Death by Lime: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 5 Read Free

for a beer, hoping that the brew would relax her and help her get to sleep eventually. It looked like it was going to be a long night of grief and regret, so she ordered some vegetable Lo Mein from Ming Ming, the best local Chinese delivery place downtown, and thumbed through her DVD collection, looking for something familiar to help ease her pain.
    Sappy chick flicks would be a bad idea for her evening entertainment, so she flipped through the drawer in search of a good comedy or action adventure. She finally held up a movie, triumphant. The Bourne Identity was just the ticket. An hour and a half of Matt Damon saving the world, or at least himself and a random woman or two would be just the thing to make her forget about her weird life at the moment. If it ended up being a really long night, she had the other three titles in the series as well.
    Much faster than she expected, her doorbell rang, and, looking carefully out of the peephole, she was relieved to see the delivery guy standing there with a Ming Ming bag. The tall, slender, bespectacled young man looked as though he was blushing slightly when she opened the door.
    “Wow, am I glad to see you,” she smiled with relief, eyeing the bag that he held.
    “I get that a lot,” the young man joked, handing her the bag, which seemed rather heavy for just a bucket of Lo Mein. His crooked grin was endearing, and Kelcie found herself hoping that the traces of her tears didn’t show, but suspected that her red, swollen eyes probably told the tale.
    “I bet. How much do I owe you?” she asked, grabbing her purse from a table behind the door.
    “Oh, uh, nothing. You were actually our 100,000 th customer, so your order is free,” he shrugged with another smile. “Oh, and we threw in some free eggrolls and dessert puffs too.”
    “Wow, that’s amazing,” Kelcie laughed, surprised. “Now if I only had some ice cream to drown my sorrows in, life would be complete.”
    “Ice cream does solve most of life’s problems,” he nodded sagely.
    “Or at least makes us forget about them for a while,” she agreed. “Thanks so much,” she said, holding up the bag and reaching for the door knob.
    “You’re very welcome. Have a good night,” he waved awkwardly.
    “Thanks, you too.” Kelcie closed the door and took her dinner directly to the coffee table. She was even going to indulge in the pretense of being a responsible adult for tonight. She was going to eat right from the carton with the plastic fork that was provided, and put a bag underneath to catch any soy sauce that might try to leak out of the bottom once she doused the noodles. Grabbing another beer from the fridge, she popped the DVD into the player, turned off the lights for better visual effect, (and because sitting by herself in the dark seemed somehow appropriate), digging into her Chinese feast, lit only by the glow of the Bourne Identity.
    The remnants of her dinner had been stowed in the refrigerator, and Kelcie was halfway through her second Bourne movie, when the doorbell rang. She sighed, thinking that it was most likely Thomas, coming back to apologize, and wrestled with the question of whether or not she actually wanted to get up off of the couch and deal with him. What nerve he must have, storming out and then coming over to talk at this hour. She ultimately decided to at least fake being an adult by letting him have his say before she sent him packing. Once he’d said those horrible things and left, she realized, sadly, that she couldn’t be with someone who viewed her as untrustworthy. She just didn’t need that kind of drama in her life, along with everything else that was going on.
    Following Detective Cortland’s instructions and looking out of the peephole before opening the door, Kelcie was a bit baffled when she didn’t see anyone outside. Was Thomas trying to scare her? If he was, she had a few words to say to him, and flung open the door, ready to unleash her wrath. There was a plastic