Flamingo Diner (7 page)

“They’d been together a lot of years,” Harley persisted. “Sometimes a man gets to a certain age and decides to take a look around. Don was a friendly guy. A lot of women who came in the diner probably took a second look at him.”

“Any one in particular?” Matt inquired casually, even though he couldn’t imagine Don ever looking at anyone besides Rosa.

Harley looked pleased as punch that someone was taking him seriously. “Maureen Polk, maybe. She’s been looking to get married again. She’s even cast her eye in my direction.”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “Just shows the sort of taste she has. Don would never give a woman like that the time of day.”

“Anyone else?” Matt asked.

Harley’s expression turned thoughtful. “You know he was huddled with that Sawyer girl an awful lot.”

Gabe hooted. “Are you crazy? Jennifer Sawyer is young enough to be his daughter. She went to school with you, didn’t she, Matt?”

Matt nodded slowly, unwilling to comment. His own relationship with Jennifer hadn’t been common knowledge. He’d seen the financial consultant at Flamingo Diner just about every morning, but few people had suspected that they hadn’t simply bumped into each other there by accident. When Jennifer had wanted their relationship to go public and Matt had broken it off, he’d managed to avoid her. In all that time, Matt couldn’t recall Don paying any particular attention to Jennifer. Besides, Don wouldn’t so much as innocently flirt right under Rosa’s nose, much less start a torrid affair with a woman half his age. Matt wouldn’t believe it of him, not without hard proof. And for a while there, Jennifer hadn’t had time to be involved with another man. He could swear to that.

Harley’s expression turned sour. “Don’t either of you think that Don was above such a thing. There’s not a man on the planet who can’t be tied up in knots by a female, and that’s the truth. You talk to her, Matt. I’m willing to bet that Sawyer woman knows something.”

“Bet what?” Gabe demanded at once. “Put some money on the line and make it interesting.”

“The only place I bet is the racetrack,” Harley retorted piously. “And Gabe Jenkins, you should be ashamed of turning this into some sort of sleazy way to make a couple of bucks.”

Gabe did have the grace to look abashed by the criticism. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Matt regarded them both sternly. “I hope neither of you let Rosa or Emma hear your wild ideas. This has been difficult enough for them. Right now Don’s death is considered an accident, period. Are we clear on that?”

“Absolutely,” Harley said at once, obviously horrified that Matt would think he might share his speculation with the family.

“She won’t hear a word from me, either,” Gabe assured him.

Satisfied, Matt left them and went in search of Emma. She’d left the room a half hour earlier and hadn’t reappeared.

He found her out by the pool, sitting on the edge, her bare feet dangling in the water, her cheeks streaked with tears. The vulnerable expression in her eyes when she looked up tore at him.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

She shrugged.

Matt kicked off his shoes, ripped off his socks and rolled up his pants legs before dropping down beside her. The pool was bathwater warm. On any other occasion, he’d have been tempted to search for a spare bathing suit inside the house and jump right in.

“A swim would feel good about now,” he said just to make conversation.

“Believe me, I thought about jumping in with my clothes on, but I figured everyone would panic and think I was trying to drown myself,” Emma retorted with a wry glance in his direction.

“Emma, no one would make comparisons with
what happened to your father. As far as most of the people here are concerned, he died in an accident.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “I saw you huddled with Gabe and Harley. They were good friends of Dad’s. Do they think it was an accident?”

“Gabe and Harley are bored. They’re always looking for excitement,” he said carefully.

“In other words, they think there’s something off with the way he died, too,” she said. “What do they know?”

“They don’t know anything,” Matt insisted. “They’re just speculating.”

She started to get to her feet. “I need to talk to them.”

“Not now,” he insisted, catching her hand and pulling her back down beside him. “I know everything they know and it’s nothing we can do anything about right this second. I’ll follow up on it tomorrow. You need to get some rest.”

“As if I can,” she said wearily. “Do you think any of us will be able to look at anyone else ever again without wondering if there’s some dark secret at work? If my dad could kill himself, is there anyone who’s not susceptible to suicide as a way out?”

