Death Fricassee Read online

  “Doesn’t seem right not to have him here, calling out orders and telling us how to do it right.” Mary stood next to me, sniffling into her lacy handkerchief.

  “He’ll always be here, won’t he?” I had been studiously avoiding looking at the spot on the floor where Al had fallen. Dena had told me that the police had been reluctant to allow people into the diner, but since they’d exhausted all the crime scene investigation at the restaurant, there’d been no reason to keep the place closed.

  “He’d want us to re-open.” Mary nodded, agreeing with me. “There should be people here, eating and enjoying themselves. I haven’t talked to the children yet to see what they plan to do.”

  I draped a comforting arm around her shoulder. “They haven’t decided yet, but I know they plan to take care of all the staff while they make up their minds. Al would want that, too.” I picked up a basket of bread. “I’m going to make the rounds again. We have some new people sitting down now.”

  I went by all the booths and tables, serving fresh, hot bread. I knew most everyone, and I lingered to chat with a few, sharing memories or just the trite phrases we all fell back on during these times.

  A woman I didn’t recognize sat alone at the counter. She was older, had dark hair and wide brown eyes, and she didn’t speak to anyone as she ate her salad.

  “Would you care for some bread?” I used the tongs to offer her a slice.

  “Thanks.” She took it and dropped it on the side of her plate. She seemed uncomfortable, almost uneasy.

  “I don’t think I know you. I’m Jackie O’Brien.” I set down the bread and extended my hand. “Al was a good friend of mine. How did you know him?”

  She regarded my hand for a second and then took it briefly. “Antonia DiBartola. I’m. . .my father knew Al. Many years ago, in New Jersey.”

  “Oh, it’s great you could be here for the service. Do you live down here now?”

  Antonia shook her head. “No, I still live in New Jersey. I just happened to be down here visiting my mother.” She broke off a piece of bread and looked down at it in her hand. “Everyone says he was such a wonderful man. What the people at the church were saying. . .was it all true?”

  I eased my hip onto the stool next to her. “All of it and more. I never knew a better man than Al, and I have the world’s best dad and brothers. So that’s saying something. Al never failed to help someone who needed it. He took lonely people under his wing. He worked with the homeless shelters, with the church. . .he gave more kids their first jobs than anyone else in the community. Yes, it was all true.”

  She pushed her plate back. “I didn’t know.” She murmured the words so low, I had to lean forward to hear them. “I didn’t know what he was like now.”

  “Is your father here, too?” I glanced around, trying to match her to one of the crowds of old men milling around.

  “No, he. . .he died a long time ago.”

  I frowned, confused. Her dad must’ve known Al a very long time ago. I guessed she was at least thirty years older than me.

  “I’m sorry, I have to go.” Antonia stood up, nearly knocking me off my stool. “Thanks for the food.”

  She hiked a heavy black bag onto her shoulder and pushed through the crowd, muttering her excuses. She was out the door before I could even stand.

  “Who was that?” Dena was at my elbow, staring after the woman.

  “She said her dad knew yours, a long time ago in New Jersey. Her name was Antonia. . .Di-something-or-other. Does it ring a bell?”

  “No.” She frowned. “Seemed like she was in a hurry to leave.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. She asked me if everything she’d heard about Al at the church was true. And when I said it was, she looked shaken.”

  “Hmmm.” Dena shook her head. “People are odd.” She slid her arm around my waist and hugged me. “Thanks for all of your help, Jackie. I don’t know what we’d have done without everyone down here.”

  “It’s the least I could do. You know how much Al meant to me.” I laid my head on her shoulder briefly. “I’m going to miss him so much. Thanks for sharing your dad with me all these years.”

  “Are you kidding? Thank you for keeping your eye on him all this time. We worried about Dad down here without any of us. Every time we came to visit, we tried to persuade him to sell the diner, come back home and live with one of us. But he never would. He said he had to keep working as long as he could.”

