Page 130 of Key West Homecoming

Margarita Max’s was three-quarters full when she came through the door just before two. The Saturday lunch crowd filled most of the tables. Lloyd occupied his usual stool. Joey sat in the corner playing something slow on his guitar, while Leah worked the register. Tess was crossing toward the back with a tray of glasses.

Tess saw Emma and immediately changed direction.

“Hey, you. Come sit down.”

Before Emma had a chance to answer, Tess was telling Lloyd to move his stool over.

“I’m not moving,” he said. “This stool and I have an understanding.”

“I didn’t tell you to get off it. Give Emma some room.”

Lloyd shifted his stool an inch or two. Emma suspected that was the most cooperation Tess was going to get.

“Hello, Emma.”

“Hello, Lloyd, and thank you.”

“I hear you had a hell of a week.”

Emma sat down. “I did.”

Lloyd drank his beer and appeared to lose interest in the conversation. Emma knew better. He probably wasn’t finished.

A moment later, he proved her right. “I don’t know enough about your family to have an opinion about it, but your uncle is the kind of man I wouldn’t have moved over for. I want that on the record.”

Emma smiled despite herself. “Thank you, Lloyd.”

“That’s my opinion.”

“You just said you didn’t have one.”

“That was a general statement. This is a particular one.”

“I see the distinction.”

“Good.”

He returned to his beer.

Emma looked toward Leah, who had been watching from the register.

“Word travels.”

“In this town, word doesn’t travel. It accelerates.”

Leah brought her a glass of ice water and explained that Rachel’s latest filing was public record. There were enough numbers in it to make people curious. By Friday morning, most of the people who cared about such things had heard some version of the story.

Emma pressed her fingers against her forehead.

For weeks, Emma had tried to keep the details of her uncle’s crimes somewhat private. Now she understood that privacy had probably stopped being an option much earlier. Arthur had tried to sell a Key West house that wasn’t his, and people were bound to talk.

Emma wasn’t embarrassed because what Arthur had done belonged to him. Still, she hadn’t expected to become a story people discussed over coffee or from one end of a bar to the other.

“You were going to be a story the minute that linen blazer came through my door,” Leah said.

Emma laughed softly. “I understand that now.”

Leah offered her tomato basil soup. Emma accepted.