Torn. Part 2

For a moment, it wasn't Verity. The girl on the table was too still. Verity was always moving-laughing, talking, kinetic, luminous. The girl on the table was so terribly, terribly still, no glow at all. For the tiniest moment, one heartbeat, no more, it wasn't Verity.

Except, it was.

She lay there, pale as wax, even though she'd come home from Louisiana gold-skinned from the sun. Her lashes were dark smudges against her cheeks. Blood smeared against the corner of her mouth, and three ragged cuts marred one cheek. I moaned, my knees buckling.

Luc was behind me, his arm gentle around my waist, his voice rough. "That's enough, now."

I leaned in and touched her other cheek. It was smooth, uninjured, but the skin had an odd bluish cast. The sheet slipped lower, revealing the ugly gash along her throat, dried blood matting her hair. I sagged back, suddenly grateful for Luc's presence.

"Oh, G.o.d," I whispered, fumbling for her hand under the sheet, startled by the weight of it. Her nails were broken, her fingertips b.l.o.o.d.y. I'd never felt anything as icy as her skin, and I tried to warm her hands in mine. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I tried to tuck her arm back under the sheet-the room was chilly, and it seemed important that she not feel cold-but instead, it slipped off, hitting the edge of the gurney with a thud, swinging limply. I screamed, the sound tearing through me.

Luc spun me around and crushed me to his chest. Behind me, he hastily rearranged her arm, but the image of her hand, fingers splayed as if reaching for help, was seared into my sight.

"They butchered her," he said against my hair, the words harsh. "And you would've been next, just for fun. There was nothing you could have done to stop it, Mouse. Nothin' at all."

I pulled back a little. His lab coat was wet with my tears, and I stared at the splotch, digging my fingernails into my good hand, relying on the pain to make me focus. "Why would someone do this?"

"Ever seen a cat with a mouse? They like to play with it a while, first."

The shock was wearing off, nausea taking its place. I battled it back, swallowing hard against the sour taste flooding my mouth. Luc's face was set in rigid lines, only a muscle in his jaw working as he looked past me. Something in his eyes went beyond the grief and fury I'd seen there before, into a sort of bleakness that reminded me of February, with its endless cold and endless gray, like the sun was never coming back.

I felt the same way.

"Who?" I asked. The word felt iron-hard in my mouth.

"No one you'd know. Like I said, it's better if you forget."

"Oh, right!" I practically spat. "I'll just go back to my life and forget about my best friend lying on the table over there! No problem!"

He took me by the shoulders and shook me, making my teeth clack together. "Things are happening here you don't understand. Things bigger than you. It's for your own good."

I'd heard that before, and it was never true. "I don't care. Explain."

He laughed at me, a bitter ancient laugh. b.a.s.t.a.r.d. "I can't."

"That's what Verity said."

"'Course she did. She loved you. She knew what was coming down that alley, knew how bad it would be. She warned you off to save your life. You go chasing after shadows, you're gonna make that all a waste. Be a dishonor, really."

"So I should pretend everything's normal? I don't think so. Whoever did this-" I turned back to the body on the table and rested my hand on her forehead, the sheet between us. "I have to find them. I have to make them pay."

As I said the words, the truth of them settled below my skin, below the ice enveloping me, into my blood and my bones. Whoever had attacked us in the alley had swept me up in a wave of bone-liquefying terror I never wanted to feel again. But it didn't matter. I would get justice, I vowed, not taking my hand from the sheet, willing Verity to hear me. It wasn't what I should have done-I should have stayed and fought-but it was all I could do for her now.

Luc drew me away from the table. "They will. I promise. But you can't be part of it."

Watch me, I started to say, but he cut me off. "Bad idea to stay here. People are gonna be missing you." He was right. Normally, I was the girl no one noticed, but tonight was anything but normal. I needed to get back to my cubicle before my mother woke or my uncle returned. Luc guided me out, and I turned to see Verity one last time.

She lay silent and unmoving on the table, and my knees gave way again, pulling Luc off balance.

