Torn. Part 10

I was pretty sure the McAllister party was not really my kind of fun. Six months ago, maybe, but not anymore.

"Time to break out, Mo," chided Lena. The phrase made something in the back of my mind flicker. Luc. Break some eggs, he'd said.

"I've gotta go."

"But you'll be there, right?"

For once, I acted on impulse. "Yeah. Can you pick me up? Late, though, so my mom will be asleep?" And so my bodyguard will have gone home for the night?

"Sure!" She sounded delighted and stunned all at once.

"See you then." The excitement in my voice was genuine, but it had nothing to do with the party.

I bolted out of bed and tripped down the stairs. There was only a little time before my mom got home from the diner, and I really didn't want to explain what I was about to do.

In the kitchen, I hefted the snow globe in both hands and brought it down, hard and sharp, on the edge of the sink.

Nothing happened.

I did it again, two harsh strikes. For my efforts, I left a tiny chip in the smooth gla.s.s and a much bigger one in the enamel coating of the sink. Great. I needed something harder-something my mother wouldn't notice if it got dinged up.

The driveway. I rushed out back, through the porch, to the curb. Tightening my grip, I smashed the snow globe on the ground.

The impact sang up my arms. It felt strangely good, but the gla.s.s remained unbroken.

"Come on," I grunted, taking another swing, and another. "Come . . . on . . ."

I was never the one to break things. I never made a noise, never raised a fuss. I was such a nice girl, just like Luc said, and where had it gotten me? No matter what I did, I was still Jack Fitzgerald's daughter. My being good didn't make him less of a criminal. It didn't make Verity less dead. It wouldn't even get me to New York, where I could start fresh. Being the nice girl hadn't gotten me a d.a.m.n thing.

Asphalt pebbles scattered around, some flying back at me, but the gla.s.s was starting to crack and craze, until finally, I brought the globe up high over my head and swung down, as hard as I could. It exploded, water spraying everywhere. My knees and shirtfront were soaked, and the shattered gla.s.s cascaded in a glittering wave over the driveway, catching the late-afternoon light. The harlequin and his treasure chest clung stubbornly to the base, and I turned it over to get a better look, panting.

"What in the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

I tried to jump up, but my feet got tangled and I fell backward, flat on my a.s.s in the middle of the alley. Not for nothing did I warm the bench each soccer season.

Colin stood at the end of the driveway, arms folded, as I struggled to stand. The scowl on his face would have been rea.s.suring if he'd directed it at a bad guy.

"I wasn't sneaking out. I wanted some fresh air."

"You didn't shut off the alarm. In a hurry to get your fresh air?"

"I forgot about it. Sorry."

"Any reason you're busting up . . . what was that, anyway?" He c.o.c.ked his head to the side and studied the pool of gla.s.s-studded water. "You have a thing against snow globes?"

"It was defective," I mumbled.

"It is now. You should sweep up that gla.s.s," he added.

"You're very helpful."

"Your uncle said I should watch you, not clean up your messes."

I huffed out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. "I wasn't asking you to." I needed to get rid of Colin. Again. "I'll clean it up now, all right? Can you stop hovering? You're like my mother."

I stomped back to the house and grabbed the broom, leaving the base on the table of the sunroom.

Colin was leaning against the garage when I returned. "You're not telling me everything." He sounded like he was scolding a kindergartener caught in a fib.

"Do I need to?" I swept the gla.s.s into the dustpan. "I wasn't going anywhere, except back in."

"Great idea." He waited until I was almost to the porch before calling, "Plans tonight?"

Don't break stride. Don't look guilty. "I've got to finish my summer reading list-more Shakespeare. Big fun. Have a good night."

"You too. Watch that gla.s.s."

I wondered for a minute how many jobs like this he'd done. Probably a million, judging from how detached he seemed. He'd never tell me. He'd deflected every one of my mom's questions without her realizing it, and he'd done the same to me. Sighing, I locked the door behind me and reset the alarm. I'd learned one thing, anyway. Colin was monitoring the alarm system.

I used a kitchen towel to knock the rest of the gla.s.s around the base into the kitchen trash, and threw some well-past-its-prime cabbage on top. There was only a little time left before my mom came home.

I studied the base in the glare of my desk light. The harlequin smiled vacantly at me, masked and gaudy. Even the paint job was cheap, colors bleeding into each other, nothing like Verity's work. She'd always liked the performing arts best, but she was a talented artist. She'd never have been so sloppy.

The treasure chest was different. The ropes of jewels were carefully painted, each tiny gem strung together so they swung back and forth when I blew on them. The gold coins peeking out along the edges were shiny and minutely detailed. I pried the tiny latches open with a paper clip and flipped the lid back, revealing a solid lump of jewels and coins. I dug at them, scrabbling with the tip of my fingernail. Whatever Verity had put in here-if she really had, and wasn't in the hereafter, laughing at my idiocy-had to be important if she'd gone to this much trouble.

