Chapter Ten

Emma

“You coming home tonight? Or do you have other plans?”

I narrowed my eyes at my sister as I closed up the diner. “I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but yes, I’m coming home.”

“I just wondered if you were planning on seeing Dylan again before he leaves town. How long is he here anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Although, I wished I did. “Probably another week or so. I haven’t asked.”

“Maybe you should.” Kate smiled and kicked her feet up on the stool beside the one she was seated on. She rubbed her calf muscles and moaned as she worked out the knots. We’d both pulled a twelve-hour shift and were exhausted. “I’m getting too old for this,” she griped.

I laughed. “You’re nineteen.”

“Well, I feel old.”

I rolled my eyes. “If you would wear proper shoes, you’d be a lot better off.”

She frowned at me and then dropped her gaze to my shoes. “No thanks. I think I’ll pass on the granny shoes. I’d like to cling to a small shred of fashion in this getup.” She gestured at the knee-length navy blue waitress uniform and white apron.

“These are not granny shoes!” I shook my head and took the last load of dishes to the kitchen.

“The box said orthopedic!” Kate called after me.

I muttered to myself as I loaded up the dishwasher. “They have orthopedic arch supports, that’s all.”

Kate was barefoot when I went back to the dining room. She’d ditched her three-inch heels and was counting up the tips from the fishbowl we kept beside the register. “Rough day, but at least people were generous.”

“That’s because most of them know about . . .” My throat swelled, and I felt the all-too-familiar rush of tears in my eyes. I hoped wherever Tommy was, making peace with his Maker or whatever, he knew I had an awful ache in my heart for what happened to him. I shook my head, trying to clear away the wave of emotion. “They want to help out.”

Kate gave me a sad nod. “Right. Of course.”

I picked up the broom and started sweeping the dining room. “What did you want to do for dinner?” I asked her as I worked. “I think we have some leftover chicken soup in the back. Do you think Mom would like that?”

“Let’s order takeout.”

I didn’t argue. Tommy Jr. would be overjoyed to have pizza for dinner instead of diner leftovers for the fourth night in a row. After Tommy’s funeral a few days ago, a horde of family and friends had descended and stocked the kitchen with casseroles. We plowed through the majority of it and stashed the rest in the freezer before it could go bad. I’d intended on getting back to cooking, but so far it hadn’t happened. At the end of a long shift it was easier to cart up leftovers from the diner than it was to convince myself to whip up a meal.

Eventually, things would get back in order and I’d find a way to rebalance my life. At least, that was the hope I found myself clinging to as the days went by. It was strange to think of how different things had become in the span of a week. Tommy was gone. Tommy Jr.’s life forever changed. Dylan was back in town like some kind of prodigal son, vowing to save the day. As for me, well, I no longer recognized myself. Years of buried frustration and self-loathing were breaking free, and it was all I could do to hold on and not break down in tears every other minute.

Tommy’s funeral. I couldn’t bear to think about it. How could one heart hold so many conflicted feelings? Was I lying when grief and mourning threatened to overwhelm me? Was that a lie? Uncle Paddy and Dylan’s father had to practically carry me to my seat for the service. The sound of all the neighbors weeping and wailing, the women of the parish reaching out to grab my hand and touch their rosaries to me as I walked down the aisle of the church, the faces of my girlfriends ripped with grief, his casket on the altar draped in flowers—all of it tore me apart.

Yet the day before he was killed, we had the ugliest fight ever. I’d found lipstick on his shirt, again, and threw it in his face when he insisted a waitress had lost her balance carrying a heavy tray and had fallen against him. Yeah, right.

So, why was I yearning to see him again? Was it for me? Or our son? Or because the last words he’d said to me before he left that day was ‘Go to hell’?

