Flamingo Diner (16 page)

“I’m serious and it’s never a bad time for you,” Emma said. It wasn’t that she was especially eager for Kim to cross paths with Matt, but her friend could
provide a nice little buffer between them. That would keep Emma from having to make the decision that was seeming more and more inevitable with every day that passed.

Matt was half-asleep when the dispatcher called him at home.

“I’ve got a woman on the line who says she’ll only talk to you. Want me to patch her through or tell her to call back in the morning?”

“Patch her through,” he said at once.

“Matt?”

The voice sounded familiar, but whoever it was was so clearly shaken he couldn’t be sure he was hearing right. “This is Matt,” he said quietly. “Who’s this?”

“Jennifer.”

He sat up in bed. “What’s the problem?”

“I think someone’s been following me.”

“Where are you?” he asked, already reaching for his jeans.

“I’m home now, but I think they’re outside. I don’t want to overreact. This could be my imagination playing tricks on me.”

“They?”

“I’m pretty sure there are two men,” she said. “Could you come by and check it out? I would have asked for a squad car, but I didn’t want to look foolish, if it’s nothing. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“Not a problem,” he reassured her. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

And if it turned out to be the two men who’d immediately popped into mind, he was going to hang them both without benefit of a trial.

He made it to Jennifer’s street in less than seven minutes, then cut his lights as he turned onto the block. He noted that halfway down, one house had every light on, inside and out. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Jennifer wanted to scare off the prowlers. Unfortunately, he figured if he was right, Gabe and Harley were too dense to take the hint.

He circled the block slowly. Sure enough, directly behind Jennifer’s, he spotted Gabe’s car. It was empty, which meant the two old coots were probably creeping around her yard. He was surprised they hadn’t been spotted and reported by half the neighborhood.

He parked his car so he was blocking Gabe’s, then went to look for them. He could hear them bickering before he reached the edge of the lawn.

“I’m telling you somebody was driving around with their lights off,” Harley told Gabe. “We need to get out of here. There’s nothing going on here, anyway.”

“I say we stay,” Gabe insisted. “She’s bound to do something to give herself away.”

“Such as?” Harley scoffed. “You think she’s going to toss her diary down so we can read it?”

“There you go,” Gabe said. “Maybe she has one of those fancy date book things. We get our hands on that, we can see what she’s been up to.”

“How the hell do you propose we do that?” Harley asked, sounding disgusted. “You plan to break in while she’s got every light in the place on and, more than likely, a shotgun laying across her lap?”

“If we have to,” Gabe said stubbornly.

Matt sighed heavily and stepped out of the bushes.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned. Both men jumped as if he’d pulled a gun on them.

“Dammit, Matt, are you deliberately trying to give us a heart attack?” Gabe demanded.

“That’s what you deserve,” Matt retorted. “What the hell were you thinking creeping around out here? You’re acting like a couple of aging, Peeping Toms.”

“We’re investigating,” Gabe said, clearly offended by the possibility that their actions might be misinterpreted.

“I thought I told you to leave the investigating to me,” Matt said, wondering how the devil they’d gotten away from Cramer. He was supposed to be preventing exactly this kind of rogue investigation.

“Have you found anything?” Harley asked.

“Not yet,” Matt conceded.

“Then you need us,” Gabe said.

“What I need is the patience of Job,” Matt countered. “Go home, while I try to explain to Jennifer that she has nothing to worry about.”

Gabe regarded him indignantly. “You can’t go and tell her something like that. I still say she knows something about Don dying the way he did.”

“If she does, I will find out about it, but not if the two of you go blundering around here and get her guard up. Now go, before I drag you up to the house, so you can apologize in person.”

“You wouldn’t,” Harley said.

“Try me,” Matt said. “Let’s go.”

He walked with them until they were safely settled into Gabe’s car, pulled his own car out of their path, then followed until he was reasonably certain that they were actually headed home. Then he drove back to Jennifer’s and rang the bell.

“Matt?”

“It’s me,” he reassured her.

She peeked out, then opened the door. “Did you find them?”

“It was nothing for you to worry about,” he assured her. “Just a couple of old guys who got lost.”

She didn’t look as if she believed him. “Are you sure about that?”

“Very sure. I don’t think they’ll be over this way again.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said, regarding him with suspicion. “I could always read you, you know.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” he insisted, though maybe not the whole truth. She didn’t need to know the rest.