“You,” Matt said with certainty. “And I wish you would stop saying that your dad killed himself. We don’t know that.”

“I do,” Emma said. “I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t ignore what my heart is telling me. As for me not being likely to kill myself, I don’t see how you can say that. Everyone always said Dad and I were a lot alike.”

“And you were, but you have your mother’s
strength. Problems don’t daunt you. You pitch in and look for solutions.”

Emma seemed surprised by his analysis. “What makes you say that?”

Matt grinned. “Remember the time you broke your brother’s bike? You’d borrowed it without permission, then ended up smashing it into a tree. I’ve never seen such a mess, but when I came along you weren’t crying or wringing your hands. You looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I could sneak back to the house and get some tools and help you put it back together.”

She leaned into him for a second. “You were definitely my hero that day.”

Matt gazed into her eyes and barely resisted the desire to sigh. If only he could have stayed her hero.

Then again, maybe he was getting a second chance now, though he wondered how she’d feel if she knew he’d carried on a brief, but torrid affair with the woman Gabe and Harley thought might also have been linked to her father.

“You’re doing the same thing now,” he told her, forcing himself to focus on the present, not the past. “You’re trying to fix this, doing what needs to be done, even though your heart is breaking.”

“I suppose,” she said. “But it’s one thing to come home and organize a funeral, to get meals on the table, and try to lift everyone’s spirits. It’s quite another to know what to do next.”

“You’ll figure it out. When the time comes, the answer will come to you.”

She regarded him skeptically. “What if I don’t like the answer?”

He knew what she was really worried about. She
was terrified that she was going to be needed here indefinitely, when her life—the life she loved—was elsewhere.

“Then you’ll come up with a better one,” he said confidently. “Or if there’s only one solution, then you’ll make peace with it.”

“You make it sound so easy,” she said, sounding wistful.

“Not easy,” Matt corrected. “I know nothing about this is easy, but I have every confidence that you’re up to the challenge.” He glanced over and saw the sad, lost expression on her face, and decided that what Emma needed more than anything right now was to get her mind off the future. He elbowed her gently in the ribs to get her attention.

“Last one to the other end is a rotten egg,” he taunted, already shoving off the edge of the pool.

She stared after him in shock. Then a grin slowly spread across her face and she, too, pushed off.

Emma was a strong swimmer, more than strong enough to be a match for his greater height and head start. They touched the far end of the pool at the same instant and came out of the water laughing.

“You’re crazy,” she said, but her eyes were sparkling for the first time since she’d returned home.

Matt figured that ruining his best suit pants in all that chlorine was a small price to pay to see Emma happy. It might be a very temporary fix, but at least it was a reminder to both of them that life went on, that laughter was still possible even in the face of tragedy.

Just then she reached up, her hand cool against his cheek. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

“For?”

“This. Everything.”

Matt turned his head and pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand. “Anytime, darlin’. Anytime.”

Still soaking wet and dripping all over the tile floor in the kitchen, Emma ran smack into her mother, who regarded her with a horrified expression.

“What on earth were you thinking?” Rosa demanded. “We’ve just buried your father and you’re jumping into the pool with your clothes on. What will people say?”

Before Emma could reply that she didn’t give two figs what anyone thought, she sensed Matt stepping up behind her.

“It’s my fault,” he told her mother. “I fell in and Emma had to rescue me.”

Rosa scowled at both of them as if they were fourteen again. “As if I’m likely to believe that. Emma, go change your clothes. Jack Lawrence wants to talk to us. Matthew, go up to my room and find something of Don’s to put on before you go home.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Matt said meekly, then winked at Emma as he passed by.

Emma stood where she was, shivering in the air-conditioned room. “Why does Mr. Lawrence need to see us tonight?”

Rosa sighed. “It’s about your father’s will.”

“Can’t that wait?”

“He says not.”

Emma touched her mother’s pale face. “Are you up to this?”

“No, but it appears I have no choice. Now, hurry and change, please. Let’s get this over with. Jeff and Andy are already waiting.”

