All of the Lights (17 page)

But what about the other numbers and the dates?

I have an idea, but I could be completely—

"Hey, Rae?" My sister's voice calls out to me and my eyes snap up at the sound. Her head sticks halfway inside our makeshift break room with her dark hair spilling out around the door.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think you could come out here for a second? The girl in the fitting room—"

"Abby."

Lucy frowns at me like I've just started reciting Shakespeare in pig Latin. This really isn't rocket science; I asked the customer her name before I let her into a fitting room and wrote it on the little white board on the door. Super hard, right? Unfortunately for my sister, those tiny, yet vital details tend to escape her more often than not and that's exactly why Chic to Chic is struggling.

"Right," Lucy says slowly. "Anyway, she's asking me if those jeans you gave her are the right size."

"Can't you do it? I'm still on break."

"I know, but she's asking for you."

Even though I can hear Bennett's voice in my head screaming at me to grow a backbone already, I slip my iPad back into my purse and head for the door. This is my fault—I know that, but it's like I just have this compulsive, knee-jerk reaction to just do whatever she asks and to an embarrassing extent, whatever my dad asks too. I've just stumbled on something of a breakthrough, at least I think it is, but here I am, dutifully playing my well-practiced role of family doormat.

After I scrutinize the jeans Abby's trying on and decide she needs the next size down just to compare, I turn to head back to the break room only to skid to a stop. My sister leans up against the wall closest to the registers with her phone in hand, happily tapping away like she didn't just completely defer store responsibility to me.

Something just snaps. I'm done with this today and I have better things to do with my time than do her job for her.

"Hey, Luce?"

She can't even pull her eyes away from the screen long enough to look at me. "Yeah?"

"I'm going to take off for the rest of the day. Something came up that I need to take care of."

That gets her attention and her brown eyes snap up from her phone. "Wait, what? You can't just leave—you're scheduled until 6."

"Yeah, well," I shrug. "Like I said, something came up. I gotta go."

Adrenaline spikes through me. This is a rush I'm not used to—this feeling like I
can
put my sister in her place because she deserves it, like I
can
leave early because she basically does it every day, like I
can
leave the store in her care for one whole day. Maybe it'll burn down. Maybe it won't. Today I just don't care.

"But..." she trails off.

"How many times have I covered for you, Luce? You can handle your business for the rest of the day."

Her eyes widen at the pointed words,
your business
, but at the end of the day, that's exactly what it is: hers. She just hasn't really figured that part out yet.

"What's going on?" Lucy asks, taking a few careful steps closer to me like she's approaching a wild animal. "Are you okay? This is weird..."

Oh, so now it's weird that I have a life? That I have something important I need to do and I can't sit here all day and run her store for her while she spends our dad's money like it's going out of style?

I wish I could actually say that to her. But I just can't.

"Look, I'll explain...sometime, but I really have to get going."

She just gapes at me as I backpedal toward the break room. If I tell her the real reason I'm practically sprinting out of here today, she'd tattle to my dad before I even got out of the parking lot. That's just the way my sister is wired and my dad's as much to blame for that as her. I just can't spill something like this to her and expect any kind of respect in return.

So before I give her a chance to barricade the door or give my conscience a chance to talk me out of it, I sweep my purse up and hightail to my car without another word.

"
TELL ME WHY
," Bennett sings along to the radio, strumming his thumbs on the steering wheel. "
Ain't nothing but a heartache...tell me why...
"

Jack's head slowly turns in the passenger seat to glance at Bennett with grim annoyance lining his face.

"
Ain't nothing but a mistake
," Bennett keeps singing, none the wiser that his music choices are making his co-pilot's lips curl up in disgust. "
Tell me why...I never wanna hear you say I want it that way
."

I think I might have heard Jack growl and I bite down on my bottom lip to keep from laughing out loud.

"You know," Bennet muses thoughtfully and glances at me in the rearview mirror. "I've never understood what they're talking about in this song. What, exactly, do they not want
that way
? And why can't someone say it? I don't get it."

"I guess that's just one of life's great mysteries," Jack retorts from the front seat. "I won't be able to sleep tonight until I know."

"Not a BSB fan?" Bennett looks at him from raised eyebrows. When Jack just frowns at the acronym, Bennett sighs and glances at me as if to say,
What is our world coming to?

"Backstreet Boys," he clarifies.

Jack just huffs out a harsh breath and turns his head to stare out the window without another word. Bennett shrugs, happily carefree as he swivels his shoulders a little to the beat.

"I wish I could've seen Zero's face when you told her off," Bennett sighs and glances at me through the rearview mirror again with big, brown, puppy-dog eyes. "Please tell me you'll do it again next time I stop in. Pretty please."

"I didn't exactly tell her off," I clarify. "I just left—that's all."

"Who's Zero?" Jack spares me a brief glance over his shoulder. This is the first time he's even really acknowledged I'm in the car with them and now I wish he'd just kept pretending I wasn't here.

"Rae's sister, Lucy," Bennett tells him, spitting out my sister's name like it's poison.

"So...?"

It's a fair question and the devious smile that spreads across Bennett's face is enough to force me to interject, if anything just to spare us all from Bennett's gleeful hatred.

"Benn has a tendency to take something he finds..." I trail off, searching for the most accurate description for his quirk. "
Distasteful
about someone and turn it into a nickname. I can't remember the last time you called her by her actual name, Benn, just so you know."

"And that's exactly how it's going to stay," he nods firmly.

My eyes roll up to the ceiling.