"Oh, h.e.l.l." Scooping me up like I was a child, he pushed his way out through the swinging doors. "You ain't going to make this easy, are you?"

I remembered Verity's face, grim and terrified, telling me to run. I remembered her screams rising up as the blackness swarmed over her, and bright red blood on a bone white knife, wet in the glow of the streetlight. I remembered holding her up in the dark of the alley as her life leaked away. All those memories coalesced into a cold, hard ball lodged directly behind my sternum.

"Not a chance," I said, as he carried me back to my room.

CHAPTER 4.

We buried Verity on a windless August morning. By ten o'clock, the temperature was in the nineties, a still, oppressive day that begged for a storm to break the heat and scrub the world clean. The sun beat down, and I could feel my too-fair skin turning pink with sunburn, preparing to freckle like crazy. Despite the heat, the service was packed. As Father Armando droned on about accepting the mysteries of G.o.d's will, I kept my sungla.s.ses on and scanned the crowd nonstop.

It seemed as if everyone Verity had ever known was there-girls from St. Brigid's, guys from our brother school, St. Sebastian. The volleyball team stood in a tight knot, holding hands and weeping. Part of me wanted to go and stand with them, to feel less alone, but I knew the feeling was an illusion. They hadn't been there. They hadn't seen what I saw. They hadn't held Verity and begged her to stay. And they didn't-they couldn't-crave justice the way I did.

There were friends from the neighborhood and church, too, clad in black and fanning themselves. The ivory programs looked like moths against their dark clothes. The reporters who had hounded me for the last week hovered at a semirespectful distance. Detective Kowalski stood at the edge of the group, head bowed and hands clasped, oblivious to the stares and whispers of the mourners who looked from him to my family and back again. And somewhere in the teary-eyed crowd was the person who'd killed Verity.

In every mystery I'd ever read, every episode of CSI I'd ever seen, the killer showed up at the funeral. Accordingly, my plan was to watch for mysterious figures lurking behind gravestones, track them down, and tell Kowalski. It wasn't the most sophisticated approach, but it was all I could think of.

The cemetery, one of the oldest and largest in the city, was carefully designed to look like rolling English countryside. Sheltered by a ring of mature oak trees, dotted with hedges and hills, it seemed impossibly green and fresh. Verity's grave was near a small pond. The water was still and gla.s.sy, no wind to ruffle the surface. When the service was over and everyone went back to their lives, this spot would be lovely and peaceful.

I wanted to burn it all down.

Father Armando finished up, but I kept studying the array of faces, unsure exactly what I was looking for. There was no one suspicious, only a bunch of people bewildered by grief. One by one, they filed past the casket, placing white roses on top, hesitant to approach Verity's family.

The Greys huddled together, but after a few minutes, Verity's mom motioned me over, taking my hand in hers. "Mo, sweetie. Thank you for being here."

"Of course." I tried not to crumple when she hugged me.

"Do you remember my aunt? Evangeline Marais, this is Mo Fitzgerald."

Evangeline nodded politely, linking her arm with Mrs. Grey's. Verity's mom had aged so much in the last week, they looked more like sisters than aunt and niece. Evangeline was composed and elegant, though her hand seemed to tremble as she patted Mrs. Grey's arm, and her skin was so pale with grief it looked like parchment. "It's nice to see you again, Mo. I wish it were under better circ.u.mstances."

Her voice held only a trace of a southern accent, nothing as strong as Luc's velvety drawl, but still a reminder that she'd been in New Orleans with Verity a week ago. Surely she had some idea of what Verity had been up to. I wondered how to politely ask if she'd ever met a green-eyed, black-haired fake doctor with a talent for avoiding questions who might have been dating her dead niece. Somehow, it didn't seem like the right moment.

Verity's fourteen-year-old sister, Constance, stood nearby, arms wrapped around herself.

"I keep thinking she missed her plane," she said to her father, misery plain in her eyes. They were the same deep, dark blue as Verity's, so red rimmed and puffy my own filled up again. "From New Orleans, you know? That's why she's not here. I keep thinking she missed her plane and the cab's going to drop her off and she'll be home again. And this could all be a mistake."

