and smoothing my hair. “It’s sad, because she was so young, but it has nothing to do with you. Let the cops take care of it. You've got other things to worry about. Don’t even go there."

  "But one of our shopping bags is sitting there in her car. Plus the food MJ packed up for her,” I said. “One day she’s here, being a pest, and wow, now she’s gone! I feel awful because I got so mad at her. I shouldn’t have let her get my goat. And to think she was in the trunk of her car!”

  “She must have been there a while,” agreed Jason.

  “Ugh,” I said. “What a shock. The way the lid flew up, and she was staring at me. Us. I think I’m going to have nightmares.”

  “I know I will,” said Skye.

  “I can’t believe that Lou treated me like a suspect.”

  “I can’t either. I want to believe he was doing that just to clear you, but that isn’t an excuse,” said Skye, crossing her arms over her chest. “I am so angry with him.”