Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,78
from drugs to maybe running a few strip clubs along the highway. Expanding the garage so it actually made some money instead of being a lousy front for the illegal shit we were pulling down.
But the guys didn’t want it. Or if they did, they were too scared of Rabbit and BLJ and the rest of them to say so.
The money had been good, no lie. But the stress hadn’t been worth it.
I walked on up the stairs, the heat making sweat roll down my neck and the small of my back. I didn’t know what Fern was thinking but it was clearly weighing on her as much as my thoughts were weighing on me.
Finally, we were standing in the stairwell at her floor. I still had another floor to go up.
“You can come to the cocktail hour if you like,” she said.
I laughed at her. “You’re going to have to invite Joan yourself.”
She nodded like she knew that.
“Why are you doing this?” Fern called after me as I walked away, her voice echoing in the cement hallway.
“Because someone should. Because she deserves somebody giving a shit about what happens to her.”
“She doesn’t trust people easily and if she finds out about the spyware she will cut you out of her life so fast.”
“Yeah. I know. And why do you think she has trust issues?”
“You think it was me?” That made her laugh. Kind of. Seemed more like a cough. “If you want to know why Joan is the way she is…talk to her about her father. If she’ll let you.”
It sounded to me like she wanted to absolve herself of any responsibility and I had no time for that.
Yes, if Joan found out about the spyware, she’d lose her mind. And I wouldn’t blame her. But this was the only assurance I had that I could keep Joan safe.
Because even though she warned me off caring about her—it was too late. It had been too late months ago when we were still strangers in the club, eyeballing each other across the room.
And after the last few days? After she saved my life?
Yeah, I cared. And I would care as long as she let me.
My breath was heaving in my chest after I climbed the stairs to our floor and I stopped, my hand braced on the doorframe before I went inside. God. I was wrung out. I needed more sleep. Some bacon and eggs. My leg hurt like hell.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Dylan.
It had to be my brother calling me back.
I felt like a kid again, fishing out my phone. Not wise, probably, but unstoppable.
I tapped in my passcode and touched my text button.
A green balloon popped up.
It was from unknown and said:
The good times? They start when?
Fuck.
Not Dylan. Not at all.
It was Lagan.
Chapter 20
I think I was in fourth grade when we read this story about a Civil War soldier (maybe it was World War I, I can’t remember) who sat in a trench asking anyone who came near him a coded question. And if the other person got the question wrong or didn’t know what he was talking about, the soldier was supposed to shoot him.
In the story, every few days, the coded question changed and the news would spread to the soldiers that if you went out to take a piss or got lost on patrol, if someone asked you a question and you didn’t give the right answer then you might get a hole blown through you.
That wasn’t the point of the story, the point was about the soldier asking the questions getting to be friends with a guy in a trench on the other side of the enemy line.
I forget what happened. Someone probably died. Or a horse died. That was all that ever seemed to happen in those war stories.
But I dug that code shit. I dug that shit and I took it home.
Dylan and I started making up all kinds of questions and codes. Codes to tell each other if Mom was on the rampage. Codes to tell each other where to meet if she was. Codes to tell each other if Mom and Pops were fighting, or if it was safe to come home. Codes about the cars we were stealing. Codes about the races Dylan was winning.
It gave us a way to talk about what was happening, without ever really talking about what was happening.
It was easier to say “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” than “Mom’s high as a