  “He didn’t see it as work. He just saw it as life.” I smiled. “Which reminds me. I have all the notes and recipes for the cookbook. I’d like to go ahead and put it together for publication, if you and your family agree. The profits would go to the estate, of course, but I want to make sure that dream is realized.”

  “Oh, Jackie. You don’t know how happy that makes me.” She wiped at her eyes. “Definitely. And if you need anything at all for it, any help, please let me know. He was so excited about that book. Seeing it come to life. . .it’ll be like holding onto a little part of him. Thank you.”

  I stayed at the diner to help with clean up after the final guest had departed. Mary and I were the last two out the door, and I caught her staring back into the dark, sadness wreathing her worn face.

  “They may keep it open, they may sell it to someone who doesn’t change one thing. But it doesn’t matter, you know? It’ll never be the same. That time is over. The true spirit of Leone’s died with Al.”

  I was still thinking about her words as I unlocked my front door. To my surprise, Makani met me, his little body writhing in joy.

  “What are you doing out, baby? Who let you out of your crate?”

  “Sorry, that was me.” Lucas stepped out of the kitchen, holding a wooden spoon in his hand. “I figured you’d be tired when you got home, so I made you dinner. And I took the pup out for his business, and I fed him, too.”

  “Go, you.” I slipped the black heels off my feet and moaned in pleasure. “God, you have no idea how good that feels. Oh, baby.”

  Lucas watched me, his mouth hanging slightly open. “Yeah. Oh, baby.”

  I stuck out my tongue. “Until you’ve spent almost ten hours in three-inch heels, you have nothing to say, mister.” I fell onto the couch with another groan. “My feet hurt, my back hurts. . .I’m pretty sure not an inch of my body isn’t aching.”

  “Poor thing.” Lucas sat on the end of the sofa and put my feet in his lap. He massaged the insteps, using his thumbs until my eyes rolled back into my head.

  “Oh, my God, that feels amazing. Never stop. Ever.”

  “Okay, but then who’s going to serve you the best potato soup you’ve ever eaten?”

  “Seriously? You made me potato soup?”

  “I did. I can’t cook much, but my mom made sure I knew how to make this soup.” He patted the tops of my feet. “Stay here, and I’ll bring it to you.”

  “Wash your hands first,” I called after him.

  “Thanks, mom.”

  I lay my head back on the arm of the sofa and listened to him in the kitchen, talking to Makani who had trotted in after him. I was exhausted and still sad from the day, but Lucas was taking care of me. He’d made me soup. He’d come over to my house so I didn’t have to be alone tonight. And for the first time since Nana died, there was sense of hominess, of family, in my house. Someone else was here, someone who cared about me.

  I didn’t know whether it was the extreme fatigue or all of the emotions of the past few days, but as I lay there, tears began to stream down my face. I wiped them away with my hand, trying to get rid of the evidence before Lucas came back.

  “Jackie, what’s wrong?” He stood next to me, carrying a tray that included a bowl of steaming soup that smelled fan-freaking-tastic, a plate with a crusty roll and a glass of my favorite white wine. He had a napkin under the spoon. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  “Nothing.” I sniffled and reached for the tray. “I’m just tired. This looks amazing.”

  “I’ll be righ
t there, I’m just going to get my bowl.” Makani pranced alongside Lucas’s feet as he went back to the kitchen.

  I tasted my soup and nearly swooned. “This is most definitely the best potato soup I’ve ever had. You can tell your mom she succeeded.”

  “Thanks.” Lucas took his place on the end of the couch again. “How did everything go today?”

  I sighed. “It was hard, but the turnout was beyond what we’d expected. Al’s kids were appreciative. And I think everyone in town, possibly everyone in Florida, came back to Leone’s for the repast. It was insane.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.”

  I sipped another spoonful of warm potato-y goodness. “It’s okay, Lucas. You didn’t really know Al. No one expected you to be at the service.”

  “I would’ve gone for you.”

  I laid my spoon in the bowl and set it back on the tray. “Lucas, I appreciate all of this. But you know you don’t have to feel sorry for me. And. . .the fact that we share your secrets and we messed around the other night doesn’t mean you owe me anything.”