Emma changed clothes quickly and ran a comb through her damp hair. She said a quick goodbye to Matt in the hallway, then drew in a deep breath before joining her mother and brothers in the living room.

Jack Lawrence, her parents’ lawyer, had a sheaf of papers in front of him and a somber expression on his face that made her catch her breath. He nodded when Emma walked in, then began to speak in what she assumed to be the tone he deliberately chose for sad occasions. No normal human being talked in such a low, falsely soothing monotone.

“As you know, I have been this family’s attorney for many years now. As soon as I heard the terrible news about Don, I began gathering the information I knew you would need to move on with your lives. I have his will here, which is simple enough. If it’s all right with all of you, I’ll dispense with a formal reading and just explain it.”

“Please,” Rosa said, as if she would agree to anything that shortened the proceedings.

“Okay, then,” the attorney said. “Everything is left in your name Rosa, with provisions that it be divided equally among Emma, Jeff and Andy after your death.”

Emma glanced at her mother and noted that she’d clenched her hands so tightly that the knuckles were white.

“What exactly are our assets?” Rosa asked. “Don had insurance policies.”

The attorney looked uncomfortable. “I’ve looked into those. Because his death hasn’t…” He stopped, censored himself, and tried again. “Because Don’s death hasn’t officially been ruled an accident, they won’t pay. Not yet, at any rate. Of course, once
there’s an official ruling, I’m sure that money will come to you.”

Emma watched her mother’s face as the attorney spoke. She showed no reaction to his pointed remark about the death not having been ruled an accident. Once again she wondered if her mother shared her suspicions about it being deliberate. Was that why she’d been so angry, why she’d refused to see her friends? Because she didn’t want to voice her fear that her husband had committed suicide?

“I see,” Rosa said, her voice weak and clearly strained. “What do we have?”

“There’s your joint checking account. A small retirement account. This house and, of course, Flamingo Diner. Rosa, I’m sure you have a better sense of your cash flow than I do, but as long as the diner stays operating, I imagine you’ll be just fine financially. The mortgage payment is a little higher than I anticipated, but you’ve been managing for months now, so there’s no reason to assume you won’t be able to continue to do so.”

Her mother’s complexion paled. “We can’t possibly have a high mortgage payment on the diner. We took out that loan nearly thirty years ago. We should be within months, maybe a year, of paying it off.”

The attorney looked taken aback by her claim. “Rosa, I’m afraid there’s been some mistake. According to the records I have, the loan won’t be paid off for another fourteen years. Don refinanced and took out a fifteen-year note on the diner just a year ago.”

Emma reached for her mother’s hand, found it to be cold as ice. “How can that be?” she asked.
“Surely my mother wouldn’t be mistaken about something like that.”

“All I know is what the bank reported to me,” Jack said defensively. “The loan on the house should be paid off about the same time. It was refinanced last year as well.”

“Oh, my God,” Rosa whispered, looking shocked. “What did he do to us?”

Emma, Jeff and Andy watched helplessly as their mother ran from the room, listened as the door slammed shut behind her. Her sobs echoed through the stunned silence.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, looking at Emma. “I had no idea she didn’t know.” He gathered his papers together, then met Emma’s gaze. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do, anything at all.”

Emma doubted she would be calling on him. For the moment, he’d done quite enough to further shatter their once secure world. As for her, any last hope she’d had of being able to go back to Washington in the near future was pretty much dashed to bits. Far worse, with the revelations about the financial mess her father had created and hidden from her mother, any slim shred of hope she’d clung to that her father’s death had been an accident had been snapped in two.

E
mma wished with everything in her that she could follow Jack Lawrence out into the night and never come back. She dreaded going back inside to face the million questions her brothers were bound to have. How could she calm their fears when she had so many of her own? As for her mother, she had no idea how to deal with her at all.

When she finally drew in a deep breath and went into the dining room, she walked into the middle of a heated argument between Andy and Jeff.

“Leave it to the old man to throw us a curve,” Jeff said angrily. “Did you see mom’s face? She didn’t know about those mortgages. I’ll bet dad was throwing all that money away on some woman.”

