Page 60 of Southernmost Murder

I approached, eyeing the menu briefly before saying, “Decaf coffee and—oh my God, is that a maple candied baconcronut?”

The guy glanced in the glass case. “Yup. It’s pretty good too.”

“That. I’ll take that.”

“For lunch?” Jun murmured behind me.

“Yes, for lunch!” I looked at the employee and shook my head. “I can’t take him anywhere.”

He laughed and motioned to Jun. “For you, sir?”

“Since we’re having dessert for lunch, a regular coffee and the key lime cronut.”

I paid for the… uh, lunch, and Jun carried the tray out to the porch. We sat at a free table among a number of other patrons, enjoying the picture-perfect day, cool breeze, and a very unhealthy meal. For a moment I was able to disregard the fact that we were knee-deep in a murder and long-lost pirate treasure mystery.

Jun was smiling and watching as I wrecked my cronut. “Good?” he finally asked.

“Yes,” I said around bites. “Candied bacon, Jun. This is a gift to humanity.”

He cut his cronut into more accessible pieces. “I figured key lime because, when in Rome….”

“Yeah, if you went ten days without trying at least one of the thousand things we key lime-ify down here, you’d be insulting the entire island.” I watched Jun eat for a passing moment. “Hey.”

He looked up.

“When did you tell your parents?”

“That I was an FBI agent?” Jun asked dryly.

“No.”

He chuckled and set his utensils aside. “I didn’t tell them until I was in college.” He took a sip of coffee.

“Why’s that?”

Jun shrugged and set the drink down. “I suppose the same reason so many wait to mention it. I was afraid of how they’d react.”

My heart beat a little harder. “Was it bad?” I asked, hearing my own voice drop to a near whisper.

But Jun gave me a little smile. “No. Not really. In retrospect, had I known what their reaction would be, I’d have said something earlier to spare myself the turmoil. But it wasn’t the sort of thing discussed in our family.” He leaned back, staring at his cronut for a moment. “I guess I sort ofassumedthey’d react poorly, which I then regretted for a long time. But my father is rather traditional, and with me being the oldest and the son….”

I leaned over and patted Jun’s thigh. “But everything is okay with you guys?”

Jun put his hand over mine. “Yes.” He let out a breath and picked up his fork once more. “It actually opened a dialogue between us that wasn’t there before. I think my parents would like you.”

My heart wentthumpythumpy. The idea of meeting his parents was both terrifying and extremely exciting. I stuffed another bite of cronut into my mouth and said around the food, “Earlier today, I was thinking about why Cassidy was in the home.”

“Have any ideas?”

I took a sip of my decaf. “A treasure map.”

Jun raised an eyebrow. “How’d you decide that?”

“Well, let’s say, for the sake of argument, I’ve been wrong and that SmithisJack.”

Jun nodded.

“And that theSanta Teresawas a real ship, and itdidsink, and there was a fortune lost somewhere in the waters off Key West.”