Chapter 10: Ashes

Ambrose asked me to lunch on Thursday, and I said yes because I wanted to see what he would do.

Donal's driver parked across the street from the diner in Wollaston and read a newspaper he did not turn the page of.

Ambrose had a booth at the back and a coffee and his best dimple.

"I ordered you the patty melt," he said. "You used to love the patty melt."

"I used to love a lot of things."

"That's what I want to talk about." He leaned on his forearms. "Kid, I'm worried about you."

"Are you."

"You've got half of Quincy calling a phone in Hull. You've got Donal Dalton spending fifty grand on a man who isn't worth the paper."

He turned his cup.

"You sleep at that house. You eat at that table. People talk."

"Let them," I said.

"I'm saying this as a friend of Cormac's."

I put down my fork.

"Say it plainly, Ambrose."

"Let it go."

His voice was gentle and reasonable.

"You wanted to say something to his face, fine. You've had your say, a thousand times. He's gone, Dahl."

"You don't know that," I said.

"I know him better than you do."

"Then tell me where."

"I don't know where," Ambrose said. "I only know that dead men don't owe you an apology, kid. Leave it."

The diner's noise went on around us, the clack of plates and the radio and a child laughing.

He had stopped moving.

Then he smiled quickly.

"Dead to us," he said. "Figure of speech. I meant he's dead to us."

"Of course you did."

I took my purse from the seat and slid out of the booth.

"Eat your patty melt," I said. "I'll tell Donal you send your love."

He caught my wrist.

It wasn't hard, just a hand closing, and I looked down at it until he let go.

"Careful," he said, very pleasantly. "People get hurt when they dig."

"Dig?"

"Figure of speech."

I walked out past the counter without hurrying and crossed the street to the car.

The driver saw my face and put down the paper.

I told Donal everything in the study, word for word, standing at the end of the black walnut desk.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Groom Never Showed, So I Cursed Him for Eleven Months from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.