Page 113 of Second Chance

“A credible lead,” Tony repeats. “I’m impressed the detective thought highly enough of us to put it like that.”

“It must have killed her to say it.” Colette shakes her head. “When this gets out,

the college will really have to work on its image.”

“I hope no one in the film department makes a movie about it.” Tony shudders. Beyond his Mario-based prejudiceagainst film professors, student films are truly terrible. Sean’s description of his artistic ambitions only confirmed that.

Colette makes a face. “What an awful thought. I suppose we all know where they would screen it.”

“Oh, I am never going there again.” Daniel peers over Colette’s shoulder at the email.

Colette scoffs. “You go back to Wordstone Mansion all the time, and Stacy shot you there. How is that different?”

“Wordstone is a nice place with a good view,” Daniel argues. “The Continuum is a blight on humanity,andsomeone pointed a gun at me there. No, thank you.”

From her position on the comfy chair, watching them, Meredith wrinkles her nose. “I’m running a tally of all the things you apparently say on a regular basis that would give our mother a heart attack.”

“You should try a bingo,” Colette suggests. “Winner gets a bottle of wine.”

Meredith snaps her fingers. “Sold.”

They drive to campus in Tony’s car, which is running smoothly for a change. It’s like it heard him threaten to get a newer model. He doesn’t trust it. Colette, Meredith, and Daniel switch to Daniel’s car when they get there, and Tony follows them to Red Hook. It leads them past the worst intersection north of Brooklyn, but Tony finds he doesn’t mind it so much now. They have time to wait out three light switches before they can get across.

Their group ends up occupying a private room in the restaurant, which is slightly ridiculous. It’s not a big restaurant, an impression only aided by the cluttered walls, low ceilings, and dim lighting Indian restaurants favor. Still, taking up a whole private room is not something Tony was planning on today.

“We’re leaving a big tip, right?” Tony mutters to Daniel as everyone starts to filter in, talking over one another.

Daniel nods wordlessly.

Almost immediately, Tony is drawn into explaining to Charlie and Blake G what happened. He’s helped by Blake W and, when she gets there, Lisa with Emilio in tow.

“What was I supposed to do, forget about him?” Lisa hisses to Tony. “He works from home, he doesn’t have any friends in the area, and his family lives in Jersey.”

“It’s fine by me. But remember, several of us suspected him of killing his wife, and he knows it.Andwe’ve been trying to help her actual killer. He has no reason to like us.”

Lisa winces and glances over at Emilio. He’s relating his involvement to Charlie in detail, and the way he narrates it, he has no hard feelings about Colette and Tony staking out his house.

“Well,” Tony says. “That works, I guess.”

It takes a while to get through the full story for everyone who wasn’t there for all of it. It’s not all pleasant. Rehashing what Lily did throws a pall over all of them. There’s Emilio’s anger, Daniel’s guilt, Gianna’s concern, and the collective knowledge that no matter what happens, no matter what they tried to achieve, Lily’s life will be forever changed in the worst way. In Tony’s opinion, the consequences are justified. Emilio’s life has also been destroyed, not to mention his daughter’s. But Tony knows Daniel won’t magically stop wishing he could have prevented it even if he understands what an awful mess Lily’s actions have created. Tony’s still working out how he feels about it.

He’s trying not to think about how it makes him feel—Daniel missing and possibly hurt, or worse, Lily causing it all, no matterhow messed up she is. This is neither the place nor the time for working through it. Instead, Tony goes for seconds from the buffet, and most everyone follows suit.

Tony’s ma, who has never had Indian food in her life, works on some lamb saag with a thoughtful expression on her face.

“Do you think they’d give me a recipe?” she asks.

Gianna rolls her eyes. “Have you heard of Google, Ma?”

Through a series of comments, which Tony misses half of, Daniel and Emilio end up discussing several different methods of storing recipes online, something Emilio apparently does for his own parents and Daniel used to do when he was a grad student who could only cook three things.

Tony leans into Daniel’s space, bumping their shoulders together. “You say that like you can cook more things now, sweetheart.”

Daniel flicks his nose. “I wasn’t starving before I met you.”

“It’s true,” Colette says. “I used to think Daniel was a decent cook before you started feeding us.”

Resting his arm on the back of Tony’s chair, Tony examines her critically. “The Swedish Chef is a decent cook compared to you, Colette.”

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