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Janice Croom's website
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Type: Fiction
Pages: 286
Copyright: March 19, 2015
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
She wanted a reconciliation.
She got a murder.
Traveling to a Caribbean island to find common ground with her boyfriend Terrence, Kadence MacBride finds herself in the middle of another murder. No moonlit nights. No brush of tropical breezes against her skin, and no time to bemoan her status as a "dead body" magnet. The murderer is closing in. Looks like the only way Kadence and Terrence will ever get off the island will be in a pine box.
She wanted a reconciliation.
She got a murder.
Following a breakup of 268 days, 12 hours and 23 minutes, Kadence MacBride has messed up and knows it, so she swallows her pride and flies to the Caribbean to reconcile with her boyfriend Terrence only to find him suspected of murder. Since murder suspects on the island are more likely to see the inside of a coffin than a courtroom, they decide to investigate themselves.
They conduct their investigation in the midst of what the tourist bureau deems civil unrest, but plain folks call riots. With no phone, no lights and no motor car, they're more stranded than Gilligan.
On the run, stripped of their tourist status, the real murderer is closing in. Looks like the only way Kadence and Terrence will ever get off the island will be in a pine box.
If you like a sleuth with attitude, you’ll love Kadence MacBride.
Excerpt
March 17, 2002
There comes a time in every woman’s life when she has to go get her man. My time was now. That’s what put me on a jet, somewhere over the Caribbean, in this hootchie-momma outfit I’d let my friend Charlene talk me into. Everything I normally let hang out was trussed up like a turkey, and the things I always kept covered were out there swinging in the breeze.
Clothes may make the man, but they change the woman. I’m a thirty-something African-American with junk in my trunk and a chest that women go under the knife for; I always dress to downplay that. I want folks judging me for my mind, not my body.
In this stuff, every time I stood, my chest ended up in some man’s face. And when I walked, my butt swished like a Whirlpool on agitate.
Clothes may change the woman, but they make the man lose his mind. They got me to the front of the security line and into first-class on a coach ticket. Terrence didn’t have a prayer.
When I landed, the airport was jammed with people leaving, not coming, so I sailed through customs. Some harmless flirting with the rental car agent got me a complimentary upgrade to a red convertible.
Although the Ministry of Tourism’s announcement admitted to a few isolated pockets of civil unrest, they claimed the authorities had everything well in hand; no need for tourists to leave the island.
Only unrest I saw was some folks dancing around a pile of smoldering tires. Still, a long line of cars snaked their way to the airport. Good thing I didn’t need to fly out that night.
I hesitated at Terrence’s door. I was the one who messed up; what would he think when he saw me?
I knew what I wanted him to think. Like Charlene said, ‘This outfit is the ribbon on a package designed to be unwrapped.’ Let the unwrapping begin.
I knocked. When the door opened, Terrence wasn’t the one standing there.
The chick’s skirt was smaller than the handkerchief my daddy carried on Sunday, and her breasts threatened to pop out that training bra she wore for a top.
With cornrows down to her waist, she looked like a sister. I could tell, underneath her tan, she was whiter than Wonder Bread.
“You must be Kadence,” she said.
“No, I must be pissed. Who are you?”
She smiled. “Terrence told me about you. I’m Sheila. Please, come in. Terrence baby, we have company.”
Her voice had that sing-song quality of many of the island woman. She pointed to a pair of new high-back armchairs in the corner. The ratty old chairs we’d had since forever were gone.
There were lots of new things here. Before, I could flop down anywhere in a wet swimsuit and not care. Now, I felt like I should have left my shoes at the door.
Sheila saw me checking things out. “We’ve been decorating. Let me see what’s keeping Terrence. Some days I practically have to pull him out of bed.”
The woman didn’t walk; she glided. My hips swished; hers swayed like the rolling waves of the sea. I had my back to the bedroom, so I heard Terrence’s booming voice before I saw him. “You’re here early, Reverend.”
Terrence and Sheila walked over to me, hand-in-hand. Despite Sheila’s presence, it made me happy just to see him, like that first warm day after a harsh winter. Just when you think you’ll never be warm again, the sun comes out, the snow melts and everything is better.
Terrence had grown a beard. He always did when we visited the island. I loved how it felt against my skin, like—
“Kadence?” Terrence looked to Sheila. “Thought you said the Reverend was here.”
“I lied… Forgive me? I didn’t want to spoil your surprise.”
He dropped her hand, then turned to me. “I didn’t think you’d ever come.”
“I know. Don’t worry. I understand about Hootchie-Momma Barbie.”
Sheila came over and patted my arm. “Now, now, that’s not nice.”
She got in one good pat before my eyes told her she’d better not try for two. Sheila pulled Terrence to the loveseat on the other side of the room, like somehow putting that little bit of distance between us would help her cause.
“Now that I’m here,” I said, “we can just wrap Miss Thing up in a Hefty bag and set her out with the rest of the trash.”
Sheila smiled at me like everything was wonderful. What was wrong with this girl? Surely she realized she was about to get gone.
“I need to talk to Kadence alone,” Terrence said.
Sheila turned sideways, dangled one leg over Terrence’s, and stroked his face. She was marking him like a dog marks a tree.
He gently lifted her leg off his. “Why don’t you go for a walk?”
Sheila ran her finger down the length of his arm. “You need to tell her.”
“I need to handle this my way. Please…take that walk…for me.” Terrence left Sheila alone on the loveseat and sat next to me in the matching armchair. The two chairs made a perfect set, just like Terrence and me. He scooted his chair closer.
“Have a nice walk,” I said.
Once she reached the door Sheila turned around. “You must come to our wedding. Next month on the beach. Right over there.” She pointed to a spot under a palm tree: our spot.
This chick was certifiable. I dismissed her with a wave. “Stop lying and take your walk like a good girl.”