She didn’t look entirely reassured. “If you say so,” she said skeptically. “Can you come in for coffee?”

He hesitated, then decided maybe this was the best chance he’d have to get some of the answers that he and Emma were after. “Sure, for a few minutes,” he said, then followed her into the kitchen.

The coffee was already brewed, the kitchen filled with the aroma of an expensive blend. He could see the bag of imported coffee beans on the counter. One of the reasons they would never have worked—aside from the fact that he was still crazy about Emma—was Jennifer’s expensive taste. She would have hated living on a cop’s salary and he would have hated being with a woman who insisted on buying her own luxuries.

“Late at night to be drinking so much caffeine,” he noted. “You planning on being awake awhile?”

“I’m not sleeping that well lately, anyway. I thought I might get some work done.”

“I thought you just got back from vacation,” he said. “That’s what Cori said, when I came by the office.”

“It wasn’t exactly a vacation,” she said, avoiding his gaze.

“A business conference?”

“No.”

“What then?”

She lifted her gaze to meet his. “Does it matter?”

“It might.”

“I needed to get away. That’s it.”

“Where’d you go?”

“I have a place in the mountains in North Carolina. I bought it last year, after you and I split up. It was sort of a reward for not falling apart when I realized you still had the hots for Emma Killian after all these years. I went up there for a while.” She regarded him with a hint of defiance. “Satisfied?”

“Far from it.” He met her gaze. “Did you happen to buy some flowers before you left?”

She regarded him with what looked to be genuine incredulity. “Flowers?”

“A funeral arrangement, to be specific.”

She looked shaken by the question. “No. Why on earth would you think that?”

“Somebody sent a rather lavish arrangement to the lakeside memorial for Don Killian.”

“It wasn’t me,” she said at once. “I left…I left before I even heard about his death.”

Now Matt was the one who was startled. “You did?”

She nodded. “I didn’t know anything about it, until
I picked up my mail in North Carolina a few days later and got the Winter Cove paper. The funeral was already over by then.”

Something didn’t sound quite right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “You had your mail forwarded? Why?”

“Because I knew I was going to be gone for several weeks,” she explained with exaggerated patience. “Why else does someone have mail forwarded?”

“Why such a long vacation?”

“I told you, I needed to clear my head. I had a lot going on.”

“Such as?”

Her expression turned hard. “Am I under investigation for something?”

Matt sighed. “No, not really. I’m just looking for answers.”

“About?”

“Why Don killed himself,” he said bluntly, watching closely for her reaction to his claim of suicide when all published reports had called the death an accident.

She didn’t disappoint him. Shock registered in her eyes. “I thought it was an accident. That’s what the paper said.”

“That’s the official ruling, yes,” Matt agreed.

“But you have doubts?”

“I have doubts,” he confirmed. “How about you? What was your gut reaction when you heard the news?”

“I didn’t have one, except for sorrow. I took the report at face value.”

“Really? Even though he’d had an appointment
with you late in the afternoon on the very day he died?”

Bright patches of color appeared in her cheeks. “You think I had something to do with his death?” she asked angrily. “That’s why you and Emma made an appointment to see me? Dammit, Matt, I was afraid it was something like that. Are you crazy?”

He ignored the indignation. It seemed genuine, but she could be faking it. He’d never been able to read her all that well. “We made the appointment because I thought you could give us some help looking over his accounting records, yes. It wasn’t till today when you deliberately tried to avoid us that I began to think you might be more involved than we realized.”

“Well, I’m not,” she said fiercely. “I can’t imagine why he would do such a thing.”

Matt leveled a look straight into her eyes. “Then you won’t mind meeting with me and Emma tomorrow to take a look at those books, will you?”

Her expression faltered, but she’d set a neat trap for herself. If she truly had nothing to hide, then there was no reason to avoid seeing them.

“What time?” she asked, evidently resigned.

“I think we’ll play that by ear. Just stick close to your office.”

“I can’t spend the whole day in there waiting around for you to show up,” she protested. “My schedule’s packed. I have a lot of appointments to catch up on. Not all of them are in the office.”

He regarded her with an unrelenting stare. “Make it work, Jennifer. You’ll have your phone, your computer and the stock ticker. What more could you possibly need?”

“You’re being unreasonable. That’s almost like house arrest or something.”

“I could bring you down to the station and let you cool your heels there till Emma’s free. Would that be better? I’m pretty sure our stock ticker’s on the fritz.”