“He was not!” Andy said, obviously near tears. “Don’t you dare say that.”

“Andy’s right,” Emma said quietly. “I won’t let you talk about our father that way.”

“Then you explain where all that money went,” Jeff retorted.

“I don’t know,” Emma said. “But I do intend to find out.”

Andy ignored her and turned to Jeff. “Are we broke?”

Fearful of what Jeff might say, she stepped in.
“No. As long as we have the diner, we’ll never be broke.”

“What are we going to do?” Andy asked, still looking to his brother. He swallowed hard, then squared his shoulders and said bravely, “I can drop out of football this fall and work another job. I can put off college for another year, too.”

Emma wasn’t surprised that Andy was immediately willing to make sacrifices. It was his nature, but she couldn’t allow him to do it.

Before she could say a word, though, Jeff spoke up. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said fiercely. “This is not your problem to solve.”

“Then who will?” Andy asked.

“We’ll all pitch in, I guess,” Jeff said, sounding less certain.

“Even Emma?” Andy asked as if she weren’t sitting right there. His skepticism was plain.

Emma sighed. Until now, things had been so hectic that she’d been able to avoid the fact that her brother was furious with her for not coming home sooner. Clearly, she had some fence-mending to do with Andy.

“Of course, I’ll pitch in,” Emma said emphatically.

“You planning on sending a check from D.C. every so often?” Jeff asked bitterly, then added mockingly, “Big deal.”

So, it was two against one, she thought. Maybe she deserved their attitude. She returned Jeff’s angry gaze with an unflinching look. “What would you like me to do?”

Jeff faltered at that. “Honestly, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you do,” he retorted, heading for the door.

“Jeff!”

Emma’s impatient, slightly frantic voice carried after him, but he ignored her. She turned to Andy.

“Why don’t you go ahead and say it,” she suggested quietly.

He squirmed uncomfortably. He was not the kind of kid who enjoyed confrontation.

“Well?”

“Say what?” he asked.

“I know you’re angry with me. I know you think if I had come home sooner things might have turned out differently.”

“That’s right,” he said, his voice climbing. “If you’d been here, Dad might not be dead. It’s your fault, Emma.” His voice caught on a sob. “I hate you! I hate you!”

She stopped him as he tried to run from the room and held him tightly. “I wish I’d been here,” she told him, her own tears streaking down her cheeks. “I wish I’d listened to you.” He had no idea how much she regretted the choice she’d made to wait to come home.

But unlike Andy, she wasn’t convinced that there was anything she could have done to stop any of this.

Matt spent a restless night with images of Emma dancing in his head, her wet clothes plastered to her body, her eyes sparkling as she’d laughed for the first time since she’d returned home. He knew better than to turn that shared moment of laughter into anything more than it was, but his heart seemed oblivious to his head’s very rational advice. Damn, but the woman got to him. It would kill him to see her walk away again, and that was exactly what she was going to do,
no question about it. There was no point in him getting any wild ideas about the future.

Rather than going to Flamingo Diner, which was supposed to reopen this morning, he deliberately picked up two apple-filled doughnuts and a cup of coffee and headed straight for the station, telling himself that he was at least eating fruit for breakfast. He was at his desk a full hour earlier than usual.

Cramer Dillon, the overnight desk sergeant, regarded him with surprise and followed him into his office. It never occurred to Cramer to wait for an invitation.

“Thought Flamingo Diner was going to open today,” the longtime sergeant said, eyeing the doughnuts with a mix of curiosity and longing.

“That’s the plan,” Matt agreed.

“Thought the Killian girl would still be here from D.C.,” he added as if Emma’s presence were of particular significance to his boss.

“She is,” Matt replied.

“Thought you always had a thing for her,” Cramer said.

Heaven save him from people with long memories and absolutely no sensitivity. Matt scowled at him. “Don’t even go there.”

Cramer hadn’t reached the ripe old age of sixty-two and worked with several chiefs by being easily intimidated. He deliberately plucked up one of the doughnuts and took a bite, his expression thoughtful.

