I saw him trying to calculate where I was going with this. We both knew he’d never given me a spare. I watched him closely for any sign that he knew I was referring to Marcie’s key, but the light of understanding never lit his eyes. Everything about him was controlled, impenetrable, unreadable.
“Which spare?” he asked.
This only made me angrier, because I’d expected him to know exactly which key I was talking about. How many spares did he have? How many other girls had a key to the Jeep stowed in their purses? “Your girlfriend,” I said. “Or is that not enough of a clarification?”
“Let me see if I’ve got this. You stole the Jeep to get back at me for giving a spare to Marcie?”
“I stole the Jeep because Vee and I needed it,” I said coolly. “There was a time when you were always there when I needed you. I thought maybe that was still true, but apparently I was wrong.”
Patch’s eyes didn’t waver from mine. “Want to tell me what this is really about?” When I didn’t answer, he dragged out one of the kitchen chairs tucked under the table. He sat, arms crossed, legs stretched out languidly. “I’ve got time.”
The Black Hand. That’s what this was really about. But I was scared to confront him. Because of what I might learn, and how he might react. I felt sure that he had absolutely no idea how much I knew. If I accused him of being the Black Hand, there was no turning back. I would have to face the truth that held the power to break me down to my very soul.
Patch raised his eyebrows. “Silent treatment?”
“This is about telling the truth,” I said. “Something you’ve never done.” If he’d killed my dad, how could he have looked me in the eye all those times, telling me how sorry he was, and never told me the truth? How could he kiss me, caress me, hold me in his arms, and live with himself?
“Something I’ve never done? From the day we met, I never lied to you. You didn’t always like what I had to say, but I was always up-front.”
“You let me believe you loved me. A lie!”
“I’m sorry it felt like a lie.” He wasn’t sorry. There was a look of stony fury in his gaze. He hated that I was calling him out. He wanted me to be like all the other girls and disappear into his past without so much as a peep.
“If you felt anything for me, you wouldn’t have moved on to Marcie in record time.”
“And you didn’t move on to Scott in record time? You’d rather have half a man than me?”
“Half a man? Scott is a person.”
“He’s Nephilim.” He made a careless gesture in the direction of the front door. “The Jeep has more value.”
“Maybe he feels the same way about angels.”
He shrugged, lazy and arrogant. “I doubt it. If it weren’t for us, his race wouldn’t exist.”
“Frankenstein’s monster didn’t love him.”
“And?”
“The Nephilim race is already seeking revenge on angels. Maybe this is only the beginning.”
Patch raised his ball cap and dragged a hand through his hair. From the look on his face, I got the impression that the situation was far more dangerous than I’d originally been led to believe. How close was the Nephilim race to overpowering fallen angels? Surely not by this Cheshvan. Patch couldn’t mean that in less than five months, swarms of fallen angels would invade, and eventually kill, tens of thousands of humans. But everything in the way he held himself, down to the very look in his eye, told me that was exactly what was in store.
“What are you doing about it?” I asked, horrified.
He picked up the glass of water I’d poured for myself and left on the table, and took a drink. “I’ve been told to stay out of it.”
“By the archangels?”
“The Nephilim race is evil. They were never supposed to inhabit Earth. They exist because of the pride of fallen angels. The archangels want nothing to do with them. They’re not going to step in where Nephilim are concerned.”
“And all the humans who will die?”
“The archangels have their own plan. Sometimes bad things have to happen before good things can.”
“Plan? What plan? To watch innocent people die?”
“The Nephilim are walking straight into a trap of their own making. If people have to die to annihilate the Nephilim race, the archangels will risk it.”
The hairs on my scalp prickled. “And you agree with them?”
“I’m a guardian angel now. My allegiance is to the archangels.” A blaze of killing hate rose in his eyes, and for one brief moment, I believed it was directed at me. As if he blamed me for what he’d become. In my defense, I felt a wash of anger. Had he forgotten everything from that night? I’d sacrificed my life for him, and he rejected it. If he wanted to blame someone for his circumstances, it wasn’t me!
