Chapter 3
Vanessa answered before he could.
“Aster advanced money for repairs. The kitchen floor couldn’t wait.”
“How much?” Grandma asked.
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
I gripped the edge of a chair. Dad had told me the plumber wanted twelve thousand for the first stage of work. Even replacing the whole floor would not use a fraction of what Vanessa had named.
“Where did the rest go?” I asked.
Dad looked at me. “Business expenses.”
“Which ones?”
He had no answer ready.
Liam opened the folder again. “There’s a schedule for the deposit. Renovations, debt payments, and marketing.”
Vanessa reached for it. “Those are estimates.”
“The first payment has already been made,” he said.
I could hear the reception beginning again through the closed door. A low drumbeat crossed the hallway. Somewhere out there, guests were eating the cakes I had helped make while we tried to learn who was about to own Grandma’s diner.
“Grandma,” I said, “we need our own lawyer in the morning.”
“We do.”
Vanessa shook her head. “You’re going to wreck everything over one meal service and an old seating grudge.”
“Stop talking about the chair,” Grandma said. “Nora found out about the sale because you tried to hide her. She has every reason to ask questions.”
Dad looked at Grandma. “I was going to tell you when the terms were final.”
“I might have helped you find another way.”
“I know,” he said.
The pain in Grandma’s face silenced him.
She had taught him to make change at the register when he was seven. He was nearly sixty now, and she still had to ask him what he had done with her business.
Liam closed the folder. “I need to go back to the guests. Vanessa, are you coming?”
She looked at me. I could see she wanted me to take some part of the blame so she could leave the room with him.
I had nothing to give her.
She followed Liam out.
Grandma stayed at the table while Joyce called a lawyer she trusted. Ms. Reyes agreed to meet us early Sunday morning. I asked Eddie to keep the diner closed until I arrived. The Long Table normally began at noon. I refused to cancel it because of a page I had discovered at a wedding.
“Can you still cook?” Joyce asked.
“I’ll call the crew. We have enough food.”
“Then I’ll help.”
Grandma stood slowly. “So will I.”
Dad reached for her arm. She moved away from his hand.
“Tomorrow,” she told him. “Bring every record you have.”
Joyce drove Grandma home. I went to the diner.
Eddie was sitting on an overturned milk crate by the back door. He stood as soon as he saw me.
“What happened at the wedding?”
“More than I can explain tonight.”
He unlocked the kitchen for me. The familiar smell of lemon cleaner and warm bread made my throat tighten. I had been here since dawn, then left to dress for the reception. Now I was back in my satin shoes with the Blue Lantern’s future folded in my purse.
Eddie brought me our supplier book. We compared the invoices from the envelope against our orders.
Two matched.
The third did not.
“Harbor Provisioning,” Eddie read. “We’ve never used them.”
The invoice was for kitchen equipment supposedly delivered three weeks ago. I looked around. Every oven, mixer, and refrigerator in the room had been here for years.
“Can you check whether anything arrived while I was off?” I asked.
“Nothing like this. I’d have had to sign for it.”
The invoice bore a signature. It looked like mine from a distance. Up close, the final stroke went the wrong way.
I photographed it and sent it to Grandma and Joyce.
A car pulled into the alley.
I expected Dad. Vanessa stepped out instead, her wedding dress replaced by a dark coat over plain clothes. She came through the back door without asking.
“I thought you’d come here,” she said.
“Where’s Liam?”
“At the hotel.”
“Then go back to him.”
“I need that envelope.”
“Eddie and I found an invoice for equipment that isn’t here. It has my name on it.”
Vanessa glanced toward Eddie. “Can we talk alone?”
“He works in this kitchen. You told investors he didn’t have a manager.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“Then tell me what you did say.”
She took a breath. “I told them the family planned to bring in a new executive chef.”
“While I was still cooking.”
“You could have stayed as a consultant.”
“You hadn’t asked me.”
Her eyes dropped to the invoice in my hand. “Harbor Provisioning was a billing mistake. I was going to correct it.”
“Who signed my name?”
“I don’t know.”
I wanted to believe that answer. She did not look surprised enough for me to do it.
My phone rang. It was Ms. Reyes, the lawyer Joyce had called. She had read the photographs we sent.
“Nora,” she said, “do not approve any invoices or transition paperwork. I need to see the originals.”
“I have them.”
“There’s something else. The invoice number matches a payment listed in Aster’s advance schedule. They may believe the equipment was delivered.”
I watched Vanessa turn pale.
May you like
“What happens if it wasn’t?”
“First we find out where the money went.”