She sighed. “I’ll be in my office.”

“Good choice,” he said, shoving aside his untouched cup of coffee. “Have a nice night.”

She gave him a sour look and didn’t offer to walk him to the door. Matt figured he’d pushed her just about as hard as he could given the fact that he had absolutely nothing to indicate that she was in any way involved with any crime. But she wasn’t being totally forthcoming. He’d stake his badge on that.

R
osa sat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee, waiting for Jeff to wake up and come downstairs. It was the first morning in weeks now that she’d felt halfway normal. She attributed that to having all of her children at home and to the impact of the meeting she’d attended at Saint Luke’s. It was the first day she’d awakened and hadn’t resented the brilliant blue sky and bright sunshine.

She’d almost finished reading the morning paper when Jeff wandered in, yawning. As he reached past her to grab the milk and pour himself a glass, she noticed that his eyes were clearer than they had been in a while.

“Good, you’re up just in time,” she said, smiling at him.

“Just in time for what?” he asked suspiciously.

“I thought we could go over to the diner and give Emma and Andy a break. They’ve been carrying the whole load for too long now.” She looked directly into his eyes as if she were anticipating a protest and added, “I could use the moral support, Jeff.”

She waited as he automatically opened his mouth to argue, but then clamped it shut again.

“Sure,” he said finally.

“Thank you. It means a lot having you back home.”

He seemed genuinely startled that she’d even noticed his absence. He gazed at her curiously. “You seem different, Mom, like you’re getting your act together. Has something happened that I don’t know about?”

“Actually, yes. I met some people yesterday, Jeff, people who’d lost loved ones….” She hesitated, not willing to get into the whole suicide thing with him. Instead she said, “The deaths were as unexpected as your father’s. It helped. Maybe you should come along next time I go.”

“No way,” he said at once. “I don’t give a damn about all that touchy-feely crap.”

“I felt the same way before I went, but it’s not like that at all,” she insisted. “These are real people who’ve been through what we’re going through. They understand in a way nobody else can.”

“If it helps you, go for it,” he said. “But I want no part of it.”

“You’re so angry, Jeff. It’s not healthy.”

“Are you telling me you’re not angry?” he asked incredulously.

“I was,” she said. “No, that’s not right. I’m still angry, but I’m facing it. I’m doing something about it. You need to do that, too. If you won’t let me help, there has to be someone else you can turn to. Matt, maybe.”

“As if he’d help me,” Jeff scoffed.

“Somebody else, then. Somebody besides Marisol. I don’t want to say anything against the girl—”

“Then don’t,” he said, cutting her off.

“Jeff, she’s wrong for you. Can’t you see that?”

“She’s been there for me,” he insisted.

Rosa accepted the claim at face value. “Okay, then. Who you rely on is up to you.”

He frowned, clearly not happy about her disapproval. “If we’re going to the diner, let’s go,” he said brusquely. “I’ve got someplace I need to be in a couple of hours.”

“Where?”

“Just someplace.”

“With Marisol, I imagine,” she said.

“You imagine right,” he said. “I’m out of here. I’ll wait for you in the car.” He slammed the kitchen door behind him.

Rosa stared after him. She was glad he had someone he could turn to, but did it have to be a girl who promised to be nothing but trouble? True, she was judging her on superficial things, her hair, her clothes, her tattoos, but those were indicative of her lifestyle and her self-esteem in Rosa’s opinion.

At least Jeff was home now and willing to work at the diner. Maybe she’d just have to be grateful for that and worry about the rest later.

Gabe and Harley regarded Matt sheepishly when he walked into Flamingo Diner and headed directly to their table.

“Did you two go straight home last night?” he asked as he pulled out a chair and straddled it facing them.

“You told us to, didn’t you?” Harley replied.

Matt rolled his eyes. “Since when have you listened to anything I had to say?”

“We listen,” Gabe retorted. “Sometimes we’re forced to ignore you in the interest of a higher good.”

“Oh, please,” Matt said.

Gabe was about to say something else, when Harley shushed him and turned to Matt. “Did you learn anything from the Sawyer dame after we’d gone?”

Matt regarded him incredulously. “What have you been doing? Watching old Humphrey Bogart movies? Jennifer isn’t some
dame.
You’ve known her since she was a kid. She’s still young enough to be your granddaughter.”