With an audible pop, the false bottom of the chest came away. The little cavern went down to the base, which turned out to be stuffed with . . . fabric. Black, bone-dry velvet, soft and crumpled against my fingertip. I fished around until my nail snagged on a thin silken cord. I tugged, and out fell a tiny black pouch. Trembling, I loosened the top and emptied it into my palm.

A ring. A fine circle of gold, so lovely and delicate I was afraid to pick it up. Centered in the middle was a shimmering cobalt stone, not faceted like a sapphire, but smooth and luminous like an opal. The stone was anch.o.r.ed with four diamonds, like compa.s.s points, any one of which would make a very nice engagement ring.

"Jesus." I didn't know much about jewelry, but the ring, intricate and gleaming, had to be expensive-way, way more than Verity had made working for her aunt this summer. Had she stolen it? Was this why she'd been killed?

I turned the ring over and over in my hand, squinting at the illegible engravings on the inside of the band. The stone quietly glimmered, the same blue as Verity's eyes.

The ring was hers. I felt the certainty of it square in my chest. Which, unfortunately, didn't clear up how she'd gotten it.

The bag wasn't empty. I shook it again and discovered a data card, like the one in my camera. As I frowned at it, I heard my mother open the back door.

"Mo, why is Colin sitting outside? You should invite him in, give him a gla.s.s of-Maura Kathleen Fitzgerald! Why is there a chip the size of a saucer in my sink?"

d.a.m.n. I knew I'd forgotten something. I swept the ring and memory card into my camera bag as she came up the stairs.

"The size of a saucer! What were you doing?"

"I dropped the skillet. I made a grilled cheese, and I went to wash the skillet, and it slipped." It turns out that lying is like anything else. You get better with practice. "It's not that big."

"The sink will rust. We'll have to get it repaired. I don't understand you," she continued, working her way up to full-on mad. "You treat your camera like a newborn baby, but there's no such respect for my things. And why is there gla.s.s piled up in the trash?"

Nothing got by my mother. For someone so good at keeping secrets, she certainly was not a fan of other people having them.

"Mo? The gla.s.s?"

I shrugged. "I dropped a bottle of iced tea. Not my best day."

"What am I supposed to do about the sink? The repair won't be cheap."

All I wanted was for her to leave. The ring was sitting in my camera bag, the first actual, tangible clue I had, begging me to examine it more closely. I needed to figure out how I was going to sneak out tonight. Mostly, I just didn't want the fight that was brewing, because it wouldn't have been about the sink, or the party, or anything else so mundane. It would have been the fight we've been having for years without ever saying the words. I don't know when I figured out that my mom expected me to be the perfect daughter, like my good behavior was some kind of atonement for my father's sins. I only knew that I was tired of it.

"Fine," I snapped. "I'll pay for it. It's not like I need the money anyway, since I'm not going to be going anywhere for the next hundred years!"

"Don't take that tone with me. I'm looking out for you. We all are."

I glanced out my window. Colin was sitting in his truck, eating a sub sandwich and reading yet another paperback.

Yep. Everyone was looking out for me, or at least at me. Either way, I hated it. And I hated apologizing for it.

"Whatever. Are we done? I have to finish reading King Lear."

Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. "Dinner in half an hour," she said, and turned on her heel.

"I'm not hungry!" I shouted, shoving the door shut. I was probably the only teenager in America with no lock on her door. It sucked all the time, of course, but particularly now. With one ear listening for my mom to come back, I fished the ring and data card out of my bag.

I loved my camera, a digital SLR with a bunch of lenses Uncle Billy had given me for my sweet sixteen. It's miles better than the little point-and-shoot ones most people use. It's great, because what you see in the viewfinder is the exact image you get when you take the pictures. There's no distortion, no lapses, and it's fast, too, so you don't miss anything. It's also the best way I know to be invisible. People spot a big black lens, and they worry about what they're doing, or how their hair looks. n.o.body sees the person holding the camera.

I waited for the images to load, thumbing through the shots when they appeared on the tiny screen. Pictures of the Garden District, fancy metalwork and old buildings. And pictures of Luc. Every image held a bit of Verity's vibrancy, her flair. There was a shot of her and Luc, sitting together outside a cafe, the angle all wonky, like she'd held the camera at arm's length and taken the picture herself. Luc was kissing her cheek, Verity's face was scrunched up in laughter, and they looked totally comfortable together. I swallowed and went to the next shot-Luc, mock-glaring from behind a gla.s.s of iced tea. Evangeline's shop, the discreet wooden sign hung from shiny bra.s.s chains. Another picture of Luc, standing on a wrought-iron balcony, looking out over the city at sunset. You could tell she'd snapped it without his knowing, because he seemed completely unguarded, comfortable enough to drop the swagger he always adopted around me.

I wanted to believe Verity was trying to tell me something, that she'd meant for me to find these pictures, and the ring, and put them together like a complicated equation set. But for the life of me, I couldn't solve for X.