  “I know all of that. I’m not doing anything because I pity you, Jackie. I’m doing it because I want to.” He dipped a piece of bread into his soup. “I know it’s been fast between us in some ways, but it’s not meaningless. I know you’re a little uncertain about where we stand—”

  I frowned. “I am?”

  Lucas blew out a breath. “Yeah. Cathryn said you were.”

  “Wait a minute, why would Cathryn tell you that? She referred to you as my boyfriend, and I said that might be a little premature. But I didn’t have any deep talk with her about my feelings.”

  “I think it was something she heard you think.” He spoke so matter-of-factly that for a minute I didn’t react.

  “Something she what now?”

  He had the good grace to look guilty. “I guess I forgot to tell you that Cathryn can hear thoughts.”

  “She what?” I nearly dropped my wine glass.

  “Yeah, that’s her ability. She usually blocks the thoughts, but I guess she was suspicious about you, so she sort of. . .listened in.”

  I closed my eyes, running through all the horribly embarrassing things I’d thought the day before. I remembered how she’d looked at me a few times with an odd expression on her face. She must’ve been hearing things she didn’t like.

  “How could you not tell me that? Do you know how many mortifying thoughts I probably had today? I’ll never be able to look at her again.”

  “Relax, Jackie. Cathryn’s been dealing with this her entire life. She doesn’t hold anyone’s thoughts against them.” Lucas finished his soup and set it down. “The point I was trying to make is that we’re friends, you and me. I think we’re heading to something more, and I like that. I won’t push you too fast, and if I do, just tell me. We’ll talk about it.”

  I leaned back again, regarding the man sitting at my feet. He was in rumpled chic today, wearing khaki shorts that could’ve used a good ironing—or at least another ten minutes on wrinkle guard in the dryer—along with a black polo that set off his coloring. He’d ditched the contacts for his glasses, and the brown eyes that regarded me through them were steady.

  What’d I ever done to deserve this package of kind, sexy and sweet, spiced up with just a hint of the unknown and dangerous? Yet here he was, offering me friendship and more. Everything I’d ever dreamed of was right here, close enough to touch, and all I had to do was reach out and take hold.

  I finished my wine and set down the glass. “When I first began to work at the magazine, I met a man named Will. He was in the sales department. He was a little older than me, and he was charming and self-deprecating. Everyone told me how great he was. He didn’t give me the hard sell, though. He took me under his wing, helped me get to know people at work. You know, it was my first time in the big city, and he wanted to make sure I was okay. And then he started suggesting stuff we could do on weekends together. I introduced him to my parents, my brothers, Leesa. . .everyone loved him. They all said I’d found the perfect guy for me.

  “Will proposed to me in front of the whole staff at our Christmas party two years after I’d started at the magazine. Everyone was in on it, and my parents were there, and Nana. . .Nonna, my grandmother on my mom’s side, had passed away that year, and Will had her ring re-set and resized for me, and that’s what he used as my engagement ring. So that she could be part of it too, he said.”

  Lucas didn’t say anything, but he reached over to take my foot into his lap again.

  “My mom went into major wedding planning mode. We set up a big church wedding, because of course Will was Catholic, too, and they reserved a reception hall on the river. We were going to get married at five o’clock and then the reception would begin with cocktails overlooking the Hudson as the sun set. I had six bridesmaids, and two huge wedding showers.

  “The day of the last fitting for my gown, I came out of the bridal shop and started walking back to the magazine. A woman stopped me and asked if I’d give her a minute. She said she knew Will, and she thought we should talk.”

  The hand rubbing my foot tightened. He had an inkling of what was coming.

  “The long sordid story short is that Will was married. He’d met this girl when they were in college, she’d gotten pregnant, and they got married. She still lived in the same little town where they’d gone to college. They had three children. One of them had been conceived and born while I was dating Will.

