Lime Layer:

Combine the eggs with the white sugar. (You can use your food processor and the steel blade to do this, or you can do it by hand in a bowl.) Add the lime juice, vodka, salt, and baking powder. Mix thoroughly. Add the flour and mix until everything is incorporated. (This mixture will be runny—it’s supposed to be.)

When your crust has baked for 15 minutes, remove the pan from the oven and set it on a cold stovetop burner or a wire rack. Don’t shut off the oven! Just leave it on at 350 degrees F.

Pour the lime layer mixture on top of the crust you just baked. Use potholders to pick up the pan and return it to the oven. Bake your Sublime Lime Bar Cookies for an additional 30 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and cool your lime bars in the pan on a cold stovetop burner or a wire rack. When the pan has cooled to room temperature, cover it with foil and refrigerate it until you’re ready to serve.

Cut the bars into brownie-sized pieces, place them on a pretty platter, and sprinkle them lightly with powdered sugar. Yum!

Hannah’s 3^rd Note: If you would prefer not to use alcohol in these bar cookies, simply substitute whole milk for the vodka. This recipe works both ways and I can honestly tell you that I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like my Sublime Lime Bar Cookies!

Chapter Four

There was a knock at the back door, and Hannah glanced at the clock. It was eleven in the morning and her mother had left twenty minutes ago, Tio Tito’s Sublime Lime Bar Cookies tucked under her arm for the board member luncheon. It would have taken her at least ten minutes to drive to the hospital, and if her mother’s best friend, Carrie Rhodes, was working with the Rainbow Ladies at the hospital this morning, the news of her accident would be all over town.

“Bad news travels fast,” Hannah repeated one of her great-grandmother’s favorite homilies as she headed across the kitchen floor to open the door. “Might as well get it over with.” She added the phrase she’d been repeating to herself ever since she’d realized that the stranger she’d struck was dead, and then she winced a bit at her grammar. It was probably Bertie Straub from the Cut n’ Curl at the end of the block. Bertie was on the third tier of the Lake Eden Gossip Hotline, the phone tree Delores and Carrie had established to disseminate breaking news in Lake Eden, and Bertie would have heard about the accident by now. She was undoubtedly arriving to get the full details from Hannah so that she could repeat them to her morning clients.

“Hi, Ber . . . Norman!” Hannah changed names in mid-speech as she saw the other man she dated, Norman Rhodes, standing there. “Come in, Norman.”