Harley managed to look chagrined. “Okay, okay. Did you learn anything from Ms. Sawyer? How’s that? Is that politically correct enough for you?”

“Better,” Matt said. “And whatever I learned from her is none of your concern.”

“We’re partners,” Gabe protested.

Matt stared at him, barely managing to smother a laugh. “I don’t think so. If anything, you two are the thorns in my side, the banes of my existence, the weeds in the cabbage patch.”

Harley scowled at him. “We get it. You don’t have to be insulting. We’re just trying to help, you know.”

“I do know,” Matt agreed. “Which is why I haven’t locked the two of you up before now, but don’t think I won’t if you pull another fool stunt like the one you pulled last night. You’re lucky she didn’t shoot you.”

The two men fell silent, their expressions thoughtful. Matt had a hunch they weren’t pondering their misbehavior. More likely, they were trying to think of ways they could get away with more. Suddenly Harley’s expression brightened.

“Well, will you look at that?” he said, gazing past Matt. “Rosa’s back.”

The word quickly spread as Rosa came into the
diner, a sullen Jeff trailing along behind. Matt caught her gaze and gave her a thumbs-up. He knew what a huge step this was for her, for the whole family.

He watched Emma come out from behind the counter to give her mother a hug. Then, her chin lifted high, Rosa grabbed a coffeepot and began making her way around the tables, offering refills as if this were a perfectly ordinary day. The bright patches of color in her cheeks suggested she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the old routine, but she was doing it. He admired her courage.

When she finally reached their table, Harley grabbed her free hand and gave it a smacking kiss. “Welcome back, beautiful. These tired old eyes surely did miss seeing you every morning.”

Rosa laughed and pulled her hand away. “You’re still full of it, Harley Watson.”

Matt met her gaze. “No, he’s not. You are beautiful,” he said quietly. “And everyone here has missed you. You back to stay?”

“That’s the plan,” she said, looking around the crowded diner with a nostalgic expression on her face. “Today was hard, even with Jeff beside me, but it’ll get easier, and this is where I belong. I just got a little lost for a while.”

“You have friends here,” Gabe told her, his expression serious for once. “Don’t ever forget that, Rosa. There’s not a person in here who wouldn’t do anything at all to help you get through this bad time.”

“I won’t forget that,” she said quietly. “Not ever again.” Her gaze caught Matt’s. “Think you can get Emma out of here? I don’t need her hovering over me all day as if she expects me to fall apart.”

He grinned. “Consider it done.” She had no idea
how easy it would be, once he told Emma about the promised meeting with Jennifer. “Give me five minutes and we’ll be out of your hair.”

He crossed the diner, marched behind the counter and reached for the ties on Emma’s apron. “We’re out of here,” he announced.

She frowned at him. “Are you crazy? I can’t leave Mama alone here.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Jeff came in. He may not be happy about it, but he’s already pitching in at the grill to relieve Andy.” Not that Andy had budged, Matt noticed. He just looked pleased to have his brother working alongside him. Matt looked Emma squarely in the eye. “Come on, Emma. Your mother wants you gone. I’ve been assigned to see that you go. Are you going to get me into trouble with her?”

“An intriguing thought,” she said, looking as if she might challenge him.

“Don’t go getting any ideas.” He tucked a hand at her waist and nudged her in the direction of the front door.

“What if I don’t want to go?”

He met her gaze. “Are you honestly going to deny your mother the chance to prove that she’s up to handling this place again?”

Emma hesitated for an instant and Matt knew he’d won. She would never willingly interfere in her mother’s recovery. She’d been waiting too long for some sign that Rosa’s heart was mending. The aching sense of loss might never go away, but it could be held at bay long enough to go about the business of living.

“Let’s go,” she said, then regarded him with eyes
suddenly twinkling with mischief. “But you’d better make it worth my while.”

“Careful, sweetheart. You just might get more than you bargained for.”

She laughed. “Now
that
really is an intriguing thought. Do you seriously think you’re up to it?”

Matt’s blood raced so fast, it was all he could do to think coherently, but he kept his gaze locked with hers. “Only one way to find out.”

He caught her hand and dragged her from the restaurant. “Your place or mine?”

She faltered then. “Um, Matt, I was only teasing.”

“Oh, really?” he asked innocently. “That’s the kind of teasing that can get a woman in trouble.”

She reached up and touched his cheek. “Not with you,” she said confidently.