“How strong are the Nephilim?” I asked.
“Strong enough.” His voice was disturbingly devoid of concern.
“They could hold off the fallen angels as early as this Cheshvan, couldn’t they?”
He gave a nod.
I hugged myself to ward off a deep, sudden chill, but it was more psychological than physical. “You have to do something.”
He shut his eyes.
“If fallen angels can’t possess Nephilim, they’ll move on to humans,” I said, trying to break through his hands-off attitude and reach his conscience. “That’s what you said. Tens of thousands of humans. Maybe Vee. My mom. Maybe me.”
He still said nothing.
“Don’t you even care?”
His eyes flicked to his watch, and he pushed up from the table. “I hate to rush out of here when we’ve got unfinished business, but I’m late.” The spare key to the Jeep was lying in a dish on the sideboard, and he pocketed it. “Thanks for the key. I’ll add borrowing the Jeep to your tab.”
I parked myself between him and the door. “My tab?”
“I got you home from the Z, got you off Marcie’s roof, and now I let you use my Jeep. I don’t give out favors for free.”
I was pretty sure he wasn’t joking. In fact, I was pretty sure he was dead serious.
“We can work it so you pay me after each individual favor, but I figured a tab would be easier.” His smile was a taunting curve. First-class-jerk smug.
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“One of these days I’m going to come to collect on the favors, and then I’ll really be enjoying it.”
“You didn’t loan me the Jeep,” I argued. “I stole it. And it wasn’t a favor—I commandeered it.”
He gave his watch a second glance. “We’re going to have to finish this later. I’ve got to run.”
“That’s right,” I snapped. “A movie with Marcie. Go have fun while my world hangs in the balance.” I told myself I wanted him to go. He deserved Marcie. I didn’t care. I was tempted to hurl something after him; I thought about slamming the door at his back. But I wasn’t going to let him go without asking the question that burned my every thought. I dug my teeth into the inside of my cheek to keep my voice from unraveling. “Do you know who killed my dad?” My voice was cold and controlled, and not my own. It was the voice of someone who was filled to the very tips of her fingers with hate, devastation, accusation.
Patch stopped with his back to me.
“What happened that night?” I didn’t bother trying to hide the desperation in my voice.
After a moment of silence, he said, “You’re asking me like you think I might know.”
“I know you’re the Black Hand.” I shut my eyes briefly, feeling my whole body sway under a wave of nausea.
He looked over his shoulder. “Who told you that?”
“Then it’s true?” I realized my hands were balled into fists at my sides, shaking violently. “You’re the Black Hand.” I watched his face, praying he’d somehow refute it.
The grandfather clock in the hall chimed the hour, a heavy, reverberating sound.
“Get out,” I sa
id. I wouldn’t cry in front of him. I refused to. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
He stood in place, his face cold with shadow, mildly satanic.
The clock counted through the silence. One, two, three.
“I’ll make you pay for it,” I said, my voice still oddly foreign.
Four, five.
“I’ll find a way. You deserve to go to hell. The only thing that could make me sorry is if the archangels beat me to it.”
A flash of hot black crossed his eyes.
“You deserve everything that’s coming to you,” I told him. “Every time you kissed me and held me, knowing what you did to my dad—” I choked and turned away, falling apart when I could least afford it.
Six.
“Go away,” I said, my voice quiet, but not steady.
I looked up, glaring, intending to make Patch leave with the intensity of hate and loathing in my eyes, but I was alone in the hall. I glanced around, expecting him to have stepped out of my view, but he wasn’t there. A strange silence settled in between the shadows, and I realized the grandfather clock had stopped beating.
Its hands were frozen on the six and twelve, having stopped the moment Patch left for good.