"So you call her Zero because..."

Again, Jack's confusion is fair. Bennett's never really been one for subtlety, so I jump in once again to defend my sister's honor.

"Because she wears a size zero."

Now Jack's forehead just crinkles and he cocks an eyebrow at my best friend.

"Never, ever, and I mean
ever,
trust a woman who doesn't eat, my friend," Bennett wags a finger at him as we roll up to a stop sign. "Those women are shifty and
bitchy
. Not to mention two-faced. And cranky. Really, really cranky."

Jack mulls it over, scratching underneath his chin in thought before nodding in agreement. "Yeah, I think you're right about that. You called her Clamato at the coffeehouse." He jerks a thumb behind him in my direction. "Is that because of the hair?"

Her
has a name, but I bite my tongue. I don't want to draw attention to the real reason Bennett chose that particular nickname for me any more than necessary.

Bennett's eyes gleam wickedly at me from the rearview mirror. "Rae wishes."

"Don't. You. Dare," I push out through clenched teeth. "I will kill you."

"Is she always so violent?" Jack wonders out loud.

"Pretty much," Bennett shoots me a grin over his shoulder and then shrugs at Jack. "I like my balls where they are, thank you very much. Maybe someday when you're in the inner circle, I'll let you in on that little secret."

Jack just bats a hand in the air. "I'm good."

Easily side-stepping that last comment, Bennett turns the volume down a little and glances at me through the rear-view mirror again. "This is gonna work, right?"

All I can do is shrug. I don't really have a better answer.

"Probably a waste of time," Jack adds from the front seat and I twist my hands in my lap to keep myself from pouncing. "But it's all we have."

"I don't see anyone else with a better idea," I bite out through clenched teeth. That's it—I can't stand less than two minutes in this guy's presence without wanting to resort to physical violence.

Jack lifts his hands in the air in defense. "Hey, don't get me wrong. I never would've thought of this. I'm just still having a hard time wrapping my head around it all, especially since I can't exactly see Father Lindsay coming to the library and tracking down all those call numbers."

None of us have asked the big, glaringly-obvious, really uncomfortable question yet: what, exactly, was the nature of Father Lindsay's relationship to my mom? It would open up a whole can of worms that I don't think any of us are ready to tackle yet.

"Hey," Jack gestures to his side of the car. "Bang a right here."

"Nuh uh," Bennett counters. "That'll take us all the way around. We wanna get to Bolyston, not Dorchester."

Jack jerks a thumb toward his window. "This way is faster."

"Says the guy who's probably never stepped foot in the library his entire life," I grumble under my breath. "Sure. Let's take your advice."

"Hey," Jack jerks around in his seat just long enough to slice me through with his sharp grey eyes. "Don't talk about me like you know me. Two words for you, princess. Dennis. Lehane."

"What?"

"You know,
Mystic River
?
Shutter Island
?" he shrugs as he turns back around in his seat. "I like the local guys."

Bennett makes the smart choice, at least in terms of avoiding another confrontation, and bangs a right just like Jack told him to. For the first time since we all piled in Bennett's little Prius, a blanket of uneasiness settles over the atmosphere. I should've stayed out of it, but with him, I couldn't help myself.

It's a miracle we're even all in this car in the first place. As luck would have it—or maybe bad luck, I still haven't decided—Bennett just happened to be in Southie earlier visiting his grandma on his dad's side and since Jack doesn't have to be at Na Soilse until later tonight, Bennett just 'swung by and picked him up', as he so nonchalantly put it when they both arrived at my apartment. It all worked out a little bit too easily.

Maybe I'm the bitch to end all bitches, but I never wanted Jack to know where I lived. It's just one more reason not to trust him and one more reason to keep as much distance between us as possible. Because at the end of the day, how do I really know this isn't all some big set-up to humiliate me, punish me, or a little bit of both?

Sure, he may seem sincere
now,
but he also practically spit in my face when he called me a liar and that wasn't too long ago. The only reason he's in this car right now is because I need him along when we talk to Father Lindsay again. After that...I guess I haven't really planned that far ahead, which just makes me even more anxious.

The awkward silence just grows heavier when the seminal pop classic, "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)", comes on, but it isn't until Bennett shuffles his music that the two of them finally find some common ground.

"
You used to call me on my cell phone
," Bennett sings along softly, still tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel to the rhythm. "
Late night when you need my love..."

It's only then that I notice Jack's bobbing his head to the beat too, even though he's still staring out the window like a sulking child. Ah, Drake. The great equalizer.

I can only watch helplessly from the backseat as the two silently accept this musical truce. They're getting along better than I thought they would. And once again, I'm the odd woman out, riding in the backseat, and observing from the sidelines.

A MASSIVE ROW of arcaded windows and aged brick greets our little motley crew of would-be detectives and I tilt my head up to take it all in. This sight never gets old. It doesn't matter that the 21st century bustles around us with car exhaust, honking horns, and crowds of people walking around buried in their phones. On the steps of this library, you're transported to another world, surrounded by language, knowledge, and mountains and mountains of musty books.

If I could live here and not get arrested for trespassing, I totally would.

Five American flags wave over our heads as we take the steps to the main entrance. Even though I've done this walk a million times, my steps feel heavier this time. I want to sprint through the entrance, but there's an invisible hand jerking me back, filling me with a dread that's as unsettling as it is disarming.

At least I've got it together enough to have this all planned out already: I move through the lobby with Bennett and Jack right on my heels and then we take the stairs to the lower level of the library.