“She’s not lying,” he said.
Sheila smirked as she left.
Terrence took my hands in his. My heart stopped. His touch confirmed it.
I wrenched away. “Why?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
“You wouldn’t talk to me for almost nine months. Two hundred sixty-eight days …” Terrence checked his watch. “12 hours and 27 minutes to be exact.”
“It’s complicated,” I said. “Something I couldn’t explain over the phone. Something I had to tell you in person.”
“Then why did you wait so long to come?”
“It got to be like working out. You join a gym, and at first you go every day. Then you miss one Wednesday, and before you know it, it’s been 268 days, 12 hours and 27 minutes since you’ve last seen a Stairmaster.”
I smiled.
Terrence didn’t.
Sitting beneath his cold gaze, it all seemed so stupid. How had I let so much time pass without coming, without talking to him? He deserved real answers.
How could I explain why I’d chosen to fight the biggest battle of my life without him? Why, when I most needed help, I hadn’t asked for his? Why I’d shut him out. After 268 days, 12 hours, and 27 minutes, I still didn’t have a good answer and had hoped the whole unwrapping thing would have stopped him from asking the question.
“I met your plane,” I said. “The one you were supposed to be coming home on. When you weren’t on it, I didn’t know what to do.”
“I met your plane too.”
“But I’d said—”
“I know…On the last day you actually talked to me, you’d said something had come up. I just thought…I hoped you’d change your mind. I stayed here because I didn’t think I had anything to come home to.
Why didn’t you come? I’d sent you a first-class open ticket. Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you answer at least one of the hundred-some e-mails I sent? Did you even read them?”
I shook my head.
“None of them?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s really not.” Terrence sprang to his feet and turned his back to me. “The last time I called, your mom answered. She said you were standing right there. Right there. And you still wouldn’t talk to me.”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
Terrence turned around. “You said it loud and clear. Something made you break your promise. Something stopped you from talking to me. Something kept you from me until now. No matter what I do, something always comes between us.”
Sheila gloated in the doorway. “Don’t you know how badly you hurt this man? It took all the love I had to mend his broken heart.”
I so wanted to smack that smug look off her face. “Why are you here?” I asked.
She sashayed in and looped her arm around Terrence’s waist. “I was just wondering the same thing about you. Reverend Parker is coming soon. I think she should leave now, don’t you?”
“I understand what happened,” I said. “I do. You were hurt…I hurt you. Sheila was convenient and—”
She twisted a braid around her finger. “It wasn’t convenience. It was fate. Terrence came into my shop, lost as a puppy dog, with no idea what to buy you. I helped him out, as I had many times before, and thought, once again, what a lucky woman you were.
“Later that day, my life fell apart. I lost my job. My apartment caught fire. I thought I’d have to sleep on the beach, and then I remembered how kind Terrence had always been to me. I showed up carrying everything I owned in a paper bag, and this kind man took me in.”
If her apartment caught fire, she set it. Sheila knew Terrence was lonely and hurt. She played the damsel in distress, and Sir Galahad Terrence had charged in to save her.
Sheila was like a stray cat that’d shown up on his doorstep. He had to take her in. That’s who he was. That’s what I loved about him and what made me crazy.
Sheila lifted Terrence’s face and looked at him with doe eyes. “If he hadn’t come in to buy you that basket, I don’t know what I would have done.”
Terrence took her hands from his face. “Why don’t you finish your walk?” he asked.
“It’s too hot,” Sheila whined.
“How about a nap?”
She crawled her fingers up Terrence’s chest. “A nap would do us both good. Reverend Parker won’t be here for another hour. We wouldn’t have to sleep.”
He kissed the back of her hand. His lips barely brushed her skin. A butterfly kiss really, and yet, seeing it, I ached.
“I’ll wake you when I’m done,” he said.
Sheila tried to kiss him full on the mouth, but he turned his head. “Not now.”
“It can wait,” she said. “We have the rest of our lives.”
She conveniently left the bedroom door open.
Terrence closed it.
As soon as I heard the click, I rushed over, wrapped my arms around him and tried to pull him close. He stood like a soldier at attention.
“Don’t let this destroy us,” I said.
“What happened, Kadence?”
Terrence waited for an answer I couldn’t give. How could I tell him that I’d been the prime suspect in a murder? How could I ever admit how close I’d come to actually committing murder?
He’d loved Kadence the conqueror; he’d want to save Kadence the cleared criminal, not love her. I would never let myself become one of his projects, someone he’d have to take care of because she didn’t have sense enough to take care of herself. Someone like Sheila.
Terrence shook his head. “I can’t do this again. I want to share my life with someone who doesn’t always let something come between us. Next month, I’m marrying Sheila. I’ve given her my word.”
There was nothing more to say. Terrence didn’t give his word lightly, and he’d never go back on it. I ran out to the car.
He followed me. “Where are you going?”
“Back to the hotel,” I said with such confidence that I almost believed I had a hotel to go back to.
“Do you have money? I mean—”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know that. It’s just…strange things are happening on the island. There’s talk of riots and—”
“I don’t need your help.”
“At least let me make sure you get back to your hotel. I’ll follow you there. Give me a minute to tell Sheila and grab my keys.”
I blinked hard and fast to stop my tears. Soon as he turned around, I sped off.
“Kadence, wait,” he called.
I could not, and would not, let him see me cry. Even though I’d messed up beyond the telling of it, I’d hold it together until I got back home. After that, in the safety of my own house, behind locked doors, the tracks of my tears might flow all the way back to the island.
I turned down the dirt road to the old sugar cane plantation and waited until Terrence roared by in his truck. I gave him enough time to get halfway to town and then took the road to the airport. By the time he checked all the hotels, I’d be on a plane headed back to the States.
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