Above everything else, Tommy didn’t deserve to die like he did—gunned down like an animal. But it wasn’t Tommy who I cried over, no, it was the man he used to be, not the man he’d become. The tender husband who’d held my hand on the way to the hospital when I was so scared because the labor pains were coming, the sweet father who danced little Tommy through the diner on his shoulders for the customers to see when he was a toddler, boasting, “You ever seen such a boy?”

So, what haunted me? Maybe if we’d tried harder. Maybe in time we could have worked things out. For Tommy Jr’s. sake. Now I’ll never know. For those few hours at the funeral, Dylan didn’t exist. I focused on my son and getting through that terrible day. Since then I’d been a wreck. Focusing on closing up for the night took all my energy and attention.

I stooped to sweep up the small pile of dust and dirt I’d made. “Why don’t you go ahead and order. I’ll finish up here. Tell little Tommy I’ll be up in a few.”

I glanced up as Kate was stripping off her apron. She dropped it onto one of the hooks by the doors to the kitchen. “Don’t have to tell me twice!” She picked up her heels, slipped them back on, and headed for the door. “Cheese with basil and onion?”

I nodded. “Thanks, Kate.”

She left the diner and once the bell tied to the front doors stopped chiming, it was completely silent. I finished sweeping and then went to count the till and lock everything up in the safe tucked away in the small back office. As I stood, I saw the photo of Tommy, me, and baby Tommy taken the day he was born. A strange mix of sorrow and joy thrummed through me as I stared at the picture. I’d been so blissfully unaware that day of the things that were in store for us. I had no idea that Tommy would turn out to be such a hot-tempered, abusive husband and that Tommy Jr. would spend the majority of his life as the son to a single mother. In some ways, I wondered if maybe it was for the best. That maybe Tommy Jr. would be better off not ever knowing that side of his father. But the moment the thought crossed my mind I cursed myself. It was horrible to think that way. Unspeakable.

I hurried to turn off the lights and then left the office.

Upstairs, the pizza had arrived and I found Kate, my mom, and little Tommy all sitting around the small dining table. Tommy spotted me and flew out of his seat to run for me. He threw his arms around my legs and squeezed tight. I ruffled my fingers through his hair. “How was school today, sweetheart?”

Tommy took my hand and led me to the table as he filled me in on the events of the day. His eyes were clear and bright, and I wondered if he was already moving on from the sudden loss of his father. The dark thoughts I’d tried to leave behind at the diner started creeping back in.

***

After dinner, I left bath time to Kate and went across the hall to get a couple loads of laundry done. Kate gave me a skeptical look when I left but didn’t say anything. My mother gave me a few of their things to toss into the wash and let me know she’d put Tommy to bed if I wasn’t back in time.

Most of the laundry was Tommy’s. It was strange to be going through his pockets, turning things inside out, and washing it all like he would be there to pick it up and wear it in the morning. I had no idea what I was going to do with all of his clothing, but I figured I might as well wash it. The slacks he’d worn at the diner before changing to go out to the pub were on the top of the stack. I sighed when my fingers felt something in the pockets. “Why is it too much to ask that you do this yourself?” I asked no one. I turned the pockets inside out and found he’d left his wallet and a small notebook inside the pants. I frowned. How did he manage to leave his wallet behind when he was going down to gamble and do God only knew what else in the pub?

I sank down onto the side of the bed and opened the battered wallet. A few twenties were tucked inside, along with an assortment of credit cards, business cards, and a picture from Tommy’s school photos the year before. I set the wallet aside and opened the small notebook. There weren’t a lot of words. Mostly scrolls of numbers. None of it made a lot of sense and the notebook itself didn’t look familiar to me, but I figured it must have been used for working in the diner. Keeping inventory. Something sensible. He’d never really warmed to technology. He didn’t even have a smartphone. He had a stupid flip phone. He didn’t text and only had an email address because the diner’s website designer had required one.

