Read Online The Lime and the Dead: A Key West Culinary Cozy - Book 3 by Summer Prescott - Free Book Online

woman on the ledge.
Thankful for her yoga practice and the balance that she’d gained from it, she lowered
herself down to a sitting position while keeping her back firmly against the
wall of the building. She sat for a moment, catching her breath before
attempting to speak.
    “Nothing
is ever as bad as it seems,” Tiara said finally, when she was certain that her
voice would be steady. She reached slowly over to squeeze Amber’s hand,
grateful that she didn’t pull away and decide to plummet to her death.
    “Tiara…you
okay?” Sabra stuck her head outside the window and whispered. Tiara made a
circle with her thumb and forefinger, flashing her the “okay” sign, while still
focusing on the suicidal girl at her side.
    “Oh,
you have no idea just how bad it is,” Amber shook her head, her hands clutching
her knees so tightly that her knuckles were white.
    “I
know that you loved Jason, but there’ll be other guys, better guys,” she
reassured the reality star.
    “No.
There won’t. Not ever,” Amber responded fatalistically.
    “Don’t
be silly,” Tiara admonished her. “What makes you even say something like that?
You know that you’re young and beautiful and famous…you have your whole life
ahead of you.”
    The
miserable young woman shook her head. “No I don’t, because…he knows,” she
whispered.
    A
chill ran up Tiara’s spine.
    “Who
knows what?” she asked quietly, dropping the soothing tone that she’d been
employing.
    “The
hot detective knows that I killed Bella,” she confessed, tears flowing anew.
    “What?”
Tiara exclaimed. Was she actually sitting on a ledge high above the courtyard
with a self-confessed murderer? Her stomach churned.
    “Well,
I mean, I didn’t personally kill her, but I made Tucker do it. I didn’t watch,
I couldn’t, but he came to me when it was over, and we dumped her body by your
mom’s house so that everyone would suspect you. I’m really sorry we did that,”
she turned her tearstained face to a shocked Tiara. “I didn’t know you very
well back then. We weren’t friends yet,” she shrugged, despondent.
    Tiara
felt that her very life depended upon how she responded to Amber’s admission.
The girl had nothing to lose at this point, and could easily decide to take her
only friend with her in her final leap, so despite her instant loathing, she
had to call on every acting skill in her arsenal to make Amber continue to
believe that she was on her side.
    “How
do you know that the detective suspects you?” she asked carefully, using every
bit of willpower within her to stay put and not scoot away from the unbalanced
woman on the ledge. She looked over at the window that she had come out of,
gauging the distance. There was no way that she could make a sudden move and
catch the side of it, it was too far away.
    “He
took a sample of my hair, because they found hairs on Bella’s clothing, which
really isn’t a big deal, we hang out together all the time, so my hairs being
found on her could be explained, but then, they measured my shoe and took the
pair that I’d been wearing the day that she was killed, into evidence. As soon
as they match my shoes to the prints that were probably in the mud under the
trees where we stashed her, I’m done for. I’d rather die than go to jail, it
would be horrible for me in there,” she reasoned, likely correct.
    “But
you said you didn’t kill her. Tucker killed her, right?” Tiara clarified,
swallowing her nausea.
    “Yeah,
but I made him do it,” Amber sighed. “I told him that I’d sleep with him if he
did it for me.”
    “And
when you didn’t, he left?” She didn’t want to hear the sordid details, but
figured she could buy more time by keeping the unstable woman talking.
    “Oh
no, I did, but he was too freaked out by everything, and left anyway. Everyone
leaves me. That’s why there’s no reason to live,” she mumbled through her
tears.
    “I’m
not leaving. I’m staying right here,”