But she was in a good mood, French-braiding her hair into pigtails with jingle bells at the ends. All the girls had brought their best festive for the show: Rooster wore a perfect sexy Mrs. Santa red dress with white fur along the hem, and Shanny had a green elf hat perched at a jaunty angle. Suzy had traded the trademark cat ears for snowflake earrings that twinkled and swung as she threw super-casual looks down the long line of tables we’d pushed together. Matt Kelley sat down at the end. His string band had played a brunch set earlier, then Charmaine. Bee-Ann Rhymes had been our mistress of ceremonies, and would be joining us for a Patsy song later.
“Congrats, Dahlia,” Lourey had said, when I’d pitched the revised lineup and my vision for sharing the stage. “You invented opening acts.”
It was working, though. Everyone was mixing together: Bee-Annand company, Charmaine and some of her friends, Matt and his band, and Rooster’s boyfriend, who was thinking, suddenly, about starting piano lessons. Some of the old regulars, with a few notable absences.
I looked around the pub.
No question that McPhee’s was having a good, busy day. Yeah, some of this business was drama tourism, but it was also butts in seats, burgers and beers in hand, money in the bank. The fire crackled behind the grate; all the coat hooks were full.
In the kitchen, Alex and Pascal staffed the grill, arguing good-naturedly about what to add to the menu now that Pascal was taking over cooking duties. Oona held down the bar. She’d commandeered all three TVs to playIt’s a Wonderful Lifeand paused between pours to shout at Alex through the pass-through, “This is the best part!”
She’d said it at least eight times, but he stopped to watch every time.
We couldn’t leave the TVs playing local channels, anyway, not with the relentless news coverage of our trapdoor entrances and secret tunnels. But if any looky-loo went looking for treasure, they’d be disappointed by a shiny-new security door between the pub and the living quarters.
Of course, no one lived here at the moment.
Oona and the dogs were already at the house with Alex for keeps, and that’s where I was, too, for Christmas, anyway. The apartment was mine, if I wanted it. But without Oona and the dogs, it was too big, too empty. And when I thought about being here alone, I was right back in the dark, alone. Lost in a place I’d thought I’d known and scared I’d already suffered a loss I couldn’t recover from.
A loss I would not be able to avoid, someday.
Love! It was such aracket.
And the trauma was all so fresh. Memories from that day kept catching me unaware, sending me to the smallest, nut-hard center of my worst self. I saw my scuffed black boot rising toward Silent Jim’s chin, his hands scrabbling for the railing, too late.
One catastrophe away from doing anything to survive, he’d said. And I had.
The money and ring found was a weight off, but it was just stuff. I couldn’t return to Heather what she wanted most.
Joey, thatidiot. When I’d got access to our apartment again and finally located my phone charger, my screen had lit up with a series of texts from Joey: from Heather’s, as he realized he hadn’t paid the rent, from the apartment when he couldn’t get the door open, from down the street from McPhee’s when he wasn’t allowed near me.I’m sorry, the last one read. It was heartbreaking but also, I was even madder at him, knowing he’d allowed himself to be talked into this dumb scheme. A plot for easy money that had cost him everything.
Ned, when he came to, had sworn that Joey’s death was an accident. They’d argued in the alley. Polished ice plus sharp metal corner of the garbage bin.
Their fight had been about Joey wanting out of the deal, Ned had admitted. It would make sense that he had. Digging for Capone’s stash was fool’s gold, and Joey had figured out, painting that baby nursery at Heather’s blue, that he wanted something real.
He’d gone to the apartment, as Cam had said, then arrived at McPhee’s, presumably to sort things out, Ned, then me. Or maybe to warn us? Maybe that was what the fight was really about? We’ll never know, probably. Ned is the only person left to ask.
When Detective Aycock called to let us know Ned had offered a confession from his hospital bed, I’d watched the security footage from that night. One last time, all the way through, real time, and, yeah, you can almost catch movement at the far reach of the lens that might be Joey and Ned’s friendship coming to a fatal end or Marisa getting dragged into the mess. The other camera would have been far more helpful, but then I suppose that’s why Ned had smashed it.
Suzy leaned across the table. “It’s almost time,” she said anxiously. “Should we go get ready?”
I’d just seen Sicily standing uncertainly inside the front door. Buried in her puffy coat, cheeks sugarplum pink from the cold. She held a package wrapped in red paper, dotted with white snowflakes.
“You all go ahead,” I said to the band. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Donotpull a things-came-up, Doll,” Lourey said. “Santa is watching.”
As they headed off, I went up to Sicily.
“You look cute,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, swishing my pin-dot skirt to show off the feathers in the detailing of my new boots. “Are you here for the show? Is Marisa with you?”
“She’s in the car,” Sis said apologetically. The package crinkled in her hands. “She doesn’t want to come inside. Not because she doesn’t want to see you,” she added quickly. “I think she does. Actually, I know she does. But…”
“The building,” I said. “I get it.”
If it hadn’t been haunted before, now it was, by scandal and memory. Not in a fun,Scooby-Dooway, in other words.
