Flamingo Diner

“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.

7

Emma 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.