Manny's easy-going manner had faded in the ten minutes since Emma had handed him the manila envelope, and now the seriousness of his expression was unsettling her. She sat still under his scrutiny for a few more minutes with the uncanny feeling that she was being assessed in some way.
"Manny, please," she began again, "I really need these answers."
"Ay... I have a bad feeling about this, Emma." He shook his head slowly.
"Please?" she beseeched him, leaning forward slightly.
"Dios mío! Now I know why your papá always complained about not being able to resist you!" He chuckled a little, but then his expression sobered. "I'll tell you what I know about all of this, but I strongly urge you to leave the matter be. This should only be information acquisition, understand?"
"I can't promise that," she responded slowly. "I won't do anything stupid on my own, but if you know something that could clear my dad's name, and bring the right people to justice..." Her words trailed off.
"Just like your father, I swear!" Manny muttered under his breath. "Fine, I will tell you. But first, I have a question."
"Okay?"
"Have you spoken to Greta about all of this?"
"You know Greta?" Emma asked, her eyes widened in shock.
"Of course," Manny replied, "your father didn't trust very many people. As far as I know, he only came to me and Greta with his suspicions when the police wouldn't listen to him."
"Why Greta?" her brows knit together in confusion.
"Well, she was somewhat involved because of Daniel, but also Frankie knew she was strong and smart enough to do the right thing if the time came. You must understand, your father's first priority was yours and your brother's safety. Always. He would rather have you protected than get justice for himself." An exasperated sigh issued from deep in his chest, "He always tried to do everything on his own, though. If he had come to me sooner, or asked for help, things might have turned out very different."
"What do you mean, Manny?" Emma asked quietly.
"It's a long story, Emma. Have you spoken to her?"
Emma could see that he wasn't going to tell her anything else until she answered his question. A fresh wave of grief swept over her and she fought the tears that flooded her eyes, blinking them away. She stared at the floor for a moment, before taking a deep breath.
"No, I wasn't able to speak to her before she... she got sick. I can't talk to her anymore. That's why I'm here."
"Ay... Muy mal," Manny muttered. "How did she die?"
"Cancer. She only found out a few months ago. It spread quickly."
"I'm very sorry to hear that, she was a good woman," Manny offered. "Tell me, what do you wish to know, Emma."
Emma contemplated this for a few minutes. What did she want to know? She'd begun to draw tentative conclusions based on the events of the past few months, and the information from the safe seemed to support them. She wanted confirmation. To know whether or not she was on the right track. There was something else though, too. She wanted to know what really happened to her dad. Especially now. Manny insisted he cared more for her and Evan, than he did for himself. It was an entirely new perspective for her. Having always assumed his guilt, and now being faced with the possibility she'd been wrong, gnawed at her.
She began to speak, her words deliberate, "A couple of months ago, when I was packing up my Grandma's house, someone broke into the moving van. At the time, the police just assumed it was a petty thief, a kid." A slow, uncertain breath whistled out between her teeth as she considered how much to tell Manny. If she told him too much, he might not help her in an attempt to protect her, but she was sick and tired of being coddled and treated like she was fragile. Her lips set in a determined line.
"A week before Greta died, there was a break-in to the house, and she was attacked. It was Daniel, she got a good look at him. My mom also showed up at the hospital, by herself, to 'visit' her. They hated each other, it made no sense to me at all. Then, during the memorial service for Greta, I found my mom searching my Grandma's house, and she was behaving strangely. With all of that, I'm almost positive it was Daniel who broke into the moving van. We also know that he showed up at Ryan's business right before the break-in at Greta's."
Now she made the leap, the one she'd been contemplating and needed confirmation of. "I think," she began slowly, watching Manny's expression carefully, "that my mom and Daniel set my dad up all those years ago. I think they are the reason he's dead. And I think that, for whatever reason, my grandma dying has caused them to reconnect in order to try to find the gems. From all the research I've done, they were never recovered." Emma sat back in her seat, breathlessly waiting for Manny to confirm or deny her hypothesis.
He regarded her silently, leaning back, his fingers steepled over his chest. Abruptly, he sat up straight.
"You are too smart for your own good, Emma," he admonished. "You are correct in the essential details."
Giddiness washed over Emma followed by a slow wave of dread. She was right! But some part of her wished she wasn't.
"Explain, please," she urged. "Telling me what happened can only help me. It seems that I'm involved and in danger either way, and I don't even know how to protect myself, or from what. It doesn't seem like Daniel or my mom are planning on stopping anytime soon, just that they are getting more and more desperate."
"Sí, I think you're right," he sighed. "Your father will not be happy with me," he lamented.
