Immortal City

outrage.”

“Jackson left the party in a hurry at the probable time the crime was committed, he was in the immediate area, and no one had seen him. Simple. We needed to bring him in for questioning. He resisted, attempted to abduct a young lady, and one of our officers was compelled to discharge his weapon.”

Jacks stood up in protest, but Kris pulled him back down on the sofa. Mark dismissed Sylvester’s words with a wave of his hand.

Juan, eyes bleary with sleep, pushed a tray in from the kitchen. Hot coffee, peanut butter sandwiches, cookies, and milk.

“Thank you, Juan,” Kris said, and set out the late-night snacks. Sylvester pulled out his notepad.

“This will only take a moment. Jackson, please, can you just tell me why you left the party and where you went afterward?”

Jacks looked at Mark, who nodded.

“I just left to get some air. I was driving on Sunset, and then I stopped at the diner. Two officers came in, and you know the rest.”

“They reported you were in the back, with a waitress.”

Mark looked at Jacks curiously.

“Yes, we were just talking,” Jacks said.

“Is that it? And you didn’t do, hear, or see anything else?” Sylvester asked.

“Yes, that’s it.” Sylvester eyed him warily. Jacks cleared his throat.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”

Mark and Kris exchanged a look.

“They found. .” Mark paused. “They found severed wings.”

Very slowly, Jacks looked up at his stepfather.

“Whose?” he asked quietly.

“We don’t know yet,” Sylvester said, “But the wings were left on Theodore Godson’s star.”

“An Archangel,” Jacks murmured, the enormity settling in. Mark and Sylvester exchanged a look.

“And you knew nothing about this?” Sylvester asked.

“Of course he didn’t!” Mark exclaimed.

“I’m asking Jackson, not you,” Sylvester said calmly.

Jacks shook his head honestly. “I’m telling the truth. I left the party, went to the diner, came here.”

Jackson’s stepfather turned to the detective. “We’re doing this as a courtesy because even the faintest notion that Jackson could be involved with something like this is so absurd, I thought it best to get it over with. But if you want to continue this ridiculous questioning, I’m afraid there will have to be a lawyer present.”

Sylvester narrowed his eyes. “Fine. We’ll see. For your sake, I hope it all checks out. Otherwise we’ll be coming back and won’t be as polite.” Sylvester stood up. “And Jacks? Next time an officer of the Angel City Police Department asks to speak to you, please listen.” He turned to Mark. “Thanks for your time.”

“Let me see you out,” Kris said. Sylvester got up from the couch and walked to the door. Sergeant Garcia lingered in the living room, smiling sheepishly at Jacks.

“Excuse me, Jackson, um, do you think I could get an autograph for my daughter?” he said.

“Garcia,” Sylvester said stiffly, “let’s go.” Garcia hurried outside without his autograph. Mark shut the door, then turned to Jacks.

“I don’t want you to worry about this, Jacks. I’m going to address the issue with the rest of the Archangels tomorrow, and we’ll more than likely be putting our own team on the investigation. You can’t expect too much from the police.”

Jacks nodded. He pushed his hand through his hair.

Severed wings. It was horrific to think about.

“You’ve got a big week coming up,” Mark continued.

“What’s important is that you don’t lose focus. Now why don’t you go upstairs and get some sleep.”

“Okay,” Jacks said, feeling himself sliding helplessly into the same pattern he’d followed his whole life — following Mark’s suggestions, which were actually not suggestions at all. He turned to walk up the stairs, then stopped. “That man at the diner. What did he want after we left?”

Mark paused, then looked at Jacks evenly. “Oh. Him?

He was just angry at the damage to the restaurant. I told him we would cover it.”

“Why’d he mention Maddy to you? I heard him say her name. What’s she got to do with anything?”

“Maddy? Who’s that?” Mark asked.

“The girl. The waitress.”

Mark shrugged. “I have no idea. Like I said, don’t worry about this. Leave the police, this alleged incident, that restaurant, all of it to me.”

Jacks looked at him, dissatisfied. Wordlessly, he headed up the stairs.

Lola had turned his bed down already, but Jacks wasn’t tired. He pulled off his shirt but stopped undressing as his gaze drifted out the window. He walked to the glass door for his private deck, unlocked it, and stepped out into the cold night.

Angel City unrolled beneath him like a carpet of twinkling stars. For the first time ever he squinted and forced his eyes to search among the tiny, individual lights of the city. He spent almost a minute examining the lights below until he found it. A tiny, blinking sign tucked into the bottom of the hill.

The sign for Kevin’s Diner.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, his mind kept returning there, to the back room, and to the girl. That flash in her eyes when their hands touched. And what had he felt? He watched the sign. It blinked and blinked. Then went dark.

Jackson let his eyes defocus, and the city returned to an unbroken, glimmering whole.

CHAPTER TEN

Maddy woke before her alarm went off. She had tossed and turned all night. In her half-conscious mind, the strange images of the frozen diner played over and over like some kind of surreal nightmare. And he was there as well, in the back room with her. She saw his pale blue eyes, his cruelly perfect features. Again and again, she relived him manipulating her. He was probably dying with laughter inside while he made up the whole story. He was making fun of her, and she fell for it. She must have looked so foolish to him. Yet under it all was a tiny voice, a lone note of discord in the chorus of her thoughts: it was the hope that what had happened between them in the back room — and what she had felt — was real. When she couldn’t lie in bed any longer, she pulled a shirt from a stack of laundry, dressed, and went downstairs.

Outside, the morning was soft and gray, the Angel City sign barely visible on the misty hillside. Uncle Kevin sat at the kitchen table in his robe, reading the AC Times. When he looked up at her, his eyes were tired. His face, Maddy thought, had changed. It was lined with worry and looked somehow older.

“Morning,” she said quietly.

“Morning. Why are you up so early?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Maddy said, sitting on a step at the base of the stairs.

Kevin nodded. “Me neither.”

He stood and took down a mug from the cupboard.

He poured her coffee, then took two slices of bread from a bag on the counter.

“Toast?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Kevin placed butter and strawberry jam on the table.

Maddy shuffled over the faded linoleum of the kitchen and sat down. She drew her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. He poured her a glass of OJ — they always had the generic store brand from concentrate, but Maddy thought it tasted pretty good. She picked at the toast Kevin set in front of her.

“I’m really sorry about last night,” she said at last.