“It’s not really interesting at all,” she said. “It just is. I’m seventeen—”

“You live under my roof,” Dad interrupted. “And you—”

“Let her finish,” Mom said quietly.

“Are you on her side?” Dad turned to Mom. “What’s going on here?”

“There’s no ‘her side’ here, honey. We’re a family. There’s one side—our side—and we share it.”

“I’m seventeen,” Connie pressed, “and in a few months, I’ll be an adult. Like, officially. But I’ve always been responsible. I’ve always been good. My grades have always been excellent, and I’ve never been in trouble.”

“Until—”

“Until recently, I know,” Connie said, jumping in before her dad could go off on a rant. “And that should tell you something. If I went all this time without doing something wrong, doesn’t it tell you that I must have had a good reason?”

“You’re our child, Conscience.” He was mellower than she’d expected. Maybe he thought she could be reasoned out of this, rather than bludgeoned with parental wrath. Under normal circumstances, he might have been right. But Connie was convinced that this was a matter of life or death, if not for Jazz, then certainly for more innocents in New York. “Until you’re eighteen, it’s our job to take care of you. And we take that pretty seriously. When it comes to this boy”—she hated how he avoided saying Jazz’s name—“you don’t always think clearly.”

Mom picked at the edge of her sleeve. “Honey, this isn’t about whether or not you get to spend time with your boyfriend—”

“I know.”

“—it’s about the fact there are dangerous people—”

“There is a serial killer loose in New York,” her father interrupted. “And your boyfriend is directly tied into, caught up in it all. How on earth can you think of getting yourself wrapped up in that? And what in the world makes you think we would be okay with you doing that?”

“There was a serial killer right here in the Nod,” Connie said quietly. “Jazz was involved in that, too. And it worked out fine.”

“Connie!” Mom exploded, her veneer of reserve finally breaking down. “Just because you survived this once doesn’t mean you should go looking for trouble! That’s like drinking and driving over and over just because you didn’t kill yourself the first time!”

“People are dying,” her dad added. “More than a dozen of them. You want to stand in the middle of that? Really?”

She thought of the lockbox. She thought of those quiet, tense moments when she and Howie had sneaked through the Dent house, looking for Jazz. A dead cop in a cruiser out in the driveway. Howie cradling the useless shotgun, as if it could help. Silent for the first time since she’d met him. Both of them knowing that it was entirely possible Jazz was already dead at the hands of the Impressionist.

And then, kicking down the bedroom door… Her boyfriend, bloodied but alive… The rush of her own blood and adrenaline as they got the drop on the man who’d killed Ginny Davis…

“I hear you, Daddy. I get it. But you can’t look after me forever. In a few months, I’ll be eighteen. What’s going to change in those few months? I’m already the person I’ll be at eighteen. The calendar just hasn’t caught up yet.” She took a deep breath. “I need to go back to New York. I need to do it now,” she said in a rush, before her parents could interrupt. But she needn’t have worried. They said nothing. Her mother stared down at her hands, and her father simply shook his head worriedly.

“And I’m going to go,” Connie went on. “I’m going to go. The only way you can stop me is physically. That’s just a fact. And I know you won’t lay a hand on me, Daddy.” Her father said nothing; his face remained impassive, but his eyes told the tale—he could not bring himself to harm his child, even if he thought it would save her. “So the only way you can stop me is if you call the police and have them stop me at the airport or on my way. And you can do that. I know you can. But you have to understand something: If you do, then I’ll know that you love me and want to protect me, but that you don’t trust me. And if you don’t trust me now, if you don’t trust me after seventeen years of being a good daughter, then that means that you’ve never really trusted me.” She took a deep breath. “And that means you never will.”

“Connie…” Mom wrung her hands.

“Let me finish, Mom. If you won’t ever trust me, then that means I’m done. You can have the cops drag me back from the airport and you can keep me locked up in the house, but once I graduate, I’ll move out and you won’t see me anymore. Not because I don’t love you—I do—but because I can’t be around people who don’t trust me. I’ll put myself through college. Somehow. Or maybe move to New York or LA and try to get into acting. I don’t know. But I won’t be here and I won’t come back.” She hefted her bag. “It’s your decision.”

Her father stood, and Connie was once again reminded just how massive a man he was—solid and tall and broad through the chest and shoulders. He looked like a construction worker, not a lawyer, thanks to a strict exercise regimen he’d followed since his years playing football in college. “You’re not leaving,” he said.

“I am. This isn’t a bluff, Daddy.”

“I’m sure it isn’t. I’m sure you believe it right now, as you’re saying it, but you’ll never go through with it. If you walk through that door, my first call is to the police. And you can threaten all you want, but we both know that you’ll eventually realize I’m right.”

“I love you both,” Connie said, and a tear surprised her. “Tell Whiz I love him, too.” She knew that if she sought out her brother in his room, she would break down completely, and she couldn’t afford to do that. It might be the last time she would see him, but she couldn’t put herself through that, couldn’t let what might be his last memory of her be one of weeping and sorrow.

She turned and walked to the front door.

“Do not walk through that door, Conscience!”

Connie thought she heard her mother say, “Let her go, Jerry,” but she couldn’t be sure. She closed the door behind her. Howie waited in the driveway, the engine of his car idling.

“Let’s do this,” she said to him as she climbed in.

“We gonna be dodging Johnny Law? Gonna have five-oh on our asses?”

“Just drive.”

CHAPTER 42

And

of course

a shoulder and trailing a line of

(yes)

cool heat

(yes)

a groan

whose?

He opens his mouth

(yes, like that)

and licks

And

Jazz woke the next morning, his mind muzzy, his emotions hacked and split into pieces. Groggy, he peered blearily at the clock on the bedside table. According to it, he actually had slept for hours. But with the dream arousing and terrifying him in alternating, equal measure, he felt as though he hadn’t slept at all. He must have dreamed that he’d lain awake all night, searching for wisdom and insight in the blank white hotel ceiling.

Despite mentioning TARU, Hughes had—perhaps intentionally, perhaps not—neglected to take the disposable cell phone, so Jazz had put it on the bedside table, just in case Billy decided to call back. The phone’s caller ID listed a phone number, but when Jazz called it, he only got an anonymous, robotic outgoing voice mail message. Billy had probably already tossed that phone and moved on to another one.

He thought of calling Connie. But his dream still pounded at the doors of his conscious mind, only slightly unreal in these moments of waking.