So, Jazz was safe. With the NYPD. As usual, no one could be bothered to fill her in, and she figured she wouldn’t hear from him until he was done. Odds were it would take him all day. What should she do in the meantime?
Come on, Connie. You’re in the coolest city in the world for the day.
Just then, her cell phone burbled for her attention. It was her father.
“Hi, Daddy!” she chirped, making every effort to sound like a girl who had not skipped off to New York with her boyfriend and lied about it to her parents. The only problem was that Connie didn’t know what that girl would sound like.
“Something you’d like to tell me?” her father asked without preamble or greeting. That was how her father operated: He always gave his kids an opportunity to come clean. Connie had never noticed a difference in the punishment, though, so she usually gambled on trying to get away with it.
“New York is amazing,” Connie effused, trying for “breathless and overwhelmed.” “Last night we went to Rockefeller Center, which is so much cooler than on TV—”
“I was reading the paper today, and guess what it says?”
“Well,” Connie said, “I bet it doesn’t say anything about the awesome Chinese food I had for dinner last night.”
“It says that Jasper is in New York. Right now.”
Ouch. Of course. That made sense. The news probably leaked from Lobo’s Nod to New York, not the other way around. “Really?” She aimed for surprised, but came closer to “oh, busted.” Cleared her throat for a second try. “Really? That’s a weird coincidence.”
“I’m sure,” her father said drily. “And right now, you’re where?”
“At Larissa’s place.”
“Let me talk to her, then.”
Double ouch.
“She’s in the shower.”
“I can wait.”
“Dad…”
“Seriously. I have all kinds of rollover minutes. I can wait.”
Damn.
“Okay, Dad. I’m not with Larissa. I’m at a hotel in Brooklyn.”
“With him.” Her father’s anger was palpable, even over the phone.
“No. I’m not with him. Honest.” It wasn’t a lie. Present tense was your friend when it came to lying.
“Do you really think I’m going to believe anything you tell me? This isn’t like you got caught doing something and lied to avoid punishment, Conscience. This was premeditated. You set this up. You set me up. You planned this and then you executed your plan, a plan based on deception and dishonesty. So explain to me why I should believe anything you say. Go on. Explain.”
“Because I’m telling the truth. He’s not here. He’s with the police.”
“That’s where he belongs.”
Connie considered explaining that Jazz wasn’t under arrest—not really—but figured she’d just let it go. “Dad, the whole reason we’re here—”
“The paper says—”
“It’s Doug Weathers, Dad. Jesus, you can’t believe anything that guy—”
“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain, Conscience. You’re in enough trouble with me as it is already. And I don’t care why you’re there. What I care about is this: My child lied to me, deceived me, in order to run away with her boyfriend. That’s what I care about. I want you home five minutes ago, do you understand?”
“I can’t—I have a plane ticket. I won’t be home for—”
“Give me your confirmation number. I’ll call the airline and see about getting it changed.”
“But, Dad—”
“What? What are you going to say? Are you going to tell me that this is unfair? That I’m inconveniencing you? That you can be trusted to handle this yourself?”
She’d been planning on saying pretty much all of that.
“Well, let me tell you something.” The rage in her father’s voice had grown more and more potent as he spoke, as though each word stoked a fire in his heart. “Let me tell you something: Fairness is for people who don’t lie. Convenience is for people who don’t lie. And trust is sure as hell for people who don’t lie.”
Connie dropped onto the bed Jazz had slept in. “I’m seventeen,” she said quietly. “You can’t control me for—”
“I can control you for five more months. And if it means protecting you from the world and that boy and yourself, I will damn sure control you right up to midnight on your birthday. Do you understand?”
She turned to her left. Cheek to Jazz’s pillow. She could smell him. Not his deodorant or his shampoo—him. The pure, unadulterated scent of him.
“I love him, Daddy.” The simple, unvarnished truth.
“I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you to hear that I. Don’t. Care.”
There was nothing else she could do. Her father wouldn’t be persuaded by logic and he wouldn’t be persuaded by love. At least she’d tried.
Connie surrendered. She gave her father the confirmation number.
CHAPTER 17
In a depressingly short amount of time, Connie’s father called back to let her know that he had managed to get her a seat on a flight out of LaGuardia late that night. It had cost him $150 more than the cost of the original ticket, a sum he made sure she understood would be deducted piecemeal from her future allowances and summer jobs until paid back.
An hour went by, and Jazz still wasn’t back from the police station, though he did text to say nothing more helpful than that he thought he would be a while. Connie had hours to kill and nothing to do. She couldn’t stand the idea of being cooped up in the hotel room all day by herself, with only the TV and its pathetic selection of cable channels for company. Even through the grayish window, Brooklyn looked hard and bright in the winter sunshine. Despite the bundled pedestrians, she could hardly believe it was cold out at all, so warm was the sunlight.
The police had confiscated all of the materials Detective Hughes had brought the day before, but they hadn’t taken anything actually belonging to Jazz or Connie. Just stuff that had NYPD markings or logos on it.
Which meant that they’d left Connie’s laptop.
The police didn’t know that the previous night, Connie had taken pictures of much of the evidence and then transferred the photos to her laptop, along with notes she’d taken while listening to Jazz and Hughes. She hadn’t minded pretending to play secretary as long as she got something out of it. She was pretty sure even Jazz and Hughes weren’t aware of what she’d been doing. The two of them had been off in some kind of grim, downbeat type of Narnia reserved for those obsessed with crime, an alternate reality where shadows concealed murderers and the sewers clogged with unreadable clues.
She skimmed through the images and notes, then double-checked some things on the maps app on her cell phone. Sure enough, many of the crime scenes were nearby—within walking distance, even.
Connie told herself that she was just going to get out of the hotel room. Get some fresh air. Wander the streets a little and see whatever it was Brooklyn had to offer. She had been to New York before, but always with her family and always to Manhattan, never Brooklyn.
If her perambulations took her to some of the closest crime scenes, well… that was just a happy coincidence, right?
A man pushing a baby carriage nearly collided with Connie on the sidewalk, swerving at the last minute. He wore a wide smile and hilariously awful facial hair and the same heavy-framed retro-hipster glasses as half the guys she’d seen. He seemed so obliviously happy that she didn’t even feel the need to shout, “Watch where you’re going!” after him as he trundled down the street with the carriage. Instead, she just took a moment to look around her, taking in the city.