“A smart man would be there this morning,” he told Matt. “It’s bound to be a tough day.”

“Don’t you have paperwork you ought to be doing?” Matt asked, struggling to resist the advice because it would be too damn easy to follow it.

“Nope,” Cramer said easily. “I’m all caught up. It was a quiet night. I’ve got nothing better to do than sit around here and be your conscience.” He wiped his mouth on a napkin and reached for the second doughnut, his gaze on Matt direct and unrelenting.

The weight of all that expectation finally got to him. Matt sighed and stood up. “It’s no wonder no woman ever stayed married to you. You are such a nag.”

Cramer grinned. “Who needs marriage when I’ve got Gwendolyn to go home to at night, and I don’t hear no complaints from her.”

Matt laughed. “Gwendolyn’s a basset hound, in case you haven’t noticed, and she looks mighty sad to me.”

“That’s not my doing,” Cramer retorted. “That’s genetics. Now get on over there and do the right thing. I caught a glimpse of the Killian girl at her dad’s funeral yesterday. She’s turned into a real looker. A smart man wouldn’t let her get away a second time.”

“What makes you think you know the right thing to do, when it’s clear that the rest of the world botches it up all the time?” Matt asked.

“I had a mama who taught me right from wrong,” Cramer said. His expression suddenly sobered as he met Matt’s gaze. “And you had Don and Rosa Killian to teach you the same thing. I imagine those lessons stuck well enough, even in your hard head.”

“Low blow,” Matt murmured, but he dutifully headed for the door. “If anyone calls, tell ’em—”

“I’ll tell ’em what I always tell ’em this time of day, that you’re in your other office scoping out
what’s going on around town.” He winked at Matt. “While you’re over there, give Emma a kiss for me.”

“Any kissing that goes on, I’ll take the credit for it, thanks all the same.”

Cramer laughed. “Whatever works.”

“By the way, have you filed that report on Don’s car?”

“Of course I have.”

“I imagine you read it, too, correct?”

“Does a hound dog hunt?”

“Was there a glass breaker in there?”

“Right in the console. One of them kind that shatters glass and has a blade on the other end for cutting through seat belts,” Cramer said, then turned pale. “Holy Mother of God, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Matt didn’t respond. But he left for the diner with his heart a whole lot heavier than it had been earlier.

Emma must have fried ten pounds of bacon. For a woman who hadn’t cooked anything beyond the bare essentials since the day she’d walked out of Flamingo Diner to go to college, finding herself in front of the once familiar gas stove trying to meet the demands of a breakfast crowd should have been frightening. Instead, she found herself relieved to not have to think. Keeping her eye on the steady stream of orders required all her concentration. She didn’t have time to acknowledge Jeff’s sullen attitude or Andy’s fumbling attempts to keep the orders straight as he delivered them to the packed tables. At least he was acknowledging her presence this morning.

The attorney’s words the night before had left the entire family shaken. Rosa hadn’t left her room since.
Andy still looked as if he wanted to cry. Jeff was back from wherever he’d disappeared to the night before, but he hadn’t exchanged two words with Emma. And Emma had had to face the fact that she couldn’t go back to Washington while things were in such a state of uncertainty.

At the front door the night before Jack Lawrence had looked her in the eye. “You’re going to have to open the diner again soon,” he said. “Or it will be too late.”

Still not fully comprehending just how dire things were, Emma had merely nodded. “We’re already planning to open tomorrow.”

“That’s good then. If I were you, Emma, I’d hire a good financial planner who can look over all of this and get you back on track.”

On track.
His words echoed now. When—how—had they gotten off track? Her father had always been so savvy about finances, so conservative. Emma knew her mother’s head had to be reeling with the same questions. She would never forget the dazed expression on her mother’s face as the reality of their situation had sunk in. It was as if this final blow had been too much.

After the others had gone to bed—or out, in Jeff’s case—Emma had wrestled with her options. She had only one, really. The work she loved was in Washington, but her family was here and they needed her. Holding back tears of anger and frustration, she had called and broken the news to Marcel that she wouldn’t be back.

