She burst out laughing, she couldn’t help it. “It’s raining, you goofus.”
Jack shrugged and pushed a hand through his fringe in the zillionth attempt to keep his (sun-streaked shaggy brown) hair out of his (dark blue) eyes. The top of his head came to the bridge of her nose, when ten months ago he was only up to her chin. Their mother, in a rare moment of levity (and connection to Planet Earth), swore she could actually hear Jack growing at night.
“Like I said: It was all over your face.”
She dumped her purse on the counter, took a whiff. “Such crap.” O heavenly air, redolent with the scent of brownies from Jack’s Pinterest board. “I’m the poster child for inscrutable. I take you at poker almost every month.”
“Yeah, when we’re playing poker, a game where a straight face is a necessity. We’re not playing now. You just trudged into the kitchen.”
“I didn’t trudge. I slunk. What’s that smell?” Because now she could smell something beneath the brownies. Something dark and disturbed, a scent that had no place in any kitchen.
“Well. Mitchell made brownies.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Right? So after I put the fire extinguisher away—we need another one, by the way—I made brownies. They’ll be out in twenty. And I’m making that frosting you like.”
“With the honey?” She made no effort to keep the hope out of her tone. It wasn’t like they were playing poker, right? She loved Jack’s just-for-warm-brownies frosting and she would never apologize for that, dammit.
“Absolutely. Just as soon as I clean the eggs out of the toaster.”
“He tried that again? That’s our third toaster!”
“This season,” Jack added. “Target loves all our asses.”
“You’re all horrible and thoughtful,” she managed.
He blinked at her in his slow, sweet way, like an owl in an apron. Slow in this case was the opposite of an insult. Jack was always careful, even in the midst of plotting—and often masterminding—whatever Drake madness was on the agenda. “Yeah, well. You know. Family, right? It doesn’t have to suck all the time.”
“No. It doesn’t.” She toed off her flats and thought about what that could really mean. “Maybe going to ICC today accomplished something after all.”
“Yeah?”
Let it go.
Give it up.
Live your own life.
Be happy.
“Yeah. It might be time to just . . . not give in, exactly . . .”
“Angela, there’s nothing wrong with focusing on yourself for a change. You’re almost thirty—”
“Hey! Years from now.” Five, in fact. Half a decade. Way far away from now.
“And you’ve spent half that time digging through old police files and driving at least one cop into retirement—”
“Do not get me started on Detective Kline, and I didn’t drive him anywhere.”
“You skipped prom to track down a witness—”
“Just the junior prom. They were going to hold it in the gym, for God’s sake. I didn’t want to wear a formal dress in the same room where Chucky Lewitt threw up. And where Ron Milman threw up. And where Jill Barrett got a nosebleed. And where thousands of kids have sweated over the years. Just . . . ugh.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one,” Jack allowed. “But now there’s a new guy on the case, so you’re all over the files again, you’re bugging the same people again, you’re tracking down the same witnesses again, you dragged—uh, invited—Archer back home for another frustrating ultimately useless visit. And through it all you’ve looked after all of us and Mom, too, which frankly must be exhausting—it sure looks exhausting—and all this in the face of Uncle Dennis’s total refusal to help you with any of it.”
“Why are you narrating?”
Jack gave her what he thought was his severe glare, which meant his regular stare while wrinkling his nose. This accomplished nothing except making him look like a vaguely alarmed rabbit. “My point is, it’s not giving up. It’s moving on. And there’s not a single one of us, Uncle Dennis included, who would ever dare blame you for it, judge you for it.”
“But the bottom line—”
“Bottom line is, no one’s gonna call you a quitter. And if anyone did, I’d lace their brownies with drain cleaner and then I’d get really creative.”
She stared at him. He stared back with another slow blink, unwrinkled his nose, then turned to the cupboards and methodically began pulling ingredients for brownie frosting. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember you’re only sixteen,” she said to his shoulder blades.
“We’re all older than we are,” he replied, without turning around, which shouldn’t have made sense but did. “Heck, Mom lost the love of her life, and we—”
“What?” That was wrong. Her parents had been fuck buddies, not soul mates. When Emma turned up pregnant, Donald did the right thing and married her. Angela had always been a little embarrassed that she was six months older than her parents’ marriage. “That’s not quite right, Jack.”
“Oh, c’mon, they were all lovey-dovey all the time back in the day. Don’t you remember?”
No. And you’re the one who doesn’t remember. But why shatter an illusion? “Well, they were passionate, that’s for sure.” Lots of squabbles. Lots of arguments that flared into fights that flared into slamming doors, sometimes a car roaring out of the driveway. But Jack had been little more than a baby then, it was no surprise he didn’t remember it the same way.
“However they were, it’s sure moot now. But thanks,” she said. “For all of it. I’ll— You’ve given me something to think about.” She could already feel her mind probing the idea of closing the file on her father’s murder, this time permanently, like a tongue poking a loose tooth. Leave it alone? Or poke at it until you couldn’t stand it any longer, and then just pulled the fucker out?
“I’ve also given you brownies.”
“Yes! My eternal gratitude is yours.”
“I’d rather have ten bucks.”
She snorted. “I’m not paying a family member for baked goods made with ingredients I paid for.”
“Cheapskate. Speaking of family . . . Where’s Archer and the woman he was incredibly fortunate to knock up, ensuring she’ll hang around for at least eighteen years?”
“Jesus.” From insightful young adult to thoughtless teenager in less than ten seconds. A new record! “She has a name, Jack.”
“I know. Her name’s the Mangiarotti of Insighters. But who has time to say all that? It just makes everything take longer, starting with the ‘Happy Birthday’ song.”
“It’s disturbing that you’ve given this so much thought. I think they’re still in the car. Leah wished to, um, discuss . . . uh . . . Archer’s habit of . . .”
“She’s busting him for rolling through stop signs!” Jack’s blue eyes lit up. “And you left? You should have gotten it on video.”
“Pass. I think it’s their first big fight in a while. And it just whipped in out of nowhere. Makes me wonder if . . .” She cut herself off. She’d wondered if it was pregnancy hormones, to be honest. Leah had gone an alarming shade of red and laid in to Archer, who’d sat frozen in the driver’s seat like a deer hypnotized by semitruck headlights, but that was as patronizing as it was pat. Besides, Archer did run stop signs. Constantly.
Before she could pester Jack to just hurry up and make the frosting already—and also she had dibs on the bowl—the back door was flung open and in marched Leah, Archer in her wake.
“It’s physics, you gorgeous dolt! Stopping is stopped. Movement is movement.”
“It’s basically the same thing,” he protested. To his credit, he wasn’t whining. Much.
“Do you not understand basic physics?”
“He doesn’t,” Jack stage-whispered.
Leah made a sound Angela couldn’t place at first: the combination of a yelp, a giggle, and a shriek of rage, all while simultaneously grinding her teeth. “How are moving and stopping the same instead of being, oh, I don’t know, total opposites?”
“This really isn’t a big deal.”
Oh-ho. Rookie mistake, Arch. Heck, even Jack knew that, and he was in high school.