CHAPTER 17
AFTER PATCH LEFT, I TRADED OUT MY BEACH cover-up for dark jeans and a tee, and zipped myself into a black Razorbills windbreaker I’d won at last year’s eZine Christmas party. Even though the thought made my stomach swim uneasily, I had to look through Patch’s apartment, and I had to do it tonight—before it was too late.
It had been stupid to tell Patch I knew he was the Black Hand. It had come out in a moment of hostile recklessness. I’d lost my advantage of surprise. I doubted he saw me as a real threat—he probably found my promise to send him to hell darkly amusing— but I had information he’d clearly worked very hard to keep concealed. Based on everything I knew about the all-knowing, ever-watchful archangels, it hadn’t been easy keeping his involvement in my dad’s murder from them. I couldn’t send him to hell, but the archangels could. If I found a way to contact them, his carefully crafted secret would be blown open. The archangels were hunting for an excuse to banish him to hell. Well, I had a reason.
My eyes watered, and I blinked the tears hastily away. There was a time in my life when I never would have believed Patch capable of killing my dad. The idea would have been laughable, preposterous—offensive. But it only showed how cleverly and thoroughly he’d deceived me.
Everything told me the apartment on Swathmore was where he kept his secrets. It was his one vulnerability. Aside from Rixon, no one was allowed inside. Earlier today, when I’d mentioned to Rixon that I’d been there, he’d answered with genuine surprise. He likes to keep his home address off the radar, he’d said. Had Patch managed to keep it off the archangels’ radar? It seemed highly unlikely, bordering on impossible, but Patch had proven that he was very good at finding a way around any obstacle placed in his path. If anyone was resourceful or clever enough to undermine the archangels, it was Patch. I shuddered unexpectedly as I wondered what he was keeping in his apartment. An ominous feeling that tickled my spine seemed to warn me not to go, but I owed it to my dad to bring his killer to justice.
I located a flashlight under my bed and zipped it inside the front pouch of the Windbreaker. As I was getting to my feet, Marcie’s diary caught my eye. It was resting across a row of books on my bookshelf. I debated a moment, feeling a hole burn in my conscience. With a sigh, I tucked the diary alongside the flashlight, locked up behind me, and set out on foot.
I walked the mile stretch to Beech, then caught a bus to Herring Street. I walked three blocks to Keate, hopped on another bus to Clementine, then walked on foot up the winding, scenic hill leading into Marcie’s neighborhood, which was about as close to posh as Coldwater came. The smell of fresh-cut grass and hydrangeas hung in the evening air, and traffic was nonexistent. Cars were kept neatly tucked away in the garages, making the streets seem wider, cleaner. The windows of the white colonial houses reflected the blaze of the slow-setting sun, and I imagined families sitting down together for a late dinner behind the shutters. I bit my lip, startled by a sudden rush of inconsolable regret. My family would never sit down together for a meal again. Three nights a week I ate dinner alone, or at Vee’s. The other four nights, when my mom was home, we typically ate on trays in front of the TV.
Because of Patch.
I turned onto Brenchley, counting down houses to Marcie’s. Her red Toyota 4-Runner was parked in the drive, but I knew she wasn’t home. Patch would have picked her up for the movie in the Jeep. I was cutting across the lawn, thinking I would leave the diary on the porch, when the front door opened.
Marcie had her handbag slung over her shoulder, keys in hand, clearly on her way out. She froze in the doorway when she saw me. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
I opened my mouth, three full seconds ticking by before words came out. “I—I didn’t think you’d be home.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Well, I am.”
“I thought you … and Patch …” I was barely speaking coherently. The diary was in my arms, in plain sight. Any minute Marcie would see it.
“He canceled,” she snapped at me, like it was none of my business.
I hardly heard her. Any moment now she was going to see the diary. Like never before, I wanted to backpedal through time. I should have thought this through before coming. I should have counted on the chance that she’d be home. I glanced nervously behind me, staring at the street as if it could somehow come to my rescue.
Marcie gasped, a rush of air between her teeth. “What are you doing with my diary?”