“Sweetheart, you can’t do this,” he’d protested with satisfying dismay. “It’s not just that I need you.
You’ll perish in that abysmal little town. You need to be doing the kind of work you love.”

“And one of these days I will,” she insisted. “It just can’t be now.”

“Please, don’t close this door, Emma. Stay another week or two, till things are back on an even keel, then come back to Washington.”

“I don’t think things here can be fixed that fast,” she’d told him honestly. If she and Matt and the ME all reached the same conclusion, that her father’s death hadn’t been an accident, she was determined to find out what had driven him to commit suicide.

“Take a month. I can manage for that long,” Marcel assured her. “Then get back up here where you belong. Your job will be waiting. The customers ask about you every day. You’ve gotten to know them. They trust you. Even that sourpuss designer Noreen Winchell told me what an asset you are to the store and how much she relies on you to help her find the perfect objet d’art for her clients.”

As pleased as she was by his coaxing words, as badly as she wanted to say yes, Emma knew that two weeks or even a month wouldn’t be nearly long enough to make things right for her family. The handwriting had been on the wall after the meeting with the attorney.

“Thanks, Marcel. I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I think you should be looking for someone to replace me.” She’d put the phone down before Marcel could argue, before she could be tempted to accept his very persuasive offer.

Five minutes after she’d hung up on Marcel, Kim had called. She’d checked in several times since
Emma had gotten to Florida, but this call was no coincidence. Emma knew it.

“Marcel just called me. Don’t do this,” Kim pleaded. “I know you feel responsible for making things right, but nothing will be right, if you’re miserable. Don’t be a martyr. Your mom, Andy and Jeff can manage.”

“They can’t,” Emma said. “Mama’s fallen apart. Jeff’s on the verge of doing something crazy. Andy’s barely speaking to me. I have to fix this.”

“Some things people have to fix for themselves,” Kim replied. “Sweetie, this is not what your father would have wanted.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I don’t think any of us know anymore what my father wanted,” Emma admitted, venting her frustration to the friend who’d known her for so many years. “We’re facing a whole slew of unanswered questions.”

“Maybe you just have to let them go,” Kim responded quietly. “Maybe the only thing to do is to move forward.”

“How can I do that? Did I mention that Andy’s thinking of dropping football, which would mean no college? I can’t get through to Jeff. And Mama won’t leave her room. Somebody has to take charge.”

“If you left, they’d have to pull it together,” Kim pointed out. “If you stay, they can just leave it all to you. Do you really want to be a martyr? Do you want to wake up ten years from now, or even a year from now and realize you sacrificed some of the best years of your life for people who probably won’t even appreciate it?”

“That’s not fair,” Emma said, hurt by the sugges
tion that she was playing martyr, rather than doing the right thing.

“None of this is fair,” Kim agreed.

A part of Emma knew that Kim was right, but the part of her that was terrified more tragedy would strike if she didn’t step in won out. “No matter what you think, I have to do this,” she told her friend. “Believe me, I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but I’ve thought it over. It’s the only choice. I’ll be back in Washington as soon as things here are in order. If Marcel doesn’t have a job for me then, I’ll find something else. I’m not giving up on my dream, just postponing it.”

Kim sighed. “I know that tone,” she said, sounding resigned. “You’re not going to change your mind. I guess I’ll just have to start flying down there every few weeks so we can have our Sunday breakfast chats.”

Emma’s chuckle was only slightly forced. “Only if you can pitch in and cook while we’re talking.”

“God forbid!” Kim replied. “You’d never recover from the lawsuits.”

Overnight, Emma made peace with her decision. Everything she’d said to Kim and Marcel had been true. This morning before leaving to open the diner, Emma had stopped in her mother’s room and told Rosa she intended to stay, at least until the business was on solid ground again. Because she hated the decision she was being forced to make, because she knew she couldn’t defend it for long, she had cut off her mother’s halfhearted protests. Staying was the only choice. For now.