“No,” he said, and there was a world of sadness behind that single no, although you wouldn’t have known it to look at his face. He simply looked tired. He took in a breath, breathed it out his nose. “She did not. I kept it from her for a long time. But she was so smart. She figured it out. We fought about it. By then she was in college, and she met your da.” He shrugged. “From then on, we didn’t talk much. Your da met me once at the bar, alone. This was after Susannah was born.”
“They wouldn’t let you in,” I said, remembering my uncle in his flat cap at the door to the hospital room, my father barring the way. “At the hospital, when my sister was born. They wouldn’t let you into the room.”
“Your da wanted to talk to me about that, after,” Uncle Gavin said. “I couldn’t tell if he was apologizing or telling me to stay away. Both, I think. I told him I understood and promised not to bother you again, that I would wait for Alanna to call.” He paused. I realized with a sharp jab of conscience that my mother had never called, that my uncle would live for that for the rest of his life. “He was a good man, your da,” Uncle Gavin continued. “Kind enough to me when he had no real reason to be.”
We sat in the aftermath of that story, each nursing a private grief. Down below us, in the dim halos of light from the streetlamps, I could see bats dip and swerve, zigzagging across the sky.
“My parents,” I said, and something thick and sorrowful rose up in my throat, behind my eyes. With an effort I forced it down. “You said you would find out who killed my parents.”
Slowly Uncle Gavin nodded, once. “I did say that.”
“So, have you …?”
“I’m waiting for the police,” he said.
I stared at him. “It’s been months!” I said. “Almost a year!”
“One thing I’ve learned,” my uncle said, “is patience.” I started to speak, and he held up a hand to cut me off. “They’re still looking,” he said. “The police. I don’t want to get in their way.”
“Because what? You’re scared?”
He ignored the anger in my voice and kept his own voice even. “I don’t want to get on their radar,” he said. “They expect me to do something. They know what I do. They can’t prove it, not in court, but they know. So they watch. And so I wait for them to do the work. And if they don’t find what they’re looking for—and it’s still possible that they will—but if they don’t, they’ll close the case and move on to the next murder. And then I’ll be free to look. The police keep me updated every few weeks.” He smiled slightly. “And I have my own sources.”
I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “And you’re okay with that? Just putting it on hold? Why can’t you just find Ponytail and his partner and—” I stopped, not daring to utter the next words. Kill them. Something dark uncoiled in my heart at the thought, and I shivered.
In the same even voice, Uncle Gavin said, “I’ve got you and Susannah to think about now. I can’t do much for you if I’m in prison myself.”
I felt the weight of that settle on me, my uncle’s simple declaration of responsibility for me and Susannah, along with the underlying suggestion that the same unspoken thought of retribution was on my uncle’s mind. Then he glanced at his watch and stood. “Time for bed,” he said, his tone pleasant enough but also definite, and after a moment I stood too and followed him into the house, our conversation over but not finished.
CHAPTER TEN
For our second date, I take Marisa to see Romeo and Juliet at the Shakespeare Tavern downtown.
The play is good—a couple of local high school students play Romeo and Juliet, and although the actress playing Juliet has a tendency to shout her lines, she does a fine job portraying an idealistic teenager pushed to desperation. Marisa seems to enjoy herself, laughing at the bawdy Mercutio and sighing as Romeo falls utterly head over heels for Juliet. When the play ends, we stand and applaud loudly with the audience, Marisa sticking her fingers in her mouth to whistle when Mercutio returns for his curtain call.
“So you liked it?” I ask as we walk outside.
“It was so good!” she says. “It’s almost as good as the Globe in London. I saw Othello there a few years ago. Have you been?”
I shake my head and smile, although the question strikes a sour note. My parents never had enough money to take me and Susannah anywhere farther than the beach at Hilton Head, and Uncle Gavin wasn’t the vacationing type. “It’s on my bucket list,” I say.
Marisa must sense something, because she immediately downplays going to the Globe. “It was a short trip, not even a week. My father wrote it off as a business expense. He was trying to get some investors for a project here.”
I make a noncommittal noise, then ask, “Your father works in finance?”
She wrinkles her nose. “He’s a real estate developer,” she says with clear disdain. Then she laughs. “God, I sound like a snob. Sorry. It’s just I don’t really get along with him. He can be controlling: Mr. Big Shot behind his big old desk.”
We are walking south on Peachtree, the downtown skyline looming across the highway. Now that the sun has gone down, I’m reminded that it’s only the end of February—there’s a chill in the air, like an invisible frost, and occasionally a cold breeze tries to work its fingers under my coat. Marisa shivers, glances at me, and smiles. “I’m okay,” she says. “As long as we aren’t walking all the