"I'm not a little girl anymore, Manny," she asserted gently. "Knowledge will help me, protect me. Right now, I'm blind. All I have are half-baked theories, and you are the only one who can help me."
"Si, si, you are right. Keep in mind, I know only what your father told me and what I figured out for myself. I believe Greta knew something more, or he entrusted her with something, but I don't know what. He wanted to protect everyone, and in the end, neglected himself." He fixed Emma with a warning gaze, "Do not make the same mistakes, chica."
"I'll be careful, I promise. I have to know the truth, Manny. I've lived my whole life thinking the worst of my father. It messed me up... I owe it to him-to his memory—to give him the benefit of the doubt. To get him justice, if I can. Everyone thinks he was guilty, and if all you've told me about him is correct, he deserves so much better. Especially from me." Now her tears did come, an overflow of the weight of the past months pressing down on her.
Sitting forward, Manny reached out and gently ran a thumb across her cheek. "Do not cry, chica. Your papá loved you and your brother so much. He knew what you might think of him, and he would not hold it against you. He wanted you to be safe.
"Very well," he sighed, reclining back in his chair again, "I owe your father a great deal. I would like to see this matter settled as much as you."
Ron breezed back into the room with a couple bottles of beer and offered them each one. When they both had their drinks, he quietly excused himself again.
"You two talk as long as you need to," he smiled, "I'll be puttering around the garden." With that, he made his way out, leaving the pair in a silence pregnant with anticipation.
Manny's eyes followed him for a moment with a distant expression. Whether it was someplace or sometime else, Emma couldn't be sure. Then his eyes drifted back to hers and locked. "Your father loved Julie. I believe she was even in love with him, in the beginning. I frequented the bar he worked at, especially after he saved me that night, so I saw the relationship develop. For him, it was love-at-first-sight. Like someone conked him over the head with a sledgehammer. I'm not too sure about her—she was always hard to read—and I'm good at reading people. There was just always something a little bit off about her. Almost as if she wanted to feel, but was incapable of anything but imitating emotions."
He shrugged and swilled some of his beer. "They were not together long and she got pregnant. Being the good little Catholic mama's boy that he was, he decided to marry the woman. I had my misgivings, but I did not voice them. I knew what it was like to be raised in a strict Catholic upbringing, though my problems were quite different from his. I wish I had spoken up... it might have saved a lot of trouble." Emma took in his regretful expression in silence.
"Anyway," Manny continued, "Evan was born, and then you. We could see that Julie was becoming increasingly loca. Paranoid, depressed, and she would attack Frankie physically for no real reason. She imagined him cheating on her, accused him of not loving her, and of loving you children more." He shook his head in disbelief. "It was insane. Your father wasn't perfect, but he was an exemplary husband and father. This went on for a couple more years, and then she changed again.
"Even crazier, but less clingy. She started lying. Staying out all night, and then disappearing for days. Your father came home from work on a number of occasions to find her gone, and you and Evan alone in the house. Just toddlers! The last straw for Frankie was when he finally came to me. She had left you and Evan alone in the house and disappeared for over a week. Your dad had to work back-to-back shifts and when he came home, two days after she'd gone, your brother had second degree burns on his hands because he'd tried to cook for the both of you. Your father was livid. I nearly had to restrain him from actually murdering the woman! Not that I blamed him.
"After that little escapade, he wanted full custody and to divorce the woman. In those days, though, it was exceedingly difficult for a father to gain full custody of his children if the mother was still alive, whether she was a fit parent or not. So, he hired me to follow her—though I refused any pay. For a year, the two of us switched off tracking her behavior and documenting it, building a case. He did not want to go to court unprepared. He also stopped leaving you in her care, which is why you spent so much time with your grandparents. We discovered that, although she slept around, she had taken up with Danny Cameron almost exclusively.
"We followed them, and found, after a few months, they were planning something. They showed up at your dad's work—by then he was a security guard for the museum—at all hours of the night. At first, I was afraid their intention was to kill your dad. Your mother was crazy enough and cold enough to do it, and conniving enough to manipulate a man like Danny to pull the trigger. But then, we had a break. After several weeks, we realized they were casing the place, though we couldn't prove it.
"What did you do?" Emma queried, speaking up for the first time in almost twenty minutes. Manny could almost see the gears whirring in her brain, piecing information together, trying to form a complete picture.
"So much like your papá," he muttered again, more to himself. Then, to her, "We came up with a plan. Or rather, your dad did. One, I was not happy with, but under the circumstances, the best we could do. We decided to keep tabs on them, keep documenting their whereabouts and activities, but let them go through with their plan. I was terribly afraid that they would kill your father, but he seemed more inclined to believe they'd try to frame him for the theft. Which, as it turns out, we were both correct. Or, at least, I think so.
