Tymber Dalton - It’s a Sweet Life

She opened the door and walked in. She never locked either apartment, because few people rarely came up here besides her and Grover.

I suppose I’ll have to get used to locking the door to the bakery.

And my apartment door.

A separate staircase from out back led directly upstairs as well.

The tenants would have a way to get inside without having to go through the bakery door. Since she rarely used that door, she kept it locked all the time.

I’ll need to get extra keys made for it.

She resented the thought of losing her privacy, of not being able to come and go freely without worrying about someone else in her domain.

But the extra money would be nice.

She’d already thought about it and felt comfortable charging five hundred a month, including utilities.

But as she looked at the apartment in the fading light, she realized how much darker it was than the one she called home across the hall.

The smaller apartment faced the back of the building. And while it had a nice view of some wooded property to the south, it also lost the afternoon sunlight a lot sooner.

It was smaller, too. It only had one bedroom, whereas the apartment she lived in had two. Albeit small bedrooms, but the entire square footage of her apartment was more than this one.

She leaned against the doorway and looked across where she’d stacked furniture in the living room area. Some of it she could use as furnishings for the rental, ask a little more money that way.

Libbie picked her way through a path to the kitchen. As she studied the appliances, she realized she’d forgotten the kitchen had been completely remodeled by the previous owner not long before the sale. It had brand-new appliances which had been barely used.

She eased around another pile of boxes, to the bathroom, and flipped on the light.

The deep, sunken tub beckoned to her, larger than the standard one in her apartment.

“Hmm.”

I don’t really use the other bedroom for anything but office work anyway. I don’t need two desks. I can use the office downstairs for my paperwork.

The living room was only marginally smaller here than across the hall. She could take the leaf out of her dining room table and send two of the six chairs to storage with Grover. It wouldn’t be a huge sacrifice to downsize a little.

Not like I ever have anyone over to eat except Grover and Mandaline, and sometimes Jenny and her boys.

The more she thought about it, the more she talked herself into it.

A furnished, two-bedroom apartment, with utilities? She did the math in her head. She could easily charge seven hundred. That would cover her utilities for the building every month, as well as a few other incidentals.

The stress relief that alone provided would take a weight off her shoulders.

As she worked her way back to the door, she nodded, decided.

Tomorrow’s moving day.

Although Galileo would, no doubt, express his extreme displeasure with the move.

It’s a Sweet Life

27

“Okay, this looks like shit. Tell me again why I had to dye my hair?” It was after eight o’clock Friday evening, and Allan Donohue felt more exhausted than he had in his entire life. They’d just checked into the hotel a few minutes earlier after making their way up the state from Miami, using back roads all the way.

He turned from the mirror over the vanity and shot an evil glare at his twin brother, Benjamin. Before they’d left Miami early that morning, Ben had dragged Allan down to Homestead, where the hairdresser wife of a retired cop friend of Ben’s had turned Allan into a blond beach bum in her bathroom.

And beach bum was a look he despised. He had an image to maintain, and scruffy wasn’t it.

To be fair, Allan wasn’t the only one who’d changed his appearance. Ben had shaved his thick beard and moustache, which he’d worn for three years. The same friend’s wife cut Ben’s flowing brown hair into a short, neat yuppie style. Years working undercover meant Ben’s face hadn’t even had time to catch up. His lower face looked far paler than his tanned forehead.

“Because no one expects to see Mr. Preppie Lawyer as a scruffy, dirty blond surfer dude,” Ben snarked. “No offense, Counselor.” The edges of his blue eyes crinkled in amusement. “Sorry it’ll conflict with your South Beach party boy persona, but it’s not like you’re going to be hitting the nightclubs anytime soon.”

Allan looked in the hotel mirror again and tried to ignore the jibe.

“My eyebrows are darker. It’s obviously a dye job.”

“That’s okay. In a couple of weeks, as your hair gets longer, 28 Tymber Dalton

you’ll look totally different. Just wear a hat.”

“I can’t help but notice you now look like me.”

