The Second Life of Nick Mason (Nick Mason #1)(7)

Nick shook the water from his hair. “Who are you?”

“My name is Diana Rivelli. Nobody told you about me?”

“No.”

She shook her head as she reached over to turn on the ceiling vent. “That figures.”

“The room at the end of the hallway,” Nick said. “The one that was locked.”

“Yes,” she said, looking a little unhappy with the thought of him trying her door. “That’s my room.”

I have a roommate, Mason said to himself.

“The clothes on the bed,” he said. “You bought those for me. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Actually, I did. But you’re welcome, anyway.”

Mason had more questions, but she was already walking out of the room. He dried off and got dressed, trying on some of the new clothes. Jeans and a simple white dress shirt.

When he came out into the kitchen, he took another look around and found the walk-in pantry. At the back of it was yet another door. He felt the temperature drop as he opened it and stepped inside. He turned on the light and saw the wooden latticework along the wall, with a bottle of wine in each opening. There had to be at least three hundred bottles in here, with another dozen champagne bottles in a small glass-doored refrigerator on the table, next to the openers and decanters.

Mason’s first cell mate made prison wine with fruit smuggled out from his kitchen job, some sugar, some toast, all mashed up in a plastic bag and kept warm for a week. From that world to this one in just twenty-four hours. Mason shook his head, turned off the light, and went back out to the kitchen.

He found a frying pan in the cabinet below the kitchen island, got some eggs and cheese from the refrigerator, then cut up some onions and peppers. Diana came back down the stairs.

“You want an omelet?” he asked.

She sat down on the other side of the island and looked around at the mess. “That’s the wrong pan. If you’re making an omelet, you use the omelet pan. And you’ve got it way too hot.”

Mason worked the spatula around the edge of the omelet and saw that it was already burning. “It’s been a while.”

She looked away and tucked a stray hair behind her ear.

“Where do you work?” he said.

“I manage a restaurant on Rush Street. Antonia’s. Come by tonight, have dinner, see where you’ll be working.”

Mason stopped dead. “Where I’ll be working?”

“You’re an assistant manager,” she said. “Take the omelet out of the pan . . . or the scrambled eggs . . . whatever you’d call that.”

Mason scooped it onto a plate.

“You won’t be cooking,” she said. “No offense.”

“Cook, assistant manager, like it even f*cking matters. What do I know about restaurants?”

Eddie would be able to fake his way through this, he thought. He’d always been the great improviser ever since they were kids. How many times had they done jobs together, Eddie acting like he really belonged somewhere, and getting away with it?

“You’ll get a pay stub in case somebody needs to see it. The IRS, whoever else. Other than that, your official job description as assistant manager will be to stay the hell out of everybody else’s way.”

Mason took a bite of his omelet. “What can you tell me about Quintero?”

“I don’t think we’ve ever spent more than a minute in the same room. I wouldn’t mind keeping it that way.”

Mason looked her over. He couldn’t figure out how she could be so matter-of-fact about this, a convict released yesterday and today standing in her kitchen.

I wonder if I’m the first one, he thought. Maybe they come through here like a regular changing of the guard.

“What’s your story?” he said. “Why are you here?”

“I told you, I run a restaurant.”

“Does Cole own it?”

She hesitated. “Not officially. Not on paper.”

“How long have you known him?”

She hesitated again. Maybe she’s another devoted follower of my rule number seven, Mason thought. Keep your personal life and your professional life separate. As separate as enriched uranium and those mullahs over in Iran.

“I’ve known Darius a long time,” she finally said. “My father was one of his first business partners. It was my father’s restaurant.”

“Where is he now?”

“He’s dead,” she said, looking away from him. “He said the wrong thing to the wrong person. Darius dealt with that person. And everyone else who was involved.”

Mason studied her carefully. She was talking about something else, something that went beyond the restaurant business or buying him clothes. She lived in Cole’s town house and obviously had a history with the man. She called him by his first name.

“You’ve been living here,” he said to her, not even a question, “ever since he went to Terre Haute.”

This was a classy woman, Mason thought. Smart enough to know how attractive she was, smart enough to know that with her body and brains, she could do and have pretty much anything or anyone she wanted.

But she stayed here.

Her eyes met his. “We don’t need to talk about that,” she said. “I need to get to work.”