Just Desserts

by Barbara Bretton

  “Lucky girl,” Michie said. “Catch a few fifty-dollar bills for me while you’re at it.”

  Hayley had the feeling she would be hearing a lot of comments like that once she got home.

  “Hey,” Michie said. “I was only kidding. But you are his daughter, right? He owes you something.”

  “He doesn’t owe me anything,” she snapped. “Up until a week ago we didn’t even know the other existed. If you’re looking for some kind of Cinderella ending, you’re going to be very disappointed.”

  “I am disappointed. I was hoping at least you’d have a fling with the lawyer.”

  I wish it was just a fling, Michie. A fling would be a whole lot easier than this.

  Flings were all about great sex without expectations. You didn’t expect your fling to love your child the way you did or to be willing to put himself on the line for her.

  That was the kind of commitment you expected from the man you loved, the man you wanted to build a future with.

  The kind of man who didn’t exist anywhere but in a single mother’s fantasies.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Finn said to Hayley’s aunt as he stacked the breakfast plates in the dishwasher. “You’ve been a great guest.”

  “I want to do it,” Fee said as she popped the extra pancakes into a storage container. “There is nothing sadder than a bachelor’s empty freezer.”

  “No wonder Hayley thinks you hung the moon. You really did.”

  “I’ll need a few things from the market.”

  “Give me a list,” he said, “and I’ll get right on it.”

  An hour later he was pushing a cart through the local grocery, plucking unfamiliar items like crushed tomatoes, anchovy paste, and extra-wide egg noodles from the shelves. He was trying to figure out how to tell a male eggplant from a female and why anyone would care, when his cell phone went off.

  “Sorry to call on a Sunday morning but I’m at JFK waiting to board a plane to Antwerp and this will be my last chance for ten days.” Charles Militano was one of the investigators they routinely used to run background checks on prospective employees at Stiles Enterprises.

  “No problem, Charlie. What can I do for you?” The knot that had appeared last night in Finn’s gut turned to solid ice.

  “A call came in a few hours ago from one of my informants in Miami. Damn voice mail. I didn’t get it until just now. Anyway, that asshole Goldstein has been shooting his mouth off, telling everyone who’ll listen that he’s about to come into big bucks. He said he was headed up your way to start collecting—he called it his ‘inheritance.’”

  “Any idea when he’s coming up here?”

  “Yesterday. Tomorrow. From what I heard, he could be there right now. It may or may not have anything to do with your client, but after seeing him on the news the last few days, I figured can’t hurt to tell you what’s going down, right?”

  What the hell?

  He flipped his cell phone shut and was standing in line at the checkout trying to figure out what to do with the disturbing information when he glanced toward the banking window near Customer Service, then looked again. Was that Zach standing there, counting a fistful of bills?

  He watched, astonished, as Zach pushed his way through the exit then climbed behind the wheel of a Highlander Hybrid and drove away.

  It wasn’t any of his business if the kid drove to Montauk to do his Sunday banking but he filed it away in the curiouser and curiouser category just the same.

  Fee was happily chopping onions when he dropped off the groceries, checked up on Rhoda, then headed to Tommy’s house where he found Hayley pacing the driveway while she fielded cell phone calls from home.

  She smiled when she saw him but he saw the tension in her eyes. She covered the mouthpiece. “First the water heater, now the furnace. I go away for a day or two and everything falls apart.”

  “I’ll be inside,” he said, touching her hand. “We need to talk when you’re done.”

  “The last time you said that I found out Tommy was my father.”

  “Nothing like that,” he said. He wished he could be more comforting but he had the feeling everything to do with her ex-husband carried risk with it.

  Tommy’s place seemed unnaturally quiet. Jane, John, and CeCe were watching one of the Sunday morning news shows in the media room. Zach, Winston, and Lizzie hadn’t come down for breakfast yet according to Anton, who had happily taken charge of kitchen duties on the cook’s day off.

  “Where are Tommy and Willow?”

  “Jilly’s daughter had the baby. They drove in to Ronkonkoma to see her.”

  Willow had been holding herself apart from the newest additions to Tommy’s extended family and in a way Finn didn’t blame her. Willow was young, pregnant, and insecure. Having to share her much-married fiancé with another old lover, a new daughter, and a granddaughter would be enough to shake the confidence of even a more secure woman.

  “Make yourself useful,” Anton said. “Slice and toast the bagels before CeCe slices and toasts my ass.”

  “I’m starting to feel like a line cook at Denny’s.”

  “You’re not good enough to be a line cook at Denny’s.”

  They bantered back and forth, but Finn’s mind was elsewhere and it showed.

  “Jesus,” Anton said with a shake of his head. “What did that bagel ever do to you?”

  Finn looked down at the mangled baked good on the cutting board. “I’ll admit it’s not my best work.”

  “Put the knife down,” Anton ordered. “Maybe you’d better stick to plating.” He pulled a platter of smoked salmon from the fridge and placed it on the counter. “You and Hayley have a fight?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing like that.”

  “Your houseguests giving you agita?”

