Josie Day Is Coming Home by Lisa Plumley

and see a dance studio had a shaky
grip on reality. Hell, anybody who thought one living soul in Donovan’s Corner
wanted to samba had a shaky grip on reality.
    He’d started out humoring her. Not wanting to burst her
bubble, for whatever idiotic reason. Now he was stuck. Stuck with a loony
redhead in his house and a problem he didn’t have time to mess around with. Not
if his plans were going to go forward.
    “Damn it, Ambrose. Pick up , you old
codger,” he muttered, pacing the short length of the phone alcove at
Frank’s Diner. He didn’t have phone service at Blue Moon. And he’d hurled his
cell phone into the pine trees during his first week in town, sick of hearing
it ring with calls from Donovan & Sons. So now he was stuck using the phone
at the prime eatery in Donovan’s Corner. “I want answers.”
    He’d gotten nowhere phoning Winkler, Young, and Dodge,
Ambrose’s law firm. The bubbleheaded secretary had informed him that “Mr.
Dodge is out of the office indefinitely. I’m sorry, sir.” Then she’d
accidentally connected him to a conference call full of Japanese businessmen,
leaving Luke more aggravated than he’d started out.
    “Dodge residence. Barbara speaking.”
    Finally. The voice of reason.
    “Barb, it’s Luke.” He took a few minutes to trade
small talk with Ambrose’s personal assistant. Then, “Listen, is Ambrose
around? I need to—”
    “Oh, sorry, Luke,” Barb interrupted. “He’s
officially incommunicado. Headed out on a cruise with Tallulah. They left a
couple of days ago. Something about investing in a new line of luxury ocean
liners?”
    It figured. Tallulah was always stirring up trouble
somewhere. Cradling the phone between his chin and shoulder, Luke listened to
Barb describe his aunt’s latest venture.
    As Barb nattered on about fleet-wide capacities, cruising
speeds, stateroom specifications, and exotic ports of call, he motioned for the
waitress to heat up his coffee. Through the diner’s plate glass windows, Main
Street hunkered down, as different from the world Barb was describing as his
was from his father’s.
    A mishmash of dive bars, the hardware store, a beauty shop,
and a couple of fancy-schmancy southwestern art galleries all crowded into
sight. The street was a perfect slice of Donovan’s Corner. Half small town,
half tourist trap. His Harley, parked at the curb, was the only sign the
twenty-first century had meandered to this part of the state at all.
    “Fine. Thanks, Barb.” He’d heard all he needed to.
“Did Ambrose take his cell phone? Because I’ve been calling his cell
number, and—”
    “Nope,” she chirped. “It’s right here on his
home office credenza. I reminded him, but…you know Ambrose.”
    Yeah, Luke knew Ambrose. He knew Ambrose only ever did what
Tallulah told him to do—like bequeath the family’s oldest and most overlooked
estate in Arizona to every Tom, Dick, and Josie who crossed Tallulah’s path.
    Already his aunt had given Blue Moon to two other charity
cases this year—one, a concierge who’d tracked down Tallulah’s missing shih
tzu, Crackers, at the Four Seasons Chicago; the other, an Atlanta psychic who’d
supposedly put Tallulah in touch with her husband Ernest’s spirit for two
“glorious” minutes. Both the concierge and the psychic had required
legal wrangling and an eye-opening tour of the house and grounds before they’d
given up their claims.
    There was a reason, after all, Luke had left the estate on
the edge of falling apart for the past three months.
    Not that Josie had been discouraged that easily.
    “All right. I’ll try Tallulah.” After a few
minutes’ conversation, Luke had the rest of the information he needed—including
the name of the cruise line and the particular ship his aunt and Ambrose had
taken. “Thanks, Barb.”
    Luke said his good-byes, then hung up. He needed to talk to
Tallulah next. To make a shore-to-ship phone call, to send her a
telegram—whatever a person did to