All of the Lights (37 page)

Loud scraping and heaving cuts through those dark, defeated thoughts and by the time I drag my heavy gaze away from the safe, Jack already has the bookcase shoved away from the wall. He skims his hands along the newly-revealed wall, clucks his tongue in disappointment, and moves right to the back of the bookcase and the floorboards beneath it to repeat the exact same routine. Nothing.

Suddenly I feel his hands on my back as he steps around where I'm still crouched on the floor and gets to work on the desk. This time doesn't take nearly as much time or effort and the desk easily shifts forward. Huh. Maybe I should've thought of that the first time I was in here.

He crouches down to his knees, running a hand over the floorboards, and taps his fist into the edges of each one before moving on to the next. Light knocking fills the air around us until finally, the pitch levels a little bit higher than before. Jack shoots me a glance over his shoulder with lifted eyebrows and he gets to work. He carefully digs his fingertips underneath one of the floorboards to pry it away from the others. It lifts with just a little pressure and when Jack pulls the rest of the floorboards out of the way, there it is.

Yet another black iron box sits right underneath us, tipped on it's back so the door and keypad blink up at us.

The smoking gun. It has to be.

Our eyes meet at the same time and I know the excited glint in Jack's stormy eyes matches mine.

"Well," he gestures down to the door. "Are we gonna crack this baby or what?"

"Do you think that..."

He doesn't need me to finish that thought and lifts a shoulder instead. "We'll never know if you don't try."

New determination breathes through me, kicking that defeat and that disappointment out of the way to make room for something that feels a little bit like victory. So, without hesitation, my fingertips find the keypad—the exact same one I'd just used only minutes before, albeit in a different location—and I type in that miserable combination:
03-19-89.

And just like that, boom. It's open.

"Holy shit," Jack breathes out next to me and then it's on. He dives down into the depths of the safe and after a little fishing, pulls out our Holy Grail: a laptop.

When we first sat down and outlined our plan for this night, Jack had been firm in his belief that the mayor kept a computer, or at the very least, some sort of ledger, in his office. He'd been so confident he was right, he'd come fully prepared with a 64G flash drive, which he now slipped out of his pocket and right into the closest USB port he could find.

Needless to say, the second we boot up the computer, we find ourselves facing down yet another roadblock. We need a password. Of course. Why keep a laptop in a safe underneath the floorboards in your home office and
not
have a last line of defense? Without a word, Jack gestures to the keyboard and I know what I have to do. There's only one word that pops into my head as a possibility. If the combination of
both
his safes is the day she died, it only makes sense if...

"Let's see just how arrogant that piece of shit really is," I mutter and Jack huffs out a laugh as I type in the letters of my mom's name. Nothing. I narrow my eyes at the screen, determined to beat the mayor at his own game, and then I try one more option, capitalizing the first letter and then typing in the rest of my mom's name.

Bingo. Game over, Mr. Moretti.

"Oh, we got yah," Jack rubs his hands together as the computer springs to life. "We got yah good and hard. All we gotta do is follow the money."

Of course, just as Jack begins copying the hard drive, my phone would buzz in my clutch to rain on our parade. Bennett's calling me and unfortunately, he's already called me twice. Jack and I lock eyes as I swipe across my screen to answer.

I don't even have a chance to get a word in because Bennett's already frantically firing off a flurry of information I can barely understand: "Oh my God, Rae! I'm so glad you answered! Why in the name of Stefani Germanotta did you not answer your goddamn phone before? Ah! Nevermind! Listen, you guys need to get out of there. Now. I'm serious."

"What?"

"A car just pulled into the driveway and some guy in a suit is getting out of the car right now."

"Oh my God," I gasp and grab Jack's arm. "We have to go."

He nods, but files are still copying onto the flash drive. We need more time. We need all those files or this was all for nothing.

"Okay, Benn. Just...oh my God, I don't know. I don't know."
"Calm down, Rae," Jack tells me over his shoulder as he unplugs the flash drive and slips it back into his pocket. "We're gonna be fine."

"Oh, Christ on a cracker, the guy in the suit is unlocking the front door."

Bennett's commentary isn't helping. In fact, it's just making it worse.

"Did you get everything?" I ask frantically even as Jack clicks through a few screens on the laptop, slides it back into its place, and shuts the safe's door.

He's already moved the desk back when he tells me: "I got enough. Don't worry about it, Rae. We just need to focus on getting the hell out of here. You locked the door, right?"

I just nod as he grabs my hand and pulls me toward the French doors leading out into the terrace. Crisp night air whips around my face and I'm standing on the terrace of the mayor's office as Jack swings his legs over the edge like he's actually prepping to jump.

"What are you—"

"You got any better ideas?" Jack cuts in with a huff.

He digs the chain out from around his neck, kisses the cross, and then jumps off the terrace sitting two-stories above the ground. He springs up to his feet like nothing happened and holds his arms out to me.

"Rae!" he whispers loudly. "You gotta do it. You have to."

My heart stutters in my chest and somehow underneath my mind screaming at me to do otherwise, my limbs find a mind of their own. My hands grip the edges of the railing and I know we don't have much time left.

"I'll catch you, Rae," Jack waves his hands to me from the ground. "I promise."

Heaven help me. I believe him.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Then I free fall into his arms.

He catches me just like he said he would, but we still tumble backward with my weight collapsing on top of him as we land on the wet grass. All the air knocks out of my lungs when my bad knee connects with the ground and slivers of pain shoot up and down my thigh.

"Shit! Ow!"

Jack's hands snake around my waist and he whips me around, hauls me up, and heaves me over his shoulder before he takes off running.