"The night of the robbery was freezing. It was the middle of February. Your dad was scheduled to work, and I was supposed to be tailing the two of them, but my car wouldn't start. I had no way to know for sure where they were going, and phone lines were down because of heavy winds and ice, so I couldn't warn your dad. They made a clean getaway, and of course the blame was placed on your father. But we still had all of our circumstantial evidence, so we thought the police would use that to investigate those two." He snorted wryly. "We were foolish. Rather than believe us, they came to the conclusion that we had gathered all of that information to pull off the theft ourselves, and frame Daniel and your mom. They barely took a second look at them, focusing all of their attention on your dad. They wanted me as well, but I had an alibi since I was stuck at the bar with a dead vehicle.
"For several weeks, they harassed your dad. Tore apart his house, your grandparents' house, and still no jewels. They slowly let off the heat, but only really looked for other suspects half-heartedly. Once the scrutiny wasn't so strong, your dad came to see me. Said he'd spoken to Greta and had a contingency plan in place for the custody battle if everything else fell through. A way he wouldn't have to go to court. I was confused at the time, he was completely vague, and refused to give me any details. Said if anything happened to him, not to get involved unless it looked like Julie was going to get you kids. Told me to speak to Greta if that happened, otherwise to stay out of it. Made me swear." Manny did swear then, letting out what sounded like a vehement curse in Spanish, "I shouldn't have listened, I should have pushed him harder!"
Now it was Emma's turn to comfort him. She squeezed his knee, "Manny if I am as much like my father as you say, I know there was nothing you could have done or said to convince him. We Martello's are quite formidable in getting our way. He would not have wanted you to get hurt... you know that."
"Sí, you are right, love, but it doesn't make it much better." Manny sucked in a deep breath, "That was only a few days before he was found shot. Despite my promise, I did my best to investigate the matter on my own. I knew that Danny and/or Julie was responsible, but there was no evidence. Danny disappeared off the face of the earth, and Julie made herself quite scarce. Honestly, I thought maybe things went badly between them, and she killed him. I never did approach Greta. Your grandparents took custody of you children, and so there was no need. I am sorry, after meeting you now, that I did not seek you out sooner. It is like seeing a glimpse of your father after all this time, though it saddens me, it also fills my heart." He sent her a warm, sad smile.
Emma's eyes glistened, and she worked on swallowing.
"I feel terrible for the way I've hated him all these years," she confessed. "I knew my mom was awful, but I put him in the same category. I guess I grew accustomed to assuming the worst of people—it never occurred to me that he was innocent."
"Emma, if I am not allowed to wallow in my guilt, then neither are you. Your father loved us both in his way. He wouldn't want to see you like this. If you can find anything else, any way to prove his innocence, or who killed him, I will help you. Times have changed drastically. We may actually have a hope."
Emma nodded, deep in thought. "Since you never spoke to Greta, perhaps she still has whatever my dad gave her. It has to be some kind of proof—otherwise what would be the point? You said my dad tracked my mom for a year, building a case against her. He wouldn't rely on hearsay or anything that wasn't tangible and damning."
"But how will you know?" Manny gazed at her doubtfully. "She is gone now..."
"Yes, but I am close to her son, Ryan... or at least sort of... we are having some issues right now, but I'm certain he'll help me. When he gets back from his retreat."
"It is worth a shot," he nodded. "Please, keep in touch, niñita. You may call or visit anytime, and bring your brother and Ryan, too. I would love to meet them." They both stood, and he pulled Emma into a strong embrace. "You are always welcome in this home, and I will always be happy to talk about your father with you. You did not have a chance to know him as I did, and I would love to share that." He released her, but she held on a moment longer before stepping back.
"I will call you as soon as I speak to Ryan," she promised. "And thank you so much, Manny... I don't think I can adequately express what you've given me, just by speaking to me about this."
"Think nothing of it," he brushed her off, "it was my pleasure, and the least I could do. You just be careful... I am not sure that your mother would hurt you, but I believe Daniel Cameron is a dangerous man. I will be making some of my own inquiries into this matter."
"You be careful, too, Manny. My dad didn't save your life for you to go getting yourself hurt."
His body shook with a silent chuckle, "Off with you, now, it's getting dark." As she strode down the front walk, Emma was almost certain she heard him chuckling to himself and saying, "Just exactly like your papá..."
A/N:
Happy Friday, fellow Wattpadders! It is cold, dark, and rainy here-so, perfect for reading and writing.
As always, please let me know what you think!
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Have a fantastic weekend and a safe Halloween!
Jessa xx
P.S. This chapter is dedicated to BelezaPrincesa for her help with my Spanish, and being such a faithful reader and voter! Thank you!