“You mean you missed that while we were growing up? We’re identical twins. Duh. For a prosecutor, you can be awfully freaking dense. Those club girls you hanging out with sucking your brains dry instead of your dick?”

Allan swallowed back another retort as he ignored the shot and turned to his brother again. “I meant it’s odd that you now look like I used to look.”

Ben grabbed the remote and started flipping through channels without answering.

Allan wouldn’t let it drop. “Dude, did you hear me?”

“Yeah.”

Allan recognized the stubborn set to his brother’s shoulders.

“Then what the fuck?”

Ben finally looked at him. “If one of Victor Bianco’s goons does manage to find us, I’d rather they come after me than you.”

Allan shook his head as he realized what Ben had done. Some of his anger over his brother’s potshots melted away. “You stupid jerk.

Do you really think I want you taking a bullet for me?”

Ben smirked. “I’m hoping neither of us take any bullets.” He poked himself in the chest, where he wore an oversized button-up Hawaiian shirt. “I, however, have been wearing my vest like I’m supposed to.”

“Won’t help you if they shoot you in the head.”

Ben’s gaze returned to the TV as he shrugged. “I don’t intend for the Biancos to find us. That makes it moot. Once we’re settled and I’m sure no one’s followed us, I’ll be able to stop wearing it. For a while.”

Most of South Florida’s criminals were on the lookout for the thirty-year-old Donohue brothers, who had a million-dollar mob bounty on their heads, if underworld scuttlebutt could be believed.

Allan had headed the Miami-Dade County prosecution team that It’s a Sweet Life 29

originally took down Victor Bianco’s cousin. In lieu of sentencing considerations, that cousin had flipped on Bianco, which triggered a cascade of charges both local and federal against the head of the Bianco crime family. Charges that could effectively dismantle the mob organization if successfully taken to trial.

Ben was the undercover detective who’d spent nearly three years entrenched in the Bianco organization. His work had brought the Bianco cousin to justice.

Add to all that the fact that apparently the entire New Jersey contingent of the Bianco crime family had suddenly headed south for the winter two days earlier.

Destination—Miami.

When the Feds discovered that little factoid, they’d offered the Donohue brothers two options—willingly disappear and stay hidden until the trial, or be taken into protective custody. With several local, state, and federal law enforcement and prosecutorial departments entwined in the biggest mob trial in Florida history, the two brothers had opted to voluntarily disappear.

Their limbo would be spent in Brooksville, Florida. Large enough to hide out in, and small enough to stay off the radar, the little town an hour north of Tampa would be their temporary home.

For now, they were holed up in a Holiday Inn at the corner of I-75

and State Road 50, with Ben registered as Ken Dougherty and Allan listed as Charles Stackhouse.

Allan turned back to the mirror, feeling both guilty that his brother had tricked him into changing appearances to put him at less risk, and loving the big goon for it. “I still hate the blond.”

“Keep it up, you’ll wake up with a reverse mohawk and have to shave it all off,” Ben shot at him.

Allan sighed and grumbled under his breath. “Fucker.”

30 Tymber

Dalton

Libbie awoke earlier than normal, at 3:37 Saturday morning, before her alarm even went off. The first thing she noticed was that her hands didn’t hurt nearly as badly as they had the day before.

She didn’t know if that was due to Dr. Smith’s prescription, Mandaline’s unconventional concoctions, or a combination of both.

She wouldn’t question it.

As she shut of her alarm clock and sat up, she realized her whole body felt better than it usually did.

That alone was enough to make her smile.

With coffee brewing, she grabbed a hot shower and dressed, taking her mug of coffee downstairs after swallowing a pain pill.

Ruthie arrived at four to help. When Grover arrived a little after five, they had half the day’s normal offerings underway, including several red velvet cakes for Libbie’s unpaid volunteer movers.

Grover offered Libbie a smile. “Well, look at you. Ain’t you the chipper one this morning?”

“I actually saw her smiling before her third cup of coffee,” Ruth gently teased.

“I feel really good,” Libbie confirmed. “I’m not going to question why.”