Her dad nodded, stroking her hair, too broken to respond.

"How are you doing, Con?" It was a stupid question, the same one I kept getting from adults, but she looked so lost, and so young, despite being only a few years behind me, that the words slipped out. "Do you . . . need anything?"

Her lip curled as she looked at me. "Not from you."

Mr. Grey gave me an apologetic glance over the top of her head, putting a restraining hand on her arm.

I drew back as she turned to him again, and he held her tightly, face wet.

Maybe it was a natural reaction for her to be so angry with me. I'd survived what her sister hadn't . . . who could blame her for feeling cheated? She'd always tagged along after Verity and me, imitating us, spying on us . . . generally driving us crazy. It was like having a little sister of my own. Now I'd lost her, too.

Feeling like an intruder, I stepped away for a better view of the crowd. My mother and Uncle Billy were busy with people from church. Mom shook her head and dabbed at her eyes while she stood with the women, and my uncle held court with the men, looking solemn and resolute. They'd be busy for a while. I slipped farther back into the cemetery, past a big, impressive monument to someone who'd died a hundred years ago. No one seemed out of place, no one wore a sign proclaiming their guilt, and I was beginning to realize how naive my plan was. Frustrated and sweaty, I pulled my hair-nut-brown and way, way too long for this heat-into a knot at the base of my neck. The humidity made the wisps around my face spring into curls, and I swatted at them irritably.

Kowalski ambled by and stopped a few feet away, reading the inscription on the monument. "How are you holding up?" he asked.

It was the same thing I'd asked Con, so I tried to be polite. "Fine, thank you. Shouldn't you be looking for clues?"

"Who says I'm not? The way I figure it, there's plenty of suspects right here." He swiveled toward me. "Your speech at the church was real nice, by the way."

"Thanks." My eulogy had been nice, all right. Nice and shallow, like a greeting card, filled with cliches about living life to the fullest and honoring Verity's memory. The whole time I'd been speaking, all I'd felt was a black, splintering rage. It was a wonder I hadn't been smote right there, although it seemed like a smaller sin than killing Verity. Apparently G.o.d was not as into smiting as we'd been taught.

Kowalski spoke again. "I hear you're a good student. You're probably used to speaking in front of people, huh?"

"Nope," I said, not taking my eyes from the crowd. He wanted me to know he was looking into me, so I would slip and give him something. I had nothing to give.

"Listen, Mo. There's some pictures down at the station we'd like you to look at. Mug shots, that kind of thing. How's tomorrow sound?"

"I don't think I can help you," I said, trying my best to sound apologetic. "It was too dark to see anything."

"You never know," he countered. "The pictures might jog your memory. Or you could recognize someone you've seen before, maybe at your uncle's place? Hanging around the diner?"

I rolled my eyes, confident the sungla.s.ses would hide it. In the days since Verity's death, Kowalski had hinted at a connection between her murder and Uncle Billy's business countless times. I wasn't surprised. When your father goes to prison for embezzlement and money laundering, everyone in the family business gets painted with the same Sopranoscolored brush. I'd heard it so many times I didn't care anymore, but now it was pulling Kowalski's attention away from finding the real killer. And his lumbering, polyester presence was drawing attention to me at the very moment I needed to be invisible.

If Kowalski had actually been on the right track, I wouldn't have been so angry. But he was wasting time hara.s.sing my family when he should have been looking for Verity's killers, and today of all days, you'd think he could have let up. But I didn't call him on it, because to do so would have violated my mother's golden rule: Don't make a scene. Instead, as he rambled on about what to expect at the police station, I tuned him out and studied the crowd, looking for something-for someone-that didn't fit. With a start, I recognized Luc, standing in line to speak with the Greys. I hadn't seen him earlier, but now was the perfect time to find out more-about him, about Verity's trip, and about all the answers he kept trying not to give me.

"My uncle hired a lawyer," I said to Kowalski, turning away. "He says you should talk to her, not me."

By the time I reached him, Luc was shaking hands with Verity's dad. Mr. Grey's brow was furrowed, and I caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of his words: " . . . so familiar."

