“Hi! I didn’t realize you were coming this weekend,” Emma greeted her friend, Jamie Forrester. She’d gone to nursing school with Jamie. Jamie had gotten married last year and moved to Green Bay with her new husband, although Jamie and she still stayed in touch.
“Scott has a meeting in the city Monday morning, so we just came down for a few nights,” Jamie explained, tucking an errant brown curl behind her ear. “Besides,” Jamie continued in a more confidential tone, “my dad had a medical scare last week. They took him to the emergency room with chest pains. They thought it was a heart attack, but it turned out it was just indigestion. Still, it scared Mom and me. I just wanted to see for myself that he’s okay.”
“That’s understandable,” Emma said, concern tightening her features. She’d met Jamie’s parents several times and liked the warm, friendly couple very much. “Please give Mort my best and tell your mother hello. Are you sure he’s all right? He works too hard.”
“Once a cop, always a cop,” Jamie said, grinning. “But why don’t you come and say hello yourself. I’m meeting my dad over at Joe’s,” she said, pointing at the coffee shop just yards away. “He’d love to see you. He was just asking about you last night. We’ll catch up over a cup of coffee.”
“I’d love that,” Emma agreed.
* * *
They found Mort Forrester sitting at a booth in the coffee shop, with a laptop and cup of coffee in front of him. Emma couldn’t help but smile at his likeable appearance—a man with the girth of a linebacker and a graying blond crew cut peering through a pair of nerdy-cool tortoiseshell Poindexter-style glasses while he punched away at his keyboard with thick, round fingers.
“You promised Mom you weren’t going to work this weekend,” Jamie scolded her father. “Look who I found out on the street.”
Mort did a double take upon seeing Emma, grinned broadly, and stood to give her a big hug.
The three of them talked for a while, Emma sitting across from Mort and Jamie, three cups of hot coffee on the table between them. Jamie and she eventually veered off on a girlfriend tangent of conversation while Mort distractedly plucked at his keyboard.
“I can’t believe you and Colin broke up,” Jamie said, sagging back in the booth after Emma had broken the news. Mort looked up from his computer, his daughter’s exclamation snagging his attention. “I thought you two would be together forever.”
“Really?” Emma asked doubtfully as she took a sip of coffee.
“You thought so, too. Once,” Jamie said with a pointed glance.
Emma shrugged, aware of Mort’s shrewd observance. Mort may be a small-town cop nowadays, but he’d served in Chicago Police Department for years and he was a sharp observer of character. “It just wasn’t meant to be. I’m fine about the whole thing.”
“Well, that’s good I guess,” Jamie said. Emma understood her friend’s disquietude. Emma and she used to talk a lot about their love lives while they were in nursing sc
hool, and she and Colin had been on a number of dates with Jamie and her husband, Scott. It was always uncomfortable when a familiar couple broke up.
“You really do seem fine with it,” Jamie added after a reflective pause. “When I first saw you out there on the sidewalk, I thought wow . . . what vitamins is she taking? You look fantastic.”
Emma blushed. She’d noticed a special glow to her reflection in the mirror all week as well. It was as if Vanni’s uncommon brand of lovemaking had released some miracle chemical in her body. She felt like a blooming flower. It both embarrassed and pleased her to know that other people could see the results of her transformation.
“Is there someone else?”
Emma blinked at Mort’s unexpected, quietly uttered question.
“No,” Emma said automatically. Vanni didn’t count as some kind of alternative to Colin, who had been a dependable, reliable “boyfriend,” the likes of which Mort and Jamie would approve. She saw Mort’s shaggy eyebrows go up at her emphatic reply. “I mean . . . yes, I did meet someone. But it’s not a serious thing,” Emma assured when she saw Jamie’s expression perk up with interest.
“I didn’t forget about your problem with your landlord, by the way,” Mort said, seeming to intuit her discomfort with the “new guy” topic he’d begun and trying to change it.
“Oh, thank you so much, but everything has gotten better,” Emma enthused, leaning forward with a smile. Mort had promised to guide her through making a formal complaint with the housing commission in regard to her irresponsible and unresponsive landlord. “One day the maintenance man came over and said he was going to take care of every single item on our list,” Emma explained. “Amanda and I were shocked. He did it, too, even though he had to buy quite a few replacement items. I have no idea what came over our owner.”
“He decided to sell, that’s what came over him,” Mort said, nodding at his laptop.
“What?” Emma asked, taken aback.
“Yeah. I was checking out the title to the property while you girls chatted in order to get his name. I thought we could draft a complaint letter for the housing commission while you were here,” Mort said to Emma. He swung around his laptop so that Emma could see the screen. “The title to your apartment complex changed hands several weeks ago. According to the county records, your new landlord is a very wealthy man. From what I know about Michael Montand, he’s got deep enough pockets to get things taken care of at your apartment. I suppose you know who Montand is? Emma?”
Emma heard Mort’s question through what seemed like thick insulation. She stared openmouthed at the property sale document, her gaze glued to the black print. Buyer: Michael G. Montand of 3637 Lakefront Road, Kenilworth, IL. A strange tingling sensation sunk down her tailbone.
“Yes,” she said through a constricted throat, suddenly conscious that Mort was looking at her expectantly. “I have heard of Montand.”
“Michael Montand, the guy who makes those hot, superexpensive sports cars?” Jamie asked.
Mort nodded, taking his computer back when Emma pushed it toward him on the Formica tabletop with numb fingers. She’d seen enough. There was no mistake. The address was familiar. The name certainly was. There was no doubt about it.