The truth really did hurt. A lot more than she would have expected.
“You shouldn’t go alone,” she said as the fight began to drain out of her.
“He’s not.” Anton loomed in the doorway. “Never hurts to have backup.”
She almost cried with relief. “I don’t care about the money,” she said as bile seared the back of her throat. “I don’t care about Michael. Just get her away from him.” She struggled hard to keep from crying. “Just bring her back.”
“You know the odds, don’t you?” Anton had never been one to sugarcoat the truth.
“I don’t give a damn about the odds,” Finn said, adjusting the windshield wipers.
“They dropped her off over an hour ago. She’s probably gone off with her father by now.”
“Maybe,” Finn said. “Maybe not. From what Zach said, she was going to meet him somewhere between two and three. He doesn’t strike me as a real punctual kind of guy.”
“People can get real punctual when there’s money involved.”
He clued Anton in on the information Charles had given him earlier that morning. Hard to believe that was less than five hours ago. It felt like a lifetime.
“He’s connected?” Anton asked.
“Seems like.”
“Not good.”
“Tell me about it.”
“If he has that crowd after him, he’s desperate.”
“Yeah,” Finn said. “Desperate enough to strip his kid’s bank account.”
“It could get ugly.”
As far as Finn could see, it already had.
The rain let up and Hayley escaped the house for the relative solitude of the terraced deck. The endless offers of food and drink and company were meant to comfort her but they made her feel more of an outsider than ever.
She almost groaned at the sound of footsteps behind her.
“It’s freezing out here,” Willow said, wrapping her arms across her chest. “Tommy’s mother made a pot of coffee. Come in and have a cup.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Willow leaned her elbows on the railing and looked out toward the ocean. Up close and without a scrap of makeup, the woman’s beauty was staggering.
“What is it like to be so gorgeous?” she asked, unable to stop herself.
“What is it like to be you?” Willow countered. “You’re all they can talk about in there. Where’s Hayley? Is Hayley okay? Does Hayley need anything?”
“They’re worried about Lizzie.”
“Sure they are,” Willow said, “but it’s you they’re talking about.” She met Hayley’s eyes. “I’ve been around for almost two years and I still barely register with anyone but Thomas.”
“He’s crazy about you,” Hayley said. “It took me all of ten seconds to figure that out.”
“Well, the rest of them aren’t.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re marrying Tommy and not his entire family.”
“You have a lot to learn. The Stiles clan runs in a pack and those she-wolf daughters of his are never going to let me into the sacred circle.”
“If it’s any consolation, they’re not too thrilled with me either.”
Willow laughed. “Actually that does make me feel a lot better.”
“Glad to help,” Hayley said with a grin. “Maybe we should hire a food taster.”
Willow didn’t get the reference so Hayley let it pass.
“How are you feeling? Is everything okay with the baby?”
“We’re fine. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you the other night. I saw Tommy talking to you and—” She wrinkled her face. “I jumped to conclusions. I’m really sorry.”
“Given my father’s marital track record, I can’t say I blame you.”
They chatted easily about pregnancy and childbirth and to her surprise Hayley found herself starting to like the beautiful young woman.
“Just in case you were wondering, I don’t need his money,” Willow said as the rain started to come down again. “I might actually have more than he does.”
“It’s a new world,” Hayley said with a sigh. “Marriages are formed like corporations. Everyone wants their golden parachute in case things go wrong.”
Willow didn’t get that reference either. This time Hayley chalked it up to the generation gap.
“Finn says they’re protecting him, but I think they’re protecting their inheritance.” She grimaced. “Sorry again. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. You’re one of his kids. You’re in line to inherit too.”
“I know what you’re really worried about,” Hayley said. “You’re worried they won’t love your child.”
“Wow,” Willow said without irony. “How did you know that?”
“I’m a mother. Worrying is what I do best.” She felt like hugging Willow for letting her think of something besides Lizzie for a few minutes. She turned toward the house. “I’d better go inside before they send out a search party.”
“Hayley?”
She looked over at Willow. If possible she had grown even more beautiful since she stepped out onto the deck. “Finn’s a great guy. He’ll bring your daughter home safely. You can trust him.”
Easy for her to say.
Kelley’s Café was situated on the corner of Montauk Highway and Pond Road. Its weather-beaten sign boasted a huge rusted anchor and the words KELLEY’S…SINCE 1948 hand-painted beneath it.
“Park around the corner,” Finn told Anton as they reached the intersection. “No point telegraphing ourselves if we don’t have to.”
“Not much choice,” Anton said as he made a right onto Pond. “The only spot open is at a fire hydrant.”
A little rain didn’t keep Long Islanders from their late Sunday brunch.
Anton angled the Caddy into a spot a block and a half away.
“So how do you want to handle this?” he asked Finn as they braved the rain on foot. “Send in a scout or a dual full-frontal assault?”
“I’ll go in. You stay outside by the door.”
A black Lincoln Navigator idled behind a taxicab-yellow sports car. An angry-looking woman with long, dark hair watched the world go by from the passenger window of a silver Camry.
“Give me ten minutes,” he said as they reached the entrance to Kelley’s. “If I’m not out, come in and get me.”
