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fringe of the lush lawn, taking pictures to capture the Key West Lighthouse in the background.
    One day I’d probably finish my English degree, I thought, as I sighed again. But until then, I had no problem chilling out here in wedding world, where it was forever Saturday afternoon, complete with classical music, popping corks, raised champagne flutes, eggshell and ivory, eternally blue skies.
    Of course, I would have preferred to spend all day fishing with Peter, but he’d been working overtime on Saturdays for the last two solid months with a DEA task force. It was undercover work, which I knew was dangerous and I hated, but I also knew my husband. Peter was a hard-driving superstar cop, more than capable of taking care of himself and his buddies. It was the bad guys who needed to worry.
    “Your wedding was better,” my boss and Peter’s coworker Elena Cardenas said, hip-butting me as she passed with a tray of sesame chicken.
    “Yeah, right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Which part did you like more? When Peter faked throwing me off the bar’s dock or his drunken rendition of ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’?”
    “Hard to decide,” the full-figured blond Cuban said with a laugh. “At least he didn’t appear to have a pole up his keister like this groom. Anyway, Teo is up to his neck and running low on champagne at the bar. Could you run and grab another box of Krug out of the van?”
    “Aye, aye, captain,” I said.
    “And remember, watch out for the Jump Killer,” Elena called as I went toward the iron street gate.
    The Jump Killer
was
on my mind and probably that of every young woman in South Florida that summer. An ongoing Channel 7 news story told about spooky abductions up in North Miami, missing prostitutes, an unsuccessful attack in which a man tied up a woman with parachute cord. The words
serial killer
were being used, though no bodies had been found.
    Gee, thanks for reminding me, Elena,
I thought as I walked down the deserted street toward the van.
    I was coming back up the faded sidewalk with the champagne when I spotted a man in the beat-up black Jeep across the street.
    He reminded me of the tennis player Björn Borg, with long, dirty blond hair and wraparound sunglasses. He also sported a blond Jesus beard. I glanced at the windshield, and though his face was pointed away, I got the impression that as I approached he was watching me from behind the glasses. He took something out of the pocket of his cutoff denim shirt and started playing with it. It was a gold lighter, and he started clicking it in rhythm to the clink of champagne bottles as I walked past.
    I swallowed, suddenly afraid. The guy was definitely creepy. As I picked up my pace and made it back to the gate, the Jeep roared to life and peeled out, its big tires screeching as it took the first corner.
    What the hell had that been about? I thought, hurrying back toward the white tent.
    Teo didn’t so much as grunt a thank-you when I dropped off the heavy case by his busy bar, which was par for his course. I couldn’t decide what I disliked more about the young, handsome Hispanic with frosted hair: the several occasions I spotted him coming out of a bathroom rubbing his runny nose or the way he constantly tried to look down my shirt. If he wasn’t Elena’s cousin, I would have complained. I was definitely losing my patience.
    I found Elena with her business partner, Gary, the chef, in our staging tent. She smiled as she pulled a tray of puff pastries off the portable oven’s rack.
    “Hey, you made it back,” she said, winking at Gary. “See any dangerous-looking parachutists?”
    I actually was about to tell her about my evil Björn Borg sighting, but the way she said it, like I was a complete idiot, checked me. It would only lead to more teasing. I liked Elena, but sometimes her tough-chick sarcasm was a little hard to take. I decided to keep the creepy encounter to myself.
    “Ha-ha. At least you have a gun,” I said.