He took her hand, turned it and pressed a kiss to her palm. “Don’t count on it, darlin’. Even I have my limits.”

And he was damn close to reaching them.

Coming back to Flamingo Diner had been easier than Rosa had anticipated. These people were her friends, and they did everything they could to make her first day back seem like a celebration. It had been weeks since Don had died, changing her life forever, but today had felt like the first real day of the rest of her life. If she could get through today without coming unglued, then she really was going to be okay.

Not that the day had been without its bittersweet moments. A snowbird, who apparently hadn’t been in town at the time of Don’s death, inadvertently caused a moment of painful silence when she’d asked after him. Helen had stepped in and quietly saved the day,
explaining that he’d died, but not the circumstances. The woman’s genuinely heartfelt condolences had more than made up for her blunder.

In fact, it was Helen’s reassuring presence, along with Jolie’s and Sylvia’s, that had made the day bearable. They’d stayed so long, nursing first coffee, then iced tea, then sodas, it was a wonder they weren’t floating. After sending Jeff on his way and locking the front door, Rosa sank down at their table with her own glass of tea.

“You did great,” Helen said.

“Better than I would have,” Sylvia added.

Rosa gave her a grateful look. “Only thanks to you. If you hadn’t made me go to that meeting at Saint Luke’s, I’m not sure I would have been brave enough to come here today.”

“Tomorrow will be easier,” Jolie promised her. “I’ll never forget the first time I had to face everybody after my divorce.” She grinned at Sylvia. “It was the annual Fourth of July barbecue at your house, remember?”

“I remember,” Helen said. “Rosa and I had to come by and drag you over there. You said you were going to be a fifth wheel, that you didn’t want to be around all those couples. And then Mick Henderson came on to you in the first ten minutes and everything was just fine.”

Jolie blushed. “Okay, so I needed to get my confidence back. Getting dumped doesn’t do much for a woman’s self-esteem.”

“And Mick Henderson does?” Rosa teased. “The man chases any female with a pulse.”

“But that day, he chose me,” Jolie retorted, then lowered her voice and confided, “I let him kiss me.”

Rosa glanced at Sylvia and Helen, then all three of them started laughing.

“What?” Jolie demanded.

“Did you actually think that was a secret?” Helen asked.

“Well, of course,” Jolie began indignantly, then faltered. “It wasn’t?”

“The only thing Mick enjoys more than flirting is talking about it,” Sylvia told her. “We knew, and frankly, we couldn’t have been happier. It proved you were ready to start living again.”

Rosa frowned at them. “Don’t get any bright ideas about trying to prove the same thing with me.” She glanced at Jolie. “Unless, of course, Mick is a better kisser than I imagined.”

“He thinks it’s his civic duty to console widows and divorcées, so he’s had a lot of practice,” Jolie said. “Draw your own conclusions.”

Rosa shuddered. She wasn’t ready to consider kissing another man, not even to prove to herself that she was still alive. “I think I’ll pass, anyway,” she told her friends. “It’s going to be a very long time before I even look at someone new.” Her eyes filled with tears. “The only man I ever wanted was Don. I thought I was the only woman he wanted, too.”

“You were,” Helen said fiercely. “You have absolutely no evidence to the contrary, so stop making yourself crazy.”

“And even if—” Jolie began, only to have Helen cut her off with a sharp look.

“Even if nothing,” Helen said emphatically. “Don Killian was faithful.”

Rosa thought about Emma’s revelation that she was investigating what had made Don feel desperate
enough to kill himself. There was no telling what she’d turn up.

“Emma’s trying to find out why her father died,” she told the others. “I’m not sure if I want to know. It seems so pointless now. He’s dead, so what does it matter why he died?”

“For one thing, it might end all this wild speculation you’re engaging in,” Helen said. “I think she should try to find the answers. It’s always better to know the truth.”

“Always?” Rosa asked doubtfully.

Jolie nodded slowly. “Always. I didn’t want to know that my husband was cheating on me. Outwardly I ignored all the signs, but inwardly I tortured myself with doubts every single night he didn’t come home from work on time. Maybe if I’d faced facts sooner and forced the issue, we could have worked things out. Instead, I suffered in silence, getting more and more resentful every day. That gave him just the excuse he needed to turn to other women, and pretty soon he wasn’t home at all anymore. We hadn’t had a real marriage for at least two years before he finally walked out for good.”