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

restored to the tip of her nail where it belonged, sparkling with the other nine, and a pedicure thrown in for the heck of it helped her the way therapy might help another woman. To Toni, being surrounded by women laughing, gossiping and relaxing, with her mother for company, was as good as a group counseling session.
    When she got home, even Tiffany was in a better mood.
    “How was enviro club?”
    “Really cool. And I’m sorry about your car. The man said it would be good as new with a new bumper and engine and a couple of new doors.”
    “You are so grounded forever.”
    Tiffany laughed. “I put the keys beside the fruit bowl. What’s for dinner, Tiger Mommy?”
    “Oh, I don’t know.” She opened the fridge. “How about mushroom lasagna and salad?”
    “Or we could have pizza?”
    “Pizza and salad. Honestly, for a vegetarian, you don’t eat enough vegetables.”
    They chatted over dinner and Toni thought, as she had so many times over the past sixteen years, that Dwayne had missed out on the only good thing he’d ever done.
    She managed not to think about her deadbeat ex for the next few days until she was startled by her daughter coming into her office one evening after dinner.
    She fiddled with one of the silver rings on her hand.
    “Mom?”
    “Mmm-hmm?”
    “Why did you and Dad break up?”
    Toni’s head jerked up from the Spring Fling sample packs she was packing into her tote bag to take to a Spring Fling makeup party. Toni didn’t do a lot of home parties anymore but she liked to keep her hand in.
    “What brings this on, Tiff? You haven’t asked about your dad for a while.”
    Tiffany hadn’t inquired about her father for probably two years. How creepy that she would ask about him today, only a few days after Toni had received a call from Deadbeat Dwayne.
    “I don’t know.” Today Tiffany had chosen to embrace spring and its colorful palette by wearing more black than usual. “Most of my friends who have divorced parents still see their dads. I feel like a freak.”
    Toni couldn’t stop herself from smoothing a loving hand down her daughter’s back. “We were way too young to get married. I wasn’t much older than you are now. And Dwayne, well, he certainly wasn’t ready to settle down. He lit out when you were a baby and I haven’t seen him since.”
    “But he’s older now. Maybe he wants to see me. Maybe he feels like you’re keeping me from him.”
    “Has he contacted you?” The words were out before she could contain them. Her tone sounded sharp even to her own ears.
    “See? There you go acting all control freaky. What if he has? Doesn’t a man have a right to see his own child?”
    Feeling as though a giant fist were squeezing her heart, she said, “Of course he does. I’m surprised he’d want to get in touch after all these years, that’s all.”
    “I’m old enough to know the truth,” Tiffany said, looking achingly young and lost in a way Toni knew she could never fix.
    “I’ve always told you the truth.”
    “Have you?” And before she could answer, Tiffany’s cell made a tone that indicated a text was coming in and she was gone.
    Toni did not believe her daughter’s sudden interest in her father was a coincidence. She also understood that Tiffany was a lot like she herself had been at sixteen. Stubborn, convinced she knew about life. Naive as hell.
    If only she knew how to protect her daughter from her own father.
    Luke Marciano was ass-deep in a murder investigation. Not that you needed to be much of a detective to solve this case. Two neighbors had exchanged angry words and insults over the placement of a fence. A fence, for chrissake. Half the neighborhood had witnessed the altercation. Then, a day later one of the two was found in his backyard with a couple of bullets in him. The other neighbor had a cabinet full of guns and one was missing. Luke sometimes felt like everyone in his adopted state solved their problems with guns.
    When his cell rang and