Ultimate Concealer, A Toni Diamond Mystery: A Toni Diamond Mystery (Toni Diamond Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page A

her, this man who was responsible for half of her genetic material.
    “You are going to love it. It’s like a party all day and all night, every day. I work hard, don’t get me wrong, but I play hard too. I’ve got a lot of friends I want to introduce you to. Places I want you to see.”
    He drove as though he didn’t have a destination and didn’t care. As though all he wanted to do in the world was cruise around talking to her. She thought about how crazy busy her mom always was and then felt a pang of guilt. She knew her mom would be pissed. Also worried. She’d have to email her the first chance she got.
    “Is there an Internet café around here?”
    He sent her a sharp look. “Honey, you’re on holiday. What do you need the Internet for?”
    She hesitated. “I should email Mom and let her know I’m okay.”
    He drove on for almost a block then said, “Why don’t you leave your mom to me. She’s already called and left a message.” He shot her a sideways glance. “I’m going to tell you right now, your mom ripped me a new one.” He shook his head. “I haven’t been called some of those names since, well, I guess since she threw me out back when you were a baby.”
    Tiffany stared at him. She felt as though her world had tipped a little from its usual orbit. “Mom always told me you left us.”
    He pulled over, wheeled the big car to the curb and stopped so he could turn to look at her, such sincerity in his eyes that she couldn’t look away. “How can you think that I would ever leave you?” He shook his head. “Now, your mom is a wonderful woman and I will not say one word against her. I admire what she’s done, I truly do. But, you know what they say. There’s two sides to every story. I’m not saying your mother was wrong to throw me to the curb, and I’m not saying she was right. But I deserve a chance to get to know the child I never knew.”
    “But . . . I . . . —She should have told me the truth.”
    “I agree. But let’s not worry about that now. You hungry? I bet you are. I know a great place where the burgers are the best you’ll get outside our home state.” He pulled back into traffic while Tiffany’s mind reeled.
    His cell phone rang a lot, she noted. Obviously, a ‘65 Corvette didn’t come equipped with Bluetooth, so he checked call display and either ignored the calls or took the calls while driving. A big no-no in driver’s ed.
    Only one call caused him to pull over and stop the car.
    “Dwayne Diamond,” he said in a fake cheerful voice that reminded her of the Lady Bianca ladies practicing cold calls. He glanced over at her and whispered, “I gotta take this. I’ll be a second.” Then he pushed open the car door and walked a ways down the sidewalk. He walked in front of a peep show, then a pawn shop and finally a discount liquor place, then he turned and paced back again. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she got the sense that he was getting some bad news.
    She tried to interest herself in her surroundings, but she was getting a sense of unease deep in her stomach, the way she felt facing an exam she hadn’t studied enough for. He’d left the car engine running and his CD was playing, the same one she’d listened to coming in on the bus. As one track ended and there was a pause before the next began, she heard him snap, “Yeah, I’m on it. You’ll have your money You’ve got my word on that, sir.”
    She wanted to ask him if everything was all right, but the second he was back in the car he started telling her about all the people he wanted her to meet. “My friends, they’re as excited as I am to have you back in my life.”
    “Me, too,” she said.
    He pulled the big car into a gravel lot outside a roadhouse called Buck’s Steakhouse. “Wait until you try the burgers. They do one with blue cheese and bacon that will knock your socks off.”
    She climbed out of the car and followed him inside. The place was half-full. A woman with the