Luc froze for the tiniest instant. "I was on duty that night," he said, not quite looking up. "And I just wanted to tell you, sir, she was a fighter. She hung on for as long as she could, fighting to get back to you. She must have loved you very much."

My hands curled into fists. He was lying to them, minutes after we'd put Verity in the ground. I'd replayed the fragmented memories of that night over and over in my mind's eye and I knew, absolutely, that she hadn't made it to the hospital alive. There'd been no fight left in her at all. The only thing stopping me from making a scene was the sudden realization that I was lying, too. I had good reason-Kowalski wasn't interested in the truth, just settling a score with my uncle-but it was a still a lie.

Mrs. Grey caught sight of me. "Mo-" She gripped her husband's arm so tightly, the tendons on the back of her hand stood out. "This is Doctor . . ." She trailed off vaguely.

"Doctor Smith. You're looking well, Miss Fitzgerald." He took my hand and gave me a small frown. His accent, the lazy drawl that made me think of a slow-moving river, was gone. "You probably don't remember much."

"Bits and pieces," I replied. "I can't quite put it all together. Yet."

His pressure on my fingers increased. Behind us, the other mourners were lining up, shifting restlessly.

"Will we see you at the luncheon?" Mrs. Grey asked Luc. You could see her struggling, forcing herself to remember what she was supposed to say.

Luc-Dr. Smith-whoever-exchanged a glance with Evangeline. She gave an almost-imperceptible head shake, and Luc smiled regretfully at the Greys. "No. I need to be going, in fact."

Well. That answered whether Evangeline had ever met Luc. He'd been telling the truth about knowing Verity in New Orleans. And now he was going to disappear again, d.a.m.n it, taking my answers with him. I turned as if to leave and made myself stumble into him.

Lightning-fast, his arm was around me. "Easy," he said, as Mrs. Grey exclaimed softly.

"I'm not feeling very good," I mumbled, clutching his arm. Unlike Kowalski, his suit was definitely not polyester. "Maybe it's the sun."

"We should send you on your way, then," Luc said, false sincerity ringing through his voice. He attempted to pull away, but I hung on and tried to look pitiful.

Evangeline stepped forward. "Perhaps Doctor Smith can take care of you? I'll tell your family, Mo."

"That would be great," I said, hooking my arm more firmly around Luc's. I could practically hear him grit his teeth. I might not know much about the guy, but it was pretty clear he didn't do anything unless he felt like it. And yet, a look from Evangeline, a few pointed words, and he gave in. I tucked it away to study later, when I could think straight.

"I'll make sure she stays out of trouble," he said, the faintest note of warning in his voice as he spun me toward the cemetery drive. I was pretty sure he was talking to me.

CHAPTER 5.

Luc led me away from the cl.u.s.ter of people, along the curving asphalt road gone sticky in the heat. When we were out of earshot, he leaned down, his breath warm against my ear. "Your swoonin' needs work." His accent was back.

"So does your alias," I snapped. "Dr. Smith? Seriously? Why not John Doe? And how is it that everybody around here seems to buy that you're a doctor? You don't look old enough to drink, let alone practice medicine."

"People see what they want to. You should try it." He yanked his arm away and bowed, mockingly. Ahead of us, the driveway split in two, one path leading back to the wrought-iron entrance, the other farther into the cemetery. Luc started toward the gate. "Take care, Mouse."

"Wait! You can't leave!"

"Just did," he said over his shoulder.

I chased after him. "I need to talk to you."

"There's nothin' to say."

"That's so not fair!" Inspiration struck. "I'll scream! I'll tell them I remember you were in the alley, and they'll check out your story. Kowalski's right over there."

Luc glanced over, then turned toward me. I couldn't help feeling a little smug.

"This ain't a game," he said, his face darkening with temper.

"No kidding. Listen, I've stuck to my story, the way you said to. Now I deserve some answers."

He studied me for a long moment. Lines furrowed across his forehead, and smoothed out again. "Fine. C'mon." He caught my elbow and steered me across the lawn, away from both paths.