  “According to Will’s wife, he kept them in this little town because he traveled for work so much, and she hated the city. He’d go home once or twice a month for a few days—of course, that was when I thought he was traveling for work. And I’m pretty sure he planned to keep it up, to maintain this double life. But his wife’s sister happened to be traveling, stopped in my hometown for lunch, picked up a copy of my mom’s newspaper and saw a picture of Will and me taken after one of the wedding showers. That’s how the wife found out.”

  Lucas stared at me with narrowed eyes. “He posed for pictures for a newspaper? Was he stupid or incredibly cocky?” He ran his hand up my calf and squeezed. “I mean, I’m just saying. Obviously the guy’s a dick, but he must’ve had cojones the size of an elephant’s to think he could get away with it.”

  “Yeah, that’s the truth. He honestly didn’t see it as a problem. When I confronted him, crying and shaking, he brushed it aside. I was making a big deal out of nothing. He’d get a quickie divorce before our big day—those are the actual words he used, believe it or not—and it’d all be fine. He didn’t see his wife as an issue at all.”

  Lucas exhaled, shaking his head. “What did you do?”

  “I did what I had to do. I called it all off. I told my mom and dad, and they took care of everything on their end. My mother asked me how I wanted to handle it: she’d just tell people we’d changed our minds, or she’d tell them the truth. I decided go big or go home. So she actually did an article in her newspaper and exposed the whole thing.

  “What hurt the most was that I felt humiliated at work. I tried to quit the magazine, but my editor absolutely refused. She said why the hell would I allow this asshole to chase me from doing what I loved? And she was right. They fired his lying ass and sent him slinking back to Podunk. A year later, I got the column, and I moved to Florida.”

  “So you’re telling me all this to say me being a death broker and a half-vamp looks pretty damn good compared to your ex-fiancé with a wife?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I guess. I wanted you to know where I’m coming from. Will was the one and only romantic relationship in my life. The scars he left were nasty, but they’re healed. My experience with him made me a lot more. . .selective about who I date.”

  Lucas laid his hand over his heart. “I promise I have no wife or children hiding anywhere. I’ve never been married. I came close to being engaged to my college girlfriend, but it didn’t work out, and that was a good thing, for both of us. Other than that, I’ve
been a serial dater. Casual stuff, nothing serious.” He leaned closer to me. “Maybe I was waiting for the right one.”

  “Maybe.” I reached to touch his face, smiling when he turned his lips to kiss my palm. “Do you believe in fate, Lucas? The sort of thing Cathryn was taking about, I mean. Do you think it really was your fate to be a death broker?”

  “I’ve always been on the fence about the whole fate deal, but I can tell you no one gave me the choice in being a broker. I didn’t interview for the job.” He pulled my feet, dragging me down the couch until I was draped over his lap. He slid one hand beneath the hem of my dress where it had hiked up on my leg. “But I don’t want to talk about fate anymore, unless it’s how I’m meant to find out what you have on under your dress.”

  I scooted closer and linked my hands behind his neck. “I think that’s a sure thing, buddy. I mean, potato soup, fresh bread and wine? And a foot rub? You’re golden.”

  “Good, because I’ve been in a perpetual state of want since I got called away the other night.” He grasped the dress and pulled it over my head, making me giggle when the neck caught on my ear.

  “Smooth, baby, real smooth.” I untangled the material and tossed the dress over the back of the sofa, shaking free my hair.

  “Are you naked? Or just about?” Lucas cupped my boobs, rubbing the nipples through the lace of my bra. “Then mission accomplished.”

  I slung one leg across his thighs and straddled him. “I think tonight it’s my turn to give orders. So take off the shirt.” I helped him and then leaned down to kiss the top of one pec. “And the shorts, too.” I rose up to give him room to shuck them off. When I sank back down, his hard length rubbed against the juncture of my legs, separated only by the cotton of his boxers and the lace of my underwear.

  “I hope you put up the do-not-disturb sign, because if you get called to a Reckoning in the next half hour, there’s going to be some very surprised advocates.” I covered his flat nipples with my hands, letting the hard nubs drill into my palms before I bent to cover them with my mouth. Lucas groaned.