  “Fee’s filling my freezer with home-cooked meals and Rhoda has fallen in love with me.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “There isn’t one. At least not yet.” He gave Anton the condensed version of his conversation with Charles. “It might not amount to anything. The guy’s a player. He probably has a hundred scams going and this is just one of them.”

  “Maybe,” Anton said, “but he doesn’t have a hundred ex-wives with a rock star father.”

  “I thought of that.”

  “Did you tell Hayley?”

  “I’m going to as soon as she comes in.”

  “Can’t hurt,” Anton said. “The good news is this place is like a fortress. Nobody’s getting in.”

  The bad news was Lizzie had gotten out.

  “Lizzie’s not in her room,” Hayley said to Jane as they carried two enormous salad bowls out to the crowd waiting on the deck. “Have you seen her today?”

  “Early this morning,” Jane said. “She came down in her bathrobe for some toast and juice.”

  “Did she say anything to you?”

  “No. I’m not certain she even knew I was in the room.”

  “She has seemed distracted the last few days,” Hayley said.

  “As are we all.” Jane laughed softly as Hayley slid open the French doors leading out onto the deck. “This house is very lovely and very distracting.”

  “I think she might still be running a fever.”

  John rose when he saw Jane and Hayley. He was at Jane’s side in an instant. “Sit down and enjoy this beautiful afternoon,” he said, taking the salad bowl from her. “I’ll help Hayley.”

  He followed her back into the kitchen.

  “Anton and Finn pretty much have everything under control out there,” Hayley said. “All that’s left is the pitcher of lemonade and the ciabatta.”

  “I want to thank you,” he said.

  “Thank me? I haven’t done anything.”

  “The kindness you showed your mother in difficult circumstances has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated.”

  “One of the advantages of getting older,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. “Your perspective shifts.”


  “This is not a small thing,” John said. “Another woman might have held Jane to greater accountability.”

  “I might not have been so mellow if—” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

  “I know,” John said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Her illness casts a giant shadow.”

  “I hope Lizzie comes around soon,” Hayley said as she handed the platter of warm bread to John.

  “I’m sorry Lizzie chose not to be with us today. It’s our last full day together here and when I saw her leave—”

  Hayley felt like she had been jolted with a cattle prod. “You saw her leave?”

  “About thirty minutes ago,” he said. “She left with your brothers.”

  “They’re kids,” Tommy said, trying to put a lighthearted spin on the situation. “The boys are showing off.”

  “She’s fourteen,” Hayley snapped. “She has no business riding around with two strangers.”

  “They’re not strangers,” Jane offered. “They’re her uncles.”

  “John saw them leave almost two hours ago. How long can you drive up and down Montauk Highway?”

  “I seem to remember you and Michael spending a lot of time riding around in his Trans Am,” her aunt Fee observed. “It might be a family trait.”

  “That isn’t helpful,” Jane said to her sister.

  “I’m trying to remind my niece that minor rebellions are normal for teenage girls.”

  “You should call the police,” Hayley said to Tommy.

  “You’re jumping to conclusions,” Tommy said. “Fee is right. The boys took off last week. Finn helped me bring them back from Great Neck. They probably did it again and Lizzie went along for the ride.”

  “This doesn’t make me feel better either,” Hayley said. “First they teach her how to play poker. Now—”

  “They’re good kids.” Anton placed a fresh pot of coffee on the outdoor table. “You don’t have to worry, Hayley.”

  “She’s my daughter. She’s fourteen and she’s out there somewhere with two teenage boys we don’t really know. Yes, I do have to worry.”

  She pushed back her chair and stormed back to the kitchen. What was wrong with all of them? Tommy and Jane were Lizzie’s grandparents. Fee was her great-aunt. They should be almost as worried as she was about Lizzie. They weren’t stupid people. Why couldn’t they see that this was serious?

  She wanted Finn. He would understand. He had driven back to his place to get Rhoda. How long did it take to drive to Montauk and back? If there was something to worry about, he would tell her. He hadn’t minced words earlier when he told her about the phone call from the private investigator. He wouldn’t mince words about Lizzie either.

  “Idiot,” she said out loud. He always had his cell phone with him. She had his number programmed in hers. She dashed upstairs to get her phone.

  Finn answered on the first ring.

  “I don’t like it,” he said after she explained the situation. “I saw Zach at the supermarket near my house this morning. He was getting money from the seven-day banking center.”

  “I don’t understand. What does that have to do with Lizzie?”

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted, “but I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  Ten minutes later he pulled into the driveway and for the first time since she discovered Lizzie was missing, Hayley felt like they were doing something to find her.

  Finn had Tommy call the local police.

  “Nothing,” Tommy said after he hung up. “No accidents. No reports.”

  The relief was palpable.

  “Maybe it really is nothing,” Hayley said. How many teenagers could resist that bouquet of cars in the driveway?

  “You need to check her computer,” Finn said.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “E-mails, browsing history, whatever you can find.”

  “That’s an invasion of her privacy. I would never do that.”

  “I read your diary when you were in sixth grade,” Jane said. “I was afraid you were taking drugs.”

  “You did what?” Hayley spun around toward her mother. “I didn’t know that.”

