Page 60 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“Last week. I didn’t want to say anything because the paperwork wasn’t completed, but it’s done now, everything is in order, all I need you to do is sign over your shares to the new buyer, and it’s finished.”
Marguerite slid the papers over the pristine white tablecloth to Ember, who stared at them as if they might suddenly burst into flame. “But…who…why would anyone want it? You said it yourself, it’s upside down, the creditors alone—”
“It was all arranged through Señor Alvarez,” Marguerite responded dismissively, leaning back against the leather. She smoothed a hand over her hair—scraped back off her face as always and pinned to a severe chignon—and took a sip of her coffee. “There was an anonymous buyer, some rich book collector who’d apparently been interested in the store for quite some time. The deal was all cash, if you can believe it! He’s paid for the entire catalogue, including all those mid-century cookbooks your father insisted on and I knew would never sell. At any rate, it’s an incredible stroke of luck. And the offer was ludicrous!” She actually laughed, which made Ember cringe in horror, it was so grotesque. “We’ll both be set, my dear! Set!”
Ember sat there staring at Marguerite in disbelief. Her money problems were over?
Over?
“Exactly how much are we talking here?”
Marguerite leaned over and pointed to a line near the bottom of the top page of the sheaf of documents. Ember squinted at it, sure she wasn’t reading it right. She leaned closer, peering, her mouth half open, until the numbers wavering on the page cleared and even upside down made sense.
With an audible humph, Ember collapsed back into her chair.
“That can’t be right,” she said weakly, disbelieving. “That’s ten times what it’s worth. Twenty! And in this economy…who in their right mind…”
She trailed off, her brain suddenly blank.
“Well, my dear,” Marguerite said brightly, “like I always say, never look a gift horse in the mouth!”
As if squeezed out by a giant, invisible hand that had clamped around her chest, all the air left Ember’s lungs.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Asher had said those exact words to her—when Dante had told her not to worry about the rent.
Marguerite produced a pen from her handbag and held it out. “Just sign it, September, and let’s all be done with it. You and I both know what a mistake it was for your father to open that store—he was as much a businessman as I am a kangaroo. The two of us have equal share in it and I’ve already signed, so all you have to do is—”
Ember shoved back her chair so abruptly it toppled over behind her, startling the waiter who had come to check if they needed anything else, and the Tweedies, who had gone back to ignoring her but once again choked on their food.
“No.”
Marguerite’s face went white. Turtle-like, her head stretched forward on her neck as if she didn’t quite hear it, or couldn’t quite believe it. She quietly repeated, “No?”
There was a fault line running under Ember’s life, an almost invisible crack slowly and surely gaining pressure year after year. The mounting friction had recently risen to a dangerously high level. One tiny thing could trigger a seismic event that would topple everything in her world, and for the first time she realized what a tightrope she’d been walking—how close she was to losing the only thing she had left, control—in the blink of an eye.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Ember knew with crystalline clarity who her gift horse was.
She turned and ran from the restaurant, leaving a gaping Marguerite and the Tweedies behind.
“Dante?” Ember called through his apartment door as she knocked. “Are you home?”
He was; the sound of shuffling feet alerted her first, then he appeared wearing a plaid robe, black socks and a smile. “Ah, la hermosa Americana! Buenos dias, como estas?”
“Bien, gracias. But English, remember?”
“Oh!” His hand flew to cover his mouth. “Si! I mean yes!” He straightened his toupee, adopted a strange pose with his hands on his hips and one leg stuck out like it was broken, then in the most terrible John Wayne impersonation she had ever heard, drawled, “How’s it hangin’, pilgrim?”
That stunned her into silence for a moment. When she recovered enough to speak, she asked, “Dante, why haven’t you asked for my rent again yet?”
His smile died a quick death. “Er, I, ah…I told you…don’t worry about it—”
“Don’t worry about it because it’s already been paid, you mean?”
He sucked his lips between his teeth like someone had just stuck a lemon in his mouth.
“Dante,” she warned, “don’t lie to me.”
