“I think they’re closed, miss,” the cabbie said, leaning toward the passenger window to see the unlit sign.
I added a tip that I couldn’t afford, either, and hopped out. It was early o’clock: that late-night, not-quite-Sunday-morning sweet spot known to drinkers and bar bands, alley cats and insomniacs. In a few hours the pub would fill with navy and orange sweatshirts and football-adjacent hope, but for now, as the cab pulled away, I was left on the street alone. The neighborhood quiet, empty. The air cold and clean.
It was still dark, but I didn’t care. I was putting out my own light, humming like a fluorescent bulb. Ego trip, Bern had said, as if that wasn’t worth the trouble of stepping onto the stage. Who didn’t need a vacation from dire regular life?
I’d been able to push it all aside for a few hours and my plans now should have been to crawl into bed and grab a few hours of sleep before I could be helpful behind the bar. But I was feeling a tug toward the pub. My stage, envious? Or the damning footage from the security video, calling to be deleted?
Or maybe it was only McPhee’s floors siren-singing to me to be swept. It didn’t help thinking that Alex had probably done it himself by now.
I was letting people down. Alex. Joey, obviously. Heather. The band.Oona.If only the empty storefront next door was a convenience store, I could have made good on some milk for the apartment, at least.
McPhee’s walk-in fridge would have milk, I realized.
I could take a little up for Oona’s coffee, an offering. She would say it wasn’t necessary, but that wasn’t the point. The point was…
I couldn’t quite articulate it, but as I walked up to the door, I felt it: the thing I should do wasn’t so far out of my reach. I just had to do it.
I let myself into the vestibule. Through the porthole window, I could see there was a light on down the hallway. The office, probably. Alex must have left it on, or maybe he was still there at his desk, at the business end of things. The stuff I never bothered to understand.
There was alotof stuff I’d never bothered to understand. He’d better take in more street urchins to work the office end.
Or maybe there’d soon be no McPhee’s to keep afloat. All those bills left unpaid on Alex’s desk.
As I flipped the dead bolt, the light in the back went out.
Weird.
And even though I hit the overheads in the pub immediately, even though everything seemed perfectly normal, I was suddenly aware of being alone, of being alone in a place that had recently had its back door ripped open and a man killed in its alley.
I stared down the dark hallway, hoping Alex would emerge into the light. Or Ned? No one else had keys.
“Hello?” I had never hoped to see Ned’s sloping shoulders before.
There was a quality of silence all through the building that felt like a held breath. I had not imagined it. A light had been on, and then switched off. Which meant that someone was in the pub, right now.
With me.
I remembered the man in the black coat and flat cap, pretending tostudy an empty storefront window, and backed out, locking the dead bolt behind me, but leaving the vestibule door flapping.
ALEX’S PLACE WAS ONLY Acouple of blocks away, a cute frame bungalow with its original sloped roofline. Brown with white trim, it looked like a gingerbread house, except the witch had never lived here, only the children.
I had a key, so I let myself in—quietly, since it was still early, but not trying to sneak. Alex should know someone was in the bar. He would know what to do.
For the moment, it just felt good to be here. Safe. Familiar. Cleaner than Alex usually kept it, but familiar.
In the kitchen, a new teakettle sat on the stove, bright as a berry and out of place. The old coffeemaker was still standing, though, faithful servant. The Prohibition-era glass bottles that Alex had rescued from the pub still lined the top of the cabinets, all the way around the room. He had more bottles stashed in the house somewhere that still held old whiskey, and those were worth real money. Heclaimed.
I started the coffee machine burbling. I heard a muffled noise and peered out the window over the sink. The backyard was weedy, but empty. I stood gazing out while the house draped itself over my shoulders like a weighted blanket. Back when Alex had first brought me here, the solidity of this place had been so odd, so new, that it scared me. My room, that set of blue sheets, chosen just for me. The cereal boxes in the shelves, full, available. I hadn’t trusted any of it. I hadn’t known how.
But eventually I had grown into this house and this life—and into trust, really. A little.
I trustedAlex.
And in that moment, I knew that Alex couldn’t have done anything to Joey. I couldn’t believe it—wouldn’t. IknewAlex. For one thing, he was so transparent. He couldn’t keep a secret to save his life.
More than that, I knew his heart, better than anyone. He kept it entirely to himself, buttoned up to the neck, but it was good. He wouldn’t overserve anyone at the pub, even if they begged or railed at him. He kept an eye out for creeps who might bother the women who just wanted to be left alone. He watched out for people, not just me. I’d lost track of that. I’d lost track of—
Everything.
