"Well then, let's go," Isabel said, already heading toward the bathroom door. She grinned. “If we take the car before he does, Darius will have to get a taxi, which will slow him down.”
“You can be so evil at times,” Penny laughed as they headed out of the house.
The diner sat at the edge of the bay road where it curved away from Sweet Blossom Bay toward the Sanibel causeway, a low-slung building with a green awning and a hand-painted sign that said GULF COAST GRILLE in faded letters that suggested the sign had been there considerably longer than the current owner. The parking lot held six cars. A ceiling fan turned slowly behind the glass front door.
The owner, a broad-shouldered man in his fifties named Pete, recognized Penny the moment they walked in.
"Penny," Pete said. "Welcome back, it’s so good to see you."
Penny greeted him warmly, then introduced him to Isabel before she explained, without explaining too much, what they needed. She told him that a meeting was taking place there in approximately twenty minutes, involving people she needed to observe without being seen. She needed a booth at the back, away from the main floor, and she needed the booth nearest the window table to be available and unoccupied when her party arrived. She handed Pete a small flat device no larger than acoin, which she asked him to slide under the edge of the table's condiment tray.
Pete looked at the device, took it, and grinned. “As long as this is industrial espionage, I don’t get named or blamed,” he teased.
“Nope, just me needing to hear what my foolishly sneaky brother is up to,” Isabel assured Pete.
“Okay then,” Pete said. "Kira," he called to the waitress behind the counter. "Come here a minute."
He briefed Kira quietly while Penny and Isabel settled into the back booth. Kira was a small, sharp-eyed young woman who nodded once at Pete's instructions, then did as he instructed, flashing Isabel and Penny a smile.
Isabel sat with her hands around a glass of iced tea and her eyes on the front door.
"I feel ridiculous," Isabel said quietly.
"You feel ridiculous because you've never done anything like this before," Penny replied, her eyes also on the door. "Give it five minutes."
“It is also quite exciting, though,” Isabel admitted. “I feel like a spy.”
“Is that why you insisted we get these baseball caps?” Penny winced, tapping the brim of hers.
“Well, if we’re going to do this, we may as well do it right, and we can’t risk Darius or Baxter glancing our way and seeing us,” Isabel reasoned. “And baseball caps are perfect as they know we’d never ordinarily wear one.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Penny agreed.
"If Darius is doing this because he thinks it’s my father's dream, he’s wrong," Isabel told her.
“What do you mean?” Penny asked with a frown. “Darius told me that your parents often spoke about creating that resort and spa here.”
“The last year we ever came here, I heard my mom make my father promise to never create that here,” Isabel confessed. “She said that it would ruin the small town and that it would be better on the outskirts of the town between Sanibel and Sweet Blossom Bay. She was also adamant that the hotel shouldn’t be as large as my father had first envisioned.”
Penny gaped at her. “You haven’t mentioned this to him?”
“I did,” Isabel told her. “I went straight to him and told him that mom and dad were fighting over dad’s project plan for Sweet Blossom Bay. He asked why they were fighting, and I told him that Mom wanted Dad to stop thinking about ruining the beautiful town because she wanted to preserve it.”
“And he’s still insisting on this!” Penny said more to herself in confusion.
“It was not long after that they passed away,” Isabel’s voice dropped with the ache in her heart. It had been over forty years, but that ache of losing her parents in that way had never gone away.
“It could be he just forgot,” Penny stated doubtfully and then shook her head. “Or it could explain his growing reluctance for this project.”
“What do you mean?” Isabel asked, her brow furrowing.
“I don’t know,” Penny said. “But I’ve seen it in his eyes. It’s like he’s conflicted about this project. Even with the house, I can see when we talk about redoing it how his eyes go distant but not in a bad way. Like he’s picturing what we are saying.” She bit her lip. “He could move on the properties he wanted at any time, but he’s held back and instead just keeps sending letters and offers.”
“Like he’s hoping they’d be able to thwart him,” Isabel realized as she remembered watching Darius’s face the other day when they were talking about giving the house a refurbish.
"Yes, like that," Penny answered. "Which is why I'm choosing to believe that something has changed in him about this project. I've seen it, Isabel. The doubt. The way he looks at the bay in the morning. The way he talks about the people here." There was a pause. "And definitely since he met Linda.”
The mention of her new friend's name had the anger igniting once again. “What is he doing with Linda?” She eyed Penny suspiciously once again. “I hope he’s not toying with her emotions or trying to get close to her for the hotel.”
