Caridad Pineiro - Darkness Calls

Melissa smiled and waved him off. “No problem, but you’d better get going. The fettuccine isn’t going to wait for you all night.”

Ryder forced his own smile and stepped back into the restaurant. When the hostess noticed him, she took his arm and guided him to a booth only a few steps away from the main entrance. They approached the table where Diana waited with her back to the entrance, allowing Melissa to leave without notice.

“Sorry I took so long,” he apologized as he slipped into the bench across from her.

“No problem,” she replied. A waiter approached and slid a small, napkin-covered basket onto the table. Diana flipped open one side of the napkin and held out the basket to him. “I took the liberty of ordering some garlic bread to get us started.”

The scent assailed him, and Ryder barely controlled the urge to rear back from the table. He managed to shift away only slightly and hold up his hand in refusal. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Gives you agita, huh?” she replied, then set the basket in the middle of the table and grabbed a piece of garlicky, cheesy bread.

Ryder watched her take a bite and winced. “If agi-whatever means it’s time for Pepto-Bismol, the answer is ‘yes,’” he lied.

Diana glanced at him as she quickly devoured the first piece of the bread and reached for another. “No self-respecting New Yorker, even a transplanted one such as yourself, doesn’t know what agita means, Ryder. So I guess you haven’t been here long.”

He shrugged, picked up the menu sitting on the table and answered her from behind the protection of the paper. “I’ve been here awhile. I just don’t get out much.”

“Mmm,” she murmured, sensing evasion in his voice. “Too much work and not enough play has made Ryder a dull boy?” she teased, and wondered where the playfulness had come from. She should not come on to a possible suspect.

He put down the menu and faced her straight on, a challenging grin on his face. “If anyone would know, it would be you, Diana. I suspect you spend more than your share of time at work.”

She shrugged, thinking it was because she had yet to meet someone who interested her as much as work did…until now. Shaking off the thought, she snagged another piece of the bread and took a bite, hesitating before answering. “I work hard, that’s true. But I have my group of friends and my family,” she evaded. “How about you?”

“Is your family in the area? I thought I detected a slight accent,” he said, ducking her question, as the waiter stepped up to them, his pad and pen in hand.

“The usual, bella?” the handsome teenager said with a wink.

She nodded and returned her menu. “The usual, Rocco.”

When the waiter turned to Ryder, he ordered the fettuccine alfredo. He pressed Diana again once the young man was gone. “So, family in the area?”

“A brother who moved up to New York a few months ago. He’s a computer whiz who was working for a new Latino Web site down in Silicon Beach—”

“Where’s that?” he jumped in.

“Miami. That’s where we grew up,” she answered quickly.

Ryder nodded. “Explains that slight singsong I hear in your voice. English wasn’t your first language,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“No, it wasn’t. I’m Cuban-American.”

He nodded again and motioned for her to continue with her story. “So why do they call it Silicon Beach?”

“Lots of new dot-coms down in Miami are geared for Latinos, so they’ve dubbed part of the area Silicon Beach.” She stopped only long enough to take a sip of water and finish her piece of garlic bread. “Anyway, he got lured away by more money and a better title. Some new Latino Web site that started up in New York.”

“It’s nice that he’s close to you.”

Diana nodded. “He lives with me,” she clarified, and hated how easily that statement had come. Ryder’s grin made it clear that he had taken it to mean she was available. She quickly tried to deflect any further queries into her personal life. Or rather, her lack of one.

“Your mom is gone, but how about other family? Are they nearby?” she asked, and regretted it as a fleeting glimpse of sadness washed over his features.

“I was an only child. My father never acknowledged me, so I had no other relatives to speak of,” he lied, feeding her the story that, after so many repetitions, had almost become truth. In reality, he’d had a loving wife and family, but they were long gone. It had been too painful to keep track of his descendants only to watch them die.

“That’s a shame,” Diana said, and motioned in the direction of the hostess at the front door. “You see Isabel over there? She and Luigi have three daughters and three sons, one of whom was our waiter. They all work here and, eventually, their kids will work here, as well.”

Ryder laughed in disbelief. “You mean there really is a Luigi?”

Diana chuckled and leaned closer to him over the width of the booth. “Yes. His great-granddad, Luigi number one, came from Italy with his wife and opened this place. His only son, Luigi number two, couldn’t cook to save his life, but married a nice Italian girl who could. That son made sure there would be another generation to keep it going by having Luigi the third and five daughters.”

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