Kelley’s was lit more like a bar than a coffee shop. The lighting was dim, the ambience close to nonexistent. It smelled of coffee, bacon, and rain-soaked sweaters.
The cashier looked up as he approached. “All we got is the counter,” she said. “Five percent surcharge on take-out, ten-minute wait for a booth. What’ll it be?”
“I’m meeting someone. Can I take a look around?”
“Knock yourself out.”
The crowd was standard Long Island diner. An old married couple sipped coffee while they read the New York Times. A younger couple nibbled from the same bagel as they basked in a definite postcoital glow. A handful of families pretended they were having a good time while their kids flung pancakes across the room like Frisbees.
No sign of Lizzie. No sign of Goldstein.
Come on…come on…you’ve gotta be here, Lizzie…
And then he saw her. Second booth from the back. He recognized Michael Goldstein from the photos Hayley had printed off Lizzie’s computer. Goldstein was leaning forward, reaching across the table toward his daughter. A thick white envelope rested in the space between them. Lizzie’s head was down. Her shiny blond hair spilled over her young shoulders. He was pretty sure she was crying. The bright, funny, self-confident girl he had met at Goldy’s less than two weeks ago was nowhere in sight.
He could almost hear the adrenaline rush moving through his bloodstream as he walked slowly up the aisle. He glanced to the right and then to the left. Casual. Unconcerned. Just a guy looking to hook up with his friends on a rainy Sunday afternoon. His heart pounded so hard he could barely hear the old rock music blaring from speakers overhead.
/> He reached their table. Goldstein’s voice was low, urgent. He caught the note of pleading and it made him want to drive his fist into the man’s face. He let his eyes linger on the guy for a second then drift casually toward—
“Lizzie!”
“Mr. Rafferty?” He saw the shock of surprise rocket through her body. “How did—what are you doing here?” Her eyes were red from crying and a trio of crumpled paper napkins littered the tabletop.
“I live out here, remember? This is one of my favorite places.”
Did she buy it? He wasn’t sure. He wouldn’t have, but then he was pushing forty. Lizzie might be scary smart but she was still only fourteen. The advantage was his, but it wouldn’t last long. He had to act now.
He waited for her to introduce him to her father but she looked down at her hands instead. Any lingering doubts he might have had about the situation vanished.
He turned to Michael and extended his right hand. “Finn Rafferty.”
Goldstein looked up and met his eyes. Recognition charged the air between them.
He knows. The realization had barely registered on Finn when Goldstein grabbed the envelope and took off for the door.
“Daddy!” Lizzie’s voice rang out. “Wait!”
“Hey!” The cashier stepped out from behind the register. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Goldstein careened off a waitress carrying a tray of juice glasses. She yelped a curse. The tumblers shot into the air then crashed to the floor, shattering into a mess of broken glass and sticky orange liquid.
Finn skidded across the puddle of juice and fell to one knee. The crack of bone against tile sent shock waves through his body. He would hurt like hell when this was over.
Goldstein was halfway out the door. Lizzie darted around Finn in pursuit of her father. Finn regained his footing and tore after them. The street was rain-soaked and eerily still. Goldstein was headed for the silver Camry Finn had noticed before.
“Dad! Stop!” Lizzie’s voice pierced the stillness. “Wait for me!”
The son of a bitch was fast.
Too fast.
Those seconds back there had cost him.
Anton rounded the corner. Goldstein was maybe twenty feet away from the silver Camry with the angry-looking dark-haired woman. Anton stepped in front of Lizzie. The girl cried out and tried to push past him but he was a human brick wall.
At the sound of his daughter’s cry Goldstein missed a step. The envelope flew out of his hands, lifted on the wind, and settled in a puddle a few feet away.
Goldstein darted to the left.
Finn angled right.
The two men collided with the force of a pair of locomotives at full throttle, then slammed to the ground.
“Fuck off, you son of a bitch!” Goldstein reared back and landed a sucker punch to Finn’s jaw.
“No!” he yelled as Anton moved into view. “Lizzie…” Get her out of here…she doesn’t need to see this… Like it or not, that bastard was her father and this moment would stick with her for the rest of her life.
Goldstein was on his feet again. The dark-haired woman in the silver Camry was out of the car and screaming, “Michael! We’re gonna miss the plane!”
Finn grabbed for the man’s ankle and brought him down hard. White-hot rage burned away what was left of rational thought. He wanted to slam the son of a bitch into the concrete, drive his fist into that unlined face until he felt the crunch of bone beneath his hand.
He had the bastard cornered. He could almost taste triumph. He saw the fear in Goldstein’s eyes. He could smell it. He had the guy exactly where he wanted him and he had a free shot coming.
Time, motive, and opportunity. He had them all.
By anyone’s reckoning, Goldstein was fair game.
But he was also Lizzie’s father and that changed everything.
“What’s wrong?” Goldstein asked. “Lose your nerve?”
Finn leaned in close so nobody but Goldstein could hear. “If it was just the two of us, you wouldn’t get up again for a long time. Drop the money, get in the car, and get the fuck out of here and I won’t let your daughter see what a coward you are. I’ll let her figure it out for herself.”
