“Because the potential murder of my granddaughter isn’t serious?”
“You know why I’m here,” Hunter pressed. “More importantly, I know why you’ve been hiding from me.”
Grandpa scorched me with a dark look. “Really? And why do you think I’ve been hiding from you? I haven’t, by the way. I don’t hide from anybody.”
Hunter lowered his voice. “I know about Tina. I know she had Roy’s baby. I know you feel guilty for suggesting she take the job. Before you go crazy and start yelling at Stormy, you should know that I knew about Roy being Dakota’s father before she even gave birth. I never said anything because it wasn’t my business.”
Grandpa leaned back in his seat and pinned Hunter with a pointed look. “That girl has been through enough. She doesn’t need you asking her invasive questions.”
“I’m hoping it doesn’t get to that point,” Hunter agreed. “I still have to find Roy’s killer. He might’ve been a terrible human being, but he didn’t deserve to die that way.”
“Tina isn’t a viable suspect,” Grandpa insisted. “She has health issues. Even though Roy was older, she wouldn’t be able to take him out. Besides, she wouldn’t leave Dakota long enough to do it and there’s no way she would take that boy to watch her kill his father.”
“I don’t think it’s Tina,” Hunter insisted. “Chill out. I’m not looking at her. That doesn’t mean I’m not looking at other women who were in that office. If Roy did that to Tina, what’s to say he didn’t do the same with someone else?”
That hadn’t occurred to me, but it made sense. “Can we put together a list of the people who have worked for Roy throughout the years?”
“That’s the plan,” Hunter confirmed. “And because he hid from me for days, your grandfather is going to help ... just as soon as we have lunch. It’s going to be on him, too, because I spent the entire morning protecting his granddaughter.”
“I didn’t agree to that,” Grandpa said stubbornly. “In fact ... .” He was interrupted by the front door banging open.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Monica. She’d probably spent the better part of the morning searching the town for Hunter. Circling back only made sense. The look on her face when she saw us sitting together made my blood run cold.
“Oh, crap,” Hunter muttered.
“This won’t be good,” Grandpa groused. “She’s about to make a scene. You know how I feel about other people making a scene. I’m the only one allowed to make a scene in my restaurant.”
27
Twenty-Seven
Even before I’d accidentally burned off her eyebrows, Monica had one of those faces best described as “angry Kardashian after finding out cameras have been banned for life.” She was beautiful, in an over-processed way, and it occurred to me that I’d never seen her without makeup. To be fair, I had spent very little time with her. She was always “on,” though, and that was never truer than today.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Her gaze was furious, and it was directed at Hunter.
“We should go outside,” he said as he started to push himself to his feet. He didn’t look like a man about to go before a firing squad, but he certainly didn’t look happy.
“Why should we go outside?” Monica planted her hands on her hips. “Is there something you want to say that everybody who knows what’s going on can’t hear?”
“This is a private matter.” Hunter was firm. “I don’t want my life spread all over this town for obvious reasons.”
“Your private business has already been spread all over this town,” Monica hissed. “Everyone knows that you spent last night making a fool of me.”
“Nothing happened,” I volunteered. “I swear ... he was just helping me because I was afraid.”
When her eyes turned to me, there was more than anger there. Outright hatred was reflected back. I sucked in a breath. I never thought it was possible to have someone look at me that way.
“I’m not an idiot.” Monica practically spit the words and I shrank back into my booth seat. “He spent the night.”
“On the couch,” I protested.
“Oh, nobody believes that! Do you have any idea the looks I’ve gotten since word started spreading that you were coming back? People pity me. Me!” She thumped her chest like a wrestler, which made me wonder if she could hold her own in a fight if it came to it. She looked as if she did Pilates regularly, which meant she was strong. I was essentially a third-string benchwarmer on the powder puff team.
“I didn’t even know you existed until we ran into your mother at a festival,” she continued, oblivious to the ears taking in her diatribe. “She greeted Hunter like she was his mother — and for a moment I thought she was — but then, when she was introduced to me, she made a big show of acting really sad and saying that she was disappointed he was dating and always wanted him for her daughter.”
I felt the need to say something, but what could I say? Even though I had no idea where I might end up, I spoke anyway. “My mother has issues. She doesn’t think before speaking.”
“Oh, she knew what she was saying,” Monica shot back. “Her aim was to make me as uncomfortable as possible ... and it worked. After that, I started asking Hunter questions about you. He didn’t want to answer them. That’s when I knew I had something to fear.
“If he’d been forthcoming and said, ‘Oh, she’s just a girl I dated in high school and her mother should live in a nut barn,’ it would’ve been okay,” she continued. “But he didn’t want to talk about you at all, so I started asking around.”
Hunter, who had given up trying to leave, shifted on his seat. “You asked around?”
“Of course I did.” Her eyes flashed. “I thought we were going somewhere. I thought we had a future. I went to Sebastian, because he seemed to know everything about everyone in this town. I thought for sure he would tell me I was crazy. Do you know what he told me?”
I could only imagine — and it wasn’t good.
“He told me that you two were joined at the hip. That he assumed you would get married right out of high school,” she barreled forward, barely taking a breath. “I said that never works, and he said it would’ve worked with you two. I asked him if he thought there was a chance you would get back together. I expected him to say that it was far too late for that. He told me that Stormy broke your heart. You’re the type of guy who won’t put up with that, except here you are. You’re putting up with it again.”
Hunter pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. “We were kids, Monica. I don’t hold any ill will toward Stormy. We really need to take this conversation outside.”
“She won’t let that happen,” Grandpa said in a low voice, his back still to Monica as he drank his coffee. “The only way out of this for her is to play the victim. I knew this would happen.” His eyes landed on me. “People all over town are talking about Hunter’s squad car being here all night. I wasn’t exaggerating.”