  “You weren’t supposed to know it,” Jane said. “Fortunately I had nothing to worry about.”

  “Thomas made my life a living hell,” CeCe said. “Now don’t be shocked but this”—she patted her coiffure—“isn’t my natural color. I was entirely gray by the time I turned forty. He and Jack—” She turned toward Hayley. “That’s Finn’s father. He and Jack used to cut school and head into Manhattan to hang out with other musicians. God knows what they did when they got there. I needed Valium to get through his teen years.”

  “I eavesdropped on you and Michael when you first started dating,” Fiona admitted. “I knew he was bad news. I should have followed my instincts and kept you two apart.”

  “Parents do what they have to do to keep their kids safe,” Tommy said. “It’s a dangerous world. The old rules don’t apply.”

  “I concur,” John said. “My late wife and I had many difficulties with our oldest daughter. For what it’s worth, now is the time to take charge.”

  “I’m not a parent,” Finn said, “but I know which side I’d come down on.”

  Her daughter’s safety or her daughter’s trust. At that moment she was willing to forfeit the latter for the former.

  “I can’t do it,” she said to Finn. “You do it.”

  Finn looked at her but she refused to meet his eyes. He wasn’t part of the Goldstein girls’ permanent landscape so he was the perfect candidate for the job. Lizzie’s anger would fade right along with his memory.

  He followed Hayley upstairs to Lizzie’s room.

  “A teenager who hangs up her clothes,” he said, trying to keep things light. “Wow.”

  “She doesn’t get it from me,” Hayley said.

  “The shower curtain. I remember.”

  There had been something between them. Something real. The possibility of something lasting.

  Damn.

  Lizzie’s laptop was open on the center of the bed. The AC cord snaked across the pale ivory spread. He followed the trail to the wall outlet a few feet away.

  So this was parenthood, he thought as he pressed the power button. Feeling like a low-life bastard for a very high-minded reason.

  Resuming Windows…

  “Okay…there’s her e-mail client…AuntieEm?”

  “My sister-in-law Michelle.”

  “GoldCoastConnie.”

  “My former mother-in-law.”

  Friends. Teachers. Spam.

  “MKG329302.”

  “Her father.”

  He scanned the folder of e-mails. Lizzie’s heart was right there on display in every single one of them. She loved her father and the son of a bitch had been using that to his best advantage.

  He searched Word folders and Notepad files, and checked her browsing history.

  “Does she have an account at Lakeside Bank?”

  Hayley blanched. “Her college fund.”

  He hated to ask the next question. “Does she have access to it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go through her files and e-mails,” he said. “Take the computer downstairs and print out everything that might be pertinent.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “I don’t think she’s in physical danger.”

  “But—?”

  “I think she’s been making withdrawals from the account,” he said, wishing he didn’t have to tell her his suspicion.

  He could see the thousand different scenarios, each one worse than the other, as they flew through her mind.

  “I think she’s been giving the money to her father.”

  “Not even Michael could be that big a bastard.”

  “I saw Zach at the bank this morning. He was making a withdrawal. I have a gut feeling it’s connected somehow.”

  “Zach? How could he figure in this?”

/>   “Another suspicion,” he said.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Finn?”

  “Nothing. I—”

  The house intercom crackled to life. “Better get down here,” Tommy said through a hail of static. “The boys are back and Lizzie isn’t with them.”

  They raced downstairs and found Tommy, incandescent with rage, and two extremely uncomfortable teenage boys in the study.

  “Tell her,” Tommy commanded the second Hayley and Finn burst into the room.

  Zach shot him a look. “But—”

  “Everything,” Tommy said. “Every last thing you told me.”

  Hayley felt like she had stepped into the eye of a category 5 hurricane. Zach and Winston finished their story and before she could fight down her fear Finn stepped in and took charge with Tommy not far behind.

  “What’s the name of the café where you left her?” Finn asked as he grabbed for his car keys.

  “Kelley’s,” Winston said.

  “That’s in Quogue,” Tommy said to Hayley. “Off Montauk Highway, west of here.”

  It might as well have been an island off Sumatra for all she knew of Long Island geography.

  Finn hesitated then drew her into a quick embrace. “We’re going to find her and bring her home,” he said. “Keep your cell on.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No chance in hell.”

  “She’s my daughter.”

  “You need to stay here in case she phones.”

  “She has my cell number. She’d use that.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Tommy said.

  “Not a good idea,” Finn said. “You don’t exactly have a low profile, Tom.”

  When Tommy Stiles walked into a room, everyone noticed. Finn’s biggest advantage was anonymity.

  “You can’t stop me from going,” Hayley challenged him. “I’ll take one of Tommy’s cars and follow you.”

  “Is that what you really want?” Finn shot back. “Do you really want Lizzie to see her mother and father going at it right in front of her and everyone else in that café?”

  “No, but—”

  “Think about it. He’s in trouble. You read those e-mails. Who the hell knows what he’s not telling her? He’s set himself up as a victim in her eyes and she’d do anything to help him. She knows how you feel about him. Whose side do you think she’d take if it hit the fan?”