They locked eyes. The guy was calculating his odds and they didn’t include his daughter.
“Try me,” Finn said in a casual tone of voice. “I’m also Tommy’s lawyer. Go after Lizzie or her mother for money or anything else again and so fucking help me, I’ll make sure your life gets worse in ways even you can’t imagine. It’s up to you.”
Hayley would never forget the sight of her daughter walking up the rainswept driveway flanked by Finn and Anton. She walked straight and tall, the way Hayley had always told her to, but nothing could erase the sadness in her beautiful blue-green eyes.
Lizzie had tried to help her father when he claimed he needed it most. Hayley prayed this experience would open her eyes but not harden her heart. It was a lesson Hayley had taken a long time to learn.
“She’s fine,” Finn said as Lizzie fell into her arms.
“Michael?” she asked.
“On his way to Bermuda with a woman named Gayle.”
She reached up and touched his jaw.
“It’s nothing,” Finn said. “I’ll tell you later.”
She had questions, a thousand of them, but this wasn’t the time. She had had a lifetime of Michael’s problems. The divorce had marked the end of their marriage but it had taken until this moment to mark the end of her guilt.
All the time she had spent worrying about how to protect her daughter from the world and its dangers and it was Lizzie’s father who posed the greatest risk. She wished there was some way she could step back in time and make different, better choices, a way she could protect Lizzie from the pain she was feeling, but it was like unringing a bell. This wasn’t the kind of pain a mother could kiss away. Pretty words wouldn’t make it better. Only time could do that.
Suddenly she and Lizzie and Finn were surrounded by people. Tommy. Zach and Winston. Willow and Jane and John and Fee and CeCe. Even Tommy’s stylist Jilly and her husband joined the group.
Nobody seemed to notice that it was raining or that Rhoda was doing a mud dance on their clothes.
They were her family.
And this was a homecoming.
Jane and CeCe quickly assessed the situation.
“Upstairs,” CeCe commanded, draping a stick-thin arm across Lizzie’s shoulders. “We need to get you cleaned up.”
“Your grandmother’s right,” Jane said. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.”
Lizzie didn’t protest. Actually she seemed to melt into the flurry of female nurturing as Jane and Cece swept her upstairs. A dose of grandmotherly attention, no matter how untraditional, might be exactly what Lizzie needed right now.
“I’m going to call the station,” Finn said, “and let the cops know Lizzie’s back where she belongs.”
“Tell me everything,” Hayley said to Anton after Finn left the room. “And don’t leave anything out.”
“Stay another night,” Tommy urged as Finn carried their bags out to his Rover two days later. “It’s a long drive.”
“Lizzie needs to get back to school,” Hayley said, torn between her desire to be in her own house and a surprising desire to stay here with her family. “And I’ve been away from the bakery long enough.”
“You’ve done a great job with her,” Tommy said. “She tried to help a drowning man. It’s hard to fault her for that.”
“I know,” Hayley said, “but I can’t help wishing she had come to me before she stripped her college fund.”
Tommy waved a hand. “She doesn’t have to worry about college. You know I’ll take care of everything.”
“And you know how I feel about that,” Hayley said. “She needs to know she can do this herself, that she can trust her own judgment again.” She wanted Lizzie to have a strong sense of who she was and an equally strong belief in her a
bility to take care of herself.
Lizzie had never been under any illusions about her father. She knew she couldn’t change Michael Goldstein. All she had hoped to do was keep him safe. The fact that he planned to take her money and blow it on a trip to Bermuda had been a terribly bitter pill for Lizzie and while their new extended family had rallied around the girl, only Hayley truly understood how the betrayal made her feel.
She and Lizzie had stayed up that first night and continued the conversation that had started—was it really less than two weeks ago?—at the Olive Garden. They talked about family, about mothers and daughters, about fathers and the kind of pain only love in great measure can heal. She needed to rethink the way she relied on her daughter to keep the bakery running. Lizzie was a brilliant and beautiful young woman. The world was going to come knocking on her door any day now and she wanted Lizzie to feel free to pursue her future wherever it led without guilt or worry.
Who would have thought Michael Goldstein would be the one who taught her the importance of letting go?
“You probably won’t believe me,” Tommy said, “but I’m going to miss you two very much.”
“I’m going to miss you too,” she said, surprising herself once again. “I always liked your music but I think I like the man even more.”
He hesitated, then wrapped her in a bear hug that embarrassed and delighted both of them.
“Come down for dinner sometime,” she said. “I guarantee the desserts will be worth the trip.”
She wasn’t sure if his eyes were wet with tears or if it was a trick of the lighting. She intended to blame the lighting for the telltale dampness in hers.
Even CeCe seemed sorry to see them go.
“Look how skinny you are,” CeCe said. “You work too hard. You should take a vacation.”
“I’m fine, CeCe,” she said, trying very hard not to roll her eyes. “I have my mother’s metabolism.”
No point explaining to the Social Queen of Naples, Florida, that not everyone could afford to take a vacation. Or wanted to for that matter. She had missed the controlled chaos of Goldy’s and she definitely missed her friends.
Just Desserts Page 28