I spun around, cheeks flaming.
She marched down the porch. She snatched the diary away and reflexively pinned it against her chest. “You—you took it?”
My hands fell uselessly to my sides. “I took it the night of your party.” I shook my head. “It was a stupid thing to do. I’m so sorry—”
“Did you read it?” she demanded.
“No.”
“You liar,” she sneered. “You read it, didn’t you? Who wouldn’t? I hate you! Is your life so boring that you have to go snooping through mine? Did you read the whole thing, or just the parts about you?”
I was on the verge of adamantly denying even opening it, when Marcie’s words caused my thoughts to catch and rewind. “Me? What did you write about me?”
She flung the diary onto the porch behind her, then straightened up, squaring her shoulders. “What do I care?” she said, crossing her arms and glaring at me. “Now you know the truth. How does it feel knowing your mom is screwing other people’s husbands?”
I gave a disbelieving laugh that held more than its share of anger. “Excuse me?”
“You really think your mom is out of town all those nights? Ha!”
I adopted Marcie’s posture. “Actually, I do.” What was she insinuating?
“Then how do you explain why her car is parked down the street one night a week?”
“You have the wrong person,” I said, feeling my rage boil up. I was pretty sure I now knew exactly what Marcie was getting at. How dare she accuse my mom of having an affair. And with her dad, of all people. If he was the last man on the planet, my mom wouldn’t be caught dead with him. I hated Marcie, and my mom knew it. She wasn’t sleeping with Marcie’s father. She would never do that to me. She would never do that to my dad. Never.
“Beige Taurus, license plate X4I24?” Marcie’s voice was arctic.
“So you know her license plate number,” I said after a moment, trying to ignore the tightening sensation in my chest. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“Wake up, Nora. Our parents knew each other in high school. Your mom and my dad. They were together.”
I shook my head. “That’s a lie. My mom has never said anything about your dad.”
“Because she doesn’t want you to know.” Her eyes flashed. “Because she’s still with him. He’s he
r dirty little secret.”
I shook my head harder, feeling like a broken doll. “Maybe my mom knew your dad in high school, but that was a long time ago, before she met my dad. You have the wrong person. You saw someone else’s car parked down the street. When she’s not home, she’s out of town, working.”
“I saw them together, Nora. It was your mom, so don’t even try to make excuses for her. I went to school that day and spray-painted your locker with a message to your mom. Don’t you get it?” Her voice was a revolted hiss. “They were sleeping together. All these years they’ve been doing it. Which means my dad could be your dad. And you could be my—sister.”
Marcie’s words dropped like a blade between us.
I hugged my arms around my middle and turned away, feeling like I might be sick. Tears choked up my throat, burning the back of my nose. Without a word, I walked stiffly down Marcie’s walk. I thought she might shout something worse at my back, but there was nothing worse she could say.
I didn’t go to Patch’s.
I must have walked all the way back to Clementine, past the bus stop, the park, and the city swimming pool, because the next thing I remembered, I was sitting on a bench on the lawn in front of the public library. A cone of streetlight fell over me. It was a warm night, but I hugged my knees against my chest, my body wracked with tremors. My thoughts were a jumble of haunting theories.
I stared into the darkness settling around me. Headlights swung down the street, grew closer, moved on. Sporadic sitcom laughter carried out an open window across the street. Pockets of cool air flushed goose bumps across my arms. The heady smell of grass, musky and humid from the earlier sun, suffocated me.
I lay back on the bench, shutting my eyes against the dusting of stars. I laced my quivering hands on my stomach, my fingers feeling like frozen twigs. I wondered why life had to suck so hard sometimes, wondered why it was the people I loved the most who could disappoint me the hardest, wondered who I wanted to direct my hate at more—Marcie, her dad, or my mom.
Deep inside, I clung to the hope that Marcie was wrong. I hoped I’d get to fling this back in her face. But the sinking sensation that seemed to tug me inside out told me I was only setting myself up for disappointment.
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