Chapter 4: Director

Nobody in the kitchen moved.

The line cook kept stirring.

The dishwasher went on stacking trays, slower than before.

Damon looked at the night supervisor, and the night supervisor looked at his shoes.

Damon turned to Dorinda instead.

"That apartment upstairs is company housing, Mrs. Dillard," he said. "It comes with the job. Both of them can go."

The dishwasher set his tray down hard.

Dorinda didn't blink.

"Then fire me," she said. "In front of the night shift. At four in the morning. Over soup."

Damon looked around the kitchen, at the faces, and did the math I watched him do.

Vanessa stepped around Damon.

Up close, without her makeup, she looked about nineteen.

She looked like our father around the eyes, which I hated, because I couldn't stop seeing it.

"You do this every time," she said to me. "You disappear for years, and then you come back and make a scene."

"I came back for his funeral, Van."

"You came back for the will." Her voice cracked and she pushed through it.

"You missed his birthday. You missed Christmas. He sat at the head of the table and asked Mom if you'd called."

That one landed.

I'd called on Christmas night, late, after a client dinner.

He'd already gone to bed.

"And now there's money," Vanessa said, "and suddenly you're the only one who cares about the hotel."

"There isn't money," I said. "That's the whole problem. Somebody took it."

"Damon is fixing it."

"Damon was running payroll when the pension payments stopped."

Damon laughed.

It was a nice laugh, warm and easy, and he turned it on the whole kitchen.

"Folks, I know it's late," he said. "I know everyone's scared. Let me make this simple."

He pulled out a chair across from me and sat down.

"Elise is an accountant," he told the room.

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