I set the items aside and went back to doing the laundry, but a question started gnawing at me as I unballed socks and sorted through the t-shirts and underwear. Where was his phone? He’d left his wallet in his pants from work but managed to remember his phone? It wasn’t like him. It would make sense if it were the other way around. He was constantly leaving his phone behind and getting frustrated when he couldn’t find it. It always turned up. Usually buried in the couch cushions or lodged in the car’s cup holder.

I started the first load of laundry, changed into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved sweater, and went downstairs to check the car. I hadn’t driven anywhere since the shooting. Everyone had insisted on chauffeuring me around. The steel gray sedan Tommy and I’d shared was parked under a carport in a small lot behind the building. Most of the diner’s customers walked in from the neighborhood or parked on the street. The lot in back was for the residents of the apartments. I unlocked the car and used the small security flashlight on my key ring to search the car front to back. No sign of the phone. After a few minutes, I resigned myself that it was probably up in the couch somewhere or had been on him and was now in an evidence locker at the police station.

It didn’t really matter anyway. As I headed back to the building I rolled my eyes at myself for even bothering to look for the damn thing. Hell, I had a phone. I never used it. When I got closer to the building, my ears perked at the sound of hushed voices coming from the employee entrance at the of the diner. The shops all opened onto a back alley and parking lot that was hedged with a line of five-foot shrubs to block the view of the dumpsters and cars. The hedge stood between me and the thugs.

“I thought you said you could do this,” one voice growled.

The hairs on the back of my neck went up at the hissed reply of the other, “Shut the fuck up and I will.”

My blood ran cold and froze all my muscles in place. Banging sounds were muffled by another series of whispers. By some sheer push of willpower, I forced myself to leave the door and moved to peer around the hedge. I stuck to the shadows and peeked out just as the two men popped the lock on the back door of the diner. They exchanged a quick fist bump and then slithered inside. My lungs burned from holding my breath.

The diner door shut, and I slipped back into the shadows. “Shit!”

My own cell phone was upstairs in the apartment. If I went back now I’d have to explain it to my mom and Kate and risk freaking Tommy out. Instead, I crept down the alley and bolted around the other side of the building. I moved quickly and resisted the urge to look inside the diner’s dark windows to see if I could spot the two men who’d just broken in. The lights inside the pub were on, and I pushed into the door so fast I nearly plowed over a guy.

Dylan was behind the bar and perked up at my grand entrance. His eyebrows arched as I made a beeline for the bar. “Em? What’s going on?”

“I need to use your phone.”

He pulled a phone from his back pocket and handed it over. “What’s wrong?”

“I just watched two guys break into my diner!” I started scrolling through the phone to dial 911.

Dylan snapped the phone back from me.

“Hey!”

He leaned in, his eyes blazing. “No cops, Em. I’ll handle it.”

“Dylan, I . . .”

He didn’t listen. He strode to the back door of the pub that led out into the same alley, and I raced to follow him. “Dylan!” I hissed.

He turned and held a finger to his lips.

I hung back as he as he tiptoed next door and pushed into the diner’s back room. Shouts sounded and sent my heart racing furiously. I crept forward and looked inside. The light in the office had been turned on and showed the silhouette of Dylan—at least a head taller than both men—throwing one of the men into the wall. He delivered a kick to the gut of the man as he crumpled to the floor before rounding on the second and knocking him down with a blow to the head.

My heart thundered so loudly in my ears that I couldn’t hear anything but the frantic beat of each pump. When both men were down, I moved into the back room. Dylan spun around to face me, his breathing coming just as quickly. “Do you know these men?” He flicked on the overhead lights, and I saw the two bloody-faced men on the floor. One of them didn’t stir, his eyes closed. The second was trying to get up but clutched at the place in his gut where Dylan had kicked him. He moaned with the effort.

I shook my head. “I don’t know their names, but they look familiar. Probably from the pub.”

The expression on Dylan’s face made me suck in a quick breath. Every muscle had tensed, and his eyes went so dark they nearly looked black when he met my gaze. “I want you to go upstairs and under no circumstances are you to come back down. Do you understand?”