Aggravation sent me pacing through the room. Why had she kept so much secret? What would she want me to do now? I thumbed through the pictures again, slowing when I got to the ones of Luc. He looked softer. Happier. Of course he did-Verity had been alive. The hard glint to his eye and the set of his jaw were missing, because they'd been together. Their obvious affection made one thing clear-she trusted him. Luc was on my side, or Verity's, anyway.

While I'd been poring over pictures and ignoring my mother's repeated calls for dinner, night had fallen-a late-summer, soft navy darkness. I checked my clock. I'd mumbled an insincere good night when she'd gone to bed an hour earlier, and now it was just after ten. I turned off the light and waited for the low rumble of Colin's truck pulling away.

Once the sound had faded, I changed outfits. I wanted to wear something . . . not me. Something that would prove to people I was okay, even though I wasn't. They were going to talk about me-no avoiding that-but I wanted to avoid outright pity. I finally settled on a short black skirt and a silky green top, topped off with a violet scarf. Verity had always liked this outfit. Maybe it would give me a bit of her strength.

It didn't feel right to leave the ring behind, so I threaded it onto a gold chain I'd gotten for confirmation and dropped it over my head, carefully tucking it under the scarf. The necklace was long enough to hide the ring beneath my shirt, and it rested coolly against my skin like a talisman, as if Verity were still nearby.

I didn't know why I was going. To get back at my mom, maybe, or to test how good Colin was, or to see if I could actually function without Verity, or to keep my promise to Lena. A jumble of reasons, none of which were very good.

Twenty minutes later, avoiding the squeaky treads on the stairs and the loose floorboard in the living room, I stood on the sunporch, resetting the alarm. Even if Colin noticed that someone was messing with it, Lena and I would be gone by the time he made it back to check on me.

I touched the ring, now warmer against my skin. At the foot of the driveway, Lena blinked the lights of her dingy white Malibu, and I hurried to meet her.

"See?" she said, as I climbed in and tugged on my skirt. "It's going to be fine."

I doubted that. What had seemed like a not-terrible idea even a few minutes ago now seemed utterly stupid. I twisted my fingers together, hating myself. What was I doing, going to a party when my best friend was dead? What sort of horrible person did that?

Lena took one look at me and shook her head. "No way," she said. "I'm not turning around."

"I don't feel good," I said, not caring if I sounded whiny.

"You can't hide all year. If you can survive this, everything else will be easy." She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Sorry. Bad choice of words. I didn't mean to . . . remind you."

Touching the necklace, I watched the lights on the pa.s.sing cars, blurry through a film of tears I blinked away. "You can't remind me. I'd have to forget it in the first place."

When we arrived at the McAllisters' house, I paused.

"Go ahead in," I told her. "I need a minute."

She wrinkled her nose. "You don't show in five minutes, I'm coming back for you. Get ready."

I waited until she closed the door, then sat on the front steps of the elegant red-brick house, queasy with nerves.

Kanye West was audible through the arched oak door, and behind the tasteful window treatments, I could see my cla.s.smates dancing, drinking, hooking up with boys imported from DePaul and Loyola. Why date nice Catholic high school boys, the reasoning was, when you could find Catholic college boys just as easily?

It was the party we'd talked about since we were freshmen, and now I was here, and Verity wasn't. I fingered the chain around my neck. She should have been here, taking the lead, walking in and parting the crowd with her beauty and her energy and glow, the girl everyone wanted.

I couldn't do it. Verity could have. She would have. She might have been nervous, but she would have gone right in. And I needed to, or I was just as small and weak as Luc thought.

I slipped the necklace off and cradled the ring in the palm of my hand. Even in the dim porch lights, the stones had a curious sheen about them. Everyone kept telling me Verity's spirit was still with me. Why not her jewelry, too? I slid the ring onto my finger, surprised it fit. It caught the porch light again and seemed to flare, a white sunburst running over the indigo stone. I stared, transfixed.

The door opened. Lena, plastic cup of Absolut Mandrin in her hand, dragged me inside.

CHAPTER 10.

The party didn't actually screech to a halt when I walked in-the music kept playing, the couples on the couch kept grinding, the alcohol kept flowing-but there was a distinct ripple effect. Each group I pa.s.sed got very quiet as I walked by. Then, just before I moved out of earshot, they would start to giggle, the gossip humming through the room like the sound of a beehive.

"In here," Lena said, tugging me through rooms filled with antique furniture and sickly sweet smoke. We pa.s.sed a music room where someone was playing the Addams Family theme-badly-on a grand piano. We ended up in the kitchen, and she thrust a plastic cup of something red and fruity looking in my hand.

"Cosmo," she said. "You need it."

"Is it that obvious?" Probably. This was a terrible idea. I tipped the cup back and drank half, coughing a little.

Lena smiled nervously and topped it off. "Liquid courage."

I snorted and took another sip as her smile fell away. "What's wrong?"

"Don't freak," she said, trying to sound rea.s.suring.

I wasn't rea.s.sured.

"What?" I set the cup down on the marble counter. My mom? Oh, G.o.d. Colin? I closed my eyes and willed the alcohol to hit my bloodstream.