“But you’re crying. Something must be wrong.”
I clutched a pillow to me, holding on like it was a life preserver. “I miss Ethan, Mom,” I said, emotion pouring out of me, through my tears and my words. “So much that it hurts.Physically hurts. I know you miss him too. And I don’t want us fighting. We bothlove Livy. We both want what’s best for her. Please, can’t you give me a chance to prove that I can be a good parent to her?”
My sobs intensified after I finished talking. I didn’t know if my mom had even been able to understand my words.
Silence stretched between us. My breath hitched as I tried to get my sobs under control. I was about to ask my mom if she was still there when she finally spoke, her voice thick with emotion.
“I do know what you mean, Emersyn. It hurts every day. And Livy is all I’ve got left of Ethan. It’s hard to let her go at the end of our visits.”
I wiped at my tears. “I know it is, and if you want to spend more time with her, I’m fine with that. She loves visiting you. But I don’t think uprooting her is in her best interest.”
Another long pause followed.
“You might be right,” my mom finally conceded. “But I worry about your financial and employment stability. I worry about it for Livy’s sake, and I worry about it for your sake.”
“I’m getting things back on track,” I said, hoping that was true. “Please, Mom, give me a chance.”
The next pause stretched on so long that I almost gave up hope of ever getting a response.
Then, finally, my mom spoke quietly.
“I can do that. But, Emersyn, when it comes down to it, I have to put Livy’s needs first.”
“Always,” I agreed, hoping desperately that I wouldn’t blow this chance.
Chapter
Fifty
I awoke the next morning feeling like I’d gone through a wringer, with every bit of emotional energy squeezed out of me. Theo had texted the night before to say that she’d been at aqua therapy yesterday. She asked—dictated, really—for us to meet this afternoon. Somehow, I found her demand comforting. Maybe because it was a glimmer of normalcy in the midst of my emotional turmoil. I didn’t dwell on the fact that I now considered investigating a murder and taking orders from a teenager as normal.
Spurred on by the chance my mom had given me, I spent the morning job hunting. My spirits lifted around midday, when I received invitations to interviews for two jobs I’d applied for previously. One was for a copywriting job and the other was for a position at the local clothing store. That job was part-time and paid minimum wage, but it was better than nothing.
Livy had a playdate at a friend’s house, so I was waiting on my own in the Mirage’s lobby when Theo rolled in the front door.
The sun had made an appearance that afternoon, so we sat out in the courtyard while I brought Theo up to speed on everything. Well, everything except the kiss and the issue of Livy’s guardianship. I didn’t want to think about either of those topics.
I counted myself lucky that she snickered only a couple of timeswhile I related the story of my torture session at Ultimate Beast. She laughed harder at the tale of my visit to Vinny’s Pawnshop with my unintended sidekicks.
“We need to get back into the speakeasy,” Theo declared once I’d finished debriefing her.
“But the cops have already searched it,” I reminded her.
“We might still find some fingerprints, and if we find Hoffman’s prints, that’ll be proof that he knew about the speakeasy.”
I was about to ask how she planned to search for fingerprints when she pulled a black plastic case out of her backpack. I read the label as she handed it to me.
“A fingerprinting kit,” I said. “Seriously, do your parents let you loose with their credit cards?”
“Gift cards,” Theo said. “I get them for Christmas and my birthday. I really wanted to order a portable biometric scanner, but those are out of my price range.”
“Is it even legal for the average citizen to own one of those things?”
Theo shrugged. “Does it matter?”
She wheeled across the courtyard, heading for the door. “Come on,” she said. “My chair won’t fit through the secret door, so you’ll have to dust for prints.”
Once inside the building, Theo gave me a quick lesson on how to use the fingerprinting kit. Then she sent me through the secret door, calling out some final instructions before adding that she was heading upstairs to grab some cookies from her grandparents’ apartment. Left in peace, I dusted the bar, the shelves behind it, and a few other surfaces. It probably would have been best to dust the bottles of liquor, but the police had cleared them all out, leaving nothing but dust bunnies, dead flies, and clear circles on the shelves where the bottles had once stood.