"Jack, my—"

"I know, I know," he cuts me off breathlessly. "Just hang on."

My trust in him is boundless in this moment. He'll keep me safe. He'll get me to where Bennett's hiding. I feel like my life is in his hands right now and maybe it's been this way the whole time—I just never really knew it until right now, with my body slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes as he sprints off the mayor's property and through the neighbors' backyards. When we finally reach our getaway car, Bennett hops out of the driver's side and holds the back door open so Jack can slide me into the back seat.

Then he follows me inside the car, gripping tight hold of my injured knee and shouts, "Drive, Benn!"

Short of the tires squealing in our wake, Bennett follows his orders and gets us the hell out of there. When we're a safe distance away, he whips around in his seat, surveys the scene in front of him—namely, both my legs splayed out over Jack's lap and my dress practically hiked up to my knees—and he waggles his eyebrows at me.

"So where to, milady?" he asks with an evil grin. "Your place or his?"

Jack

If someone had told me a month ago that I'd be carrying Raena Moretti into her apartment without a hint of irony or ill intentions, I think I might've found myself finally getting into some trouble outside of the ring. Of course, she's fought me every step of the way, pounding on my shoulder and everything, in a vain attempt at convincing she really can walk into her apartment on her own, but I'm not giving in.

"I'm serious, Jack. Put me down," Rae tugs on my sleeve even as Bennett steals her keys out of her purse to let us in the front door. "I can walk. I swear."

"Famous last words," I just smirk down at her. My arms tighten around her on reflex.

Maybe I spoke too soon because the second I pass the threshold, a black fur ball of claws and fangs opens its mouth and hisses at me like a snake.

"Jesus Christ!" I skid to a stop and Rae tumbles to the ground.

"Ow!" she cries out, both hands latched onto her injured knee. She glares up at me indignantly, but I can't keep my eyes off the demon in the kitchen.

I jerk a finger at it because I just don't know what else to do. "What the hell is that thing?"

Rae rolls her eyes as she shoves up to her feet and Bennett chuckles behind me. When she finally stands with her weight on both feet, her falters for just a second and catches her balance just as quickly before I have a chance to steady her.

"That
thing
," she gestures to it with her lips drawn into a tight, grim line, "is my cat. Her name's Freya and I would appreciate it if you'd address her by her name
,
and not refer to her as an
it
."

My hands fly up in the air in defense. Then they fall right back down to her hips, in a weak attempt at trying to keep her on her feet, but she slips out of my grip to scoop her monster of a cat up in her arms. I watch her limp down the hallway, deposit that thing into a room, murmur something lowly to it, and then shut the behind her.

It should be awkward—standing in the middle of her kitchen like this, in her personal space, her natural habitat. But as my gaze sweeps around the room, taking careful inventory of the bright blue and green rug on the floor, the framed picture that reads,
Home Is Where Your Cat Is,
the faint scent of vanilla lingering in the air like she'd lit a candle the night before, the Keurig machine resting on the counter, the fluffy, slightly worn tan couch in the living room, the tall bookshelf filled to the brim with paperbacks...I'm not surprised. Or uncomfortable. Not at all.

She glides past me in spite of the hitch in her step, grabs a bag of frozen vegetables from her freezer, and plops down on a stool behind the island before holding the bag to her injured knee. Now, all eyes are on me and that's when I remember I've got the flash drive.
I
have what we've been looking for.

So I pull that flash drive out of my pocket and set it down on the counter.

Nobody moves. Nobody speaks.

All we do is stare at that ominous tiny rectangle of metal and plastic.

That moment to reach out and take the evidence we need...it's here. The weight of it hangs in the air, tightening around us like a vice. It's almost too much to take in all at once. No, it
is
too much. And it's terrifying. I can't believe I'm actually standing here, staring down at the first real piece of dirt we might actually be able to use, and I can't touch it.

It's like that moment in life when you finally get everything you thought you ever wanted. You've wanted it for so long that you never took the time to think about what would actually happen once you had it right in your hands. How much everything would change. How you might be setting yourself up for the biggest disappointment of your life.

"Hey," Bennett's voice slices through the silence and he jerks his head toward the living room. "You know what we should do right now?" He doesn't wait for either of us to answer. "We should freaking celebrate."

"What?" Rae frowns.

"Yeah," that familiar Cheshire-cat grin spreads across his face. "You two
actually
found something tonight and the mayor didn't string us up by our ankles. We
didn't
die. That's cause for a celebration right there. Now, we don't know exactly what you found just yet, but maybe we should all take a breather here, blow off a little steam, and in the morning, we'll find out what that son of a bitch is hiding on his computer."

My eyes flick across the island to find Rae's gaze already trained on me. Judging from the tight creases lining her forehead, her thoughts can't be that far from mine. It's not a bad idea. A little deflection never hurt anyone, right?

"What do you have in mind, Benn?" Rae's wary voice floats around the room.

Just when I thought his smile couldn't get any wider...

"COME ON!" BENNETT cries out, throwing both arms toward the TV.

I don't exactly see how this constitutes blowing off steam. Sure, I've got a beer in my hand. I'm comfortable on the floor across from the couch. But I can't even begin to wrap my head around how I let this happen. Someone needs to confiscate my man card because I've officially reached a new low.

"This is your idea of 'blowing off steam'?" I cock an eyebrow their way, but all I get is a shrug from Rae, who's long since changed out of her pretty green dress and is lounging on the couch with her injured knee propped up on Bennett's lap.

"Ah!" she yells, nearly jostling her ice right off her knee. "Why does she always look so constipated? Take a poop, Kristen Stewart! For God's sake, take a damn poop! Or a laxative!"