Blood of My Blood (35 page)

Jazz opened his eyes.

The world was a dirty windshield.

He left it again.

He woke up again.

A hand held his. Cool and familiar.

He sank back into sleep.

Again.

He thought he caught a flash of Connie’s hand.

And a wheelchair.

I did that to her. It’s my fault
.

He passed out again.

This time, they placed a guard inside his hospital room. He recognized the deputy’s uniform, so he was still in the Nod. He didn’t know the deputy, though. They didn’t want him playing on someone’s sympathy.

And just in case, they’d handcuffed him to the bed again.

If he’d thought anyone would believe him, Jazz would have told them that the guard and the cuffs were both overkill. Sure, he could pick the handcuff lock, but he wouldn’t be going anywhere in the near future. His leg actually hurt less than the rest of his body. Between the broken ribs from the bullet, the blood loss, and the multiple stab wounds, he couldn’t sit up, much less get out of bed.

He had a lot of time. To think.

It happened
.

That was first. He had to start there. Had to acknowledge it.

He rolled it around in his mind for impossibly long minutes. He tasted it.

Everything happened and everything was true. Even the lies were true.

It all happened. It wasn’t a dream
.

And I’m still alive
.

I guess that’s something
.

Howie was the first to visit him. He’d thought it might be the cops, but it wasn’t.

Howie loped into the room as if he did this every day. His face and forehead looked much improved from the last time Jazz had seen him, the scar barely visible. Jazz wondered how long he’d been unconscious.

With a derisive snort and a glare at the deputy, Howie hauled a chair bedside and plopped into it. “I was going to bake you a cake with a hacksaw inside it,” he said without preamble, “but—”

“But you realized it wouldn’t work.”

“Well, no. I realized I don’t know how to bake.”

Laughing hurt like hell, but Jazz tried to enjoy the pain. Pain meant life. Pain was better than the alternative.

“A man’s got to know his limitations,” he told Howie.

Howie’s head bobbled like a doll’s. “True dat, dawg. I’m just so freakin’ glad that your aunt turned out not to be a serial killer. That would have said things about my psyche that I’m not ready to explore yet. I’m waiting until I’m on my own health insurance to go into therapy—my parentals have paid out enough, you know?”

Sam. If he’d had the energy, Jazz would have felt guilty for assuming she was Ugly J. “Where is she?” That she’d been cleared as a killer only made it more likely she was a victim.

Howie shrugged and handed over a torn-open envelope that said
JAZZ
on the front. He fumbled out a sheet of paper, unfolded it, and read.

Jazz—

I am so sorry to do this. You can’t imagine how sorry. But I have to leave. I can’t take it here. I thought that maybe I could help Mom and connect with you and a part of me wants that, but I can’t do it. I’m leaving in the morning. Please don’t look for me. Please don’t come after me. I left the Nod to get away from the Dent crazy, and it reached out and pulled me back
.

And then, in a different color ink, clearly scrawled in haste:

So sorry
.

Sam

“The, uh, the cops figure she started the letter—”

“And then finished it the night you and Gramma went to the hospital.” He could see it, if he tried. Sam, struggling with the decision, starting the letter in order to work out her thoughts and feelings. Figuring she could always finish it when she couldn’t stand any more.

And then Howie busts in with a shotgun. Gramma collapses, Sam reacts, Howie’s bleeding on the floor.… Sam panics. She calls 911, and she realizes she can’t handle it. Can’t stick around for the aftermath. Can’t get sucked back in. So she scribbles a sorry and she leaves town.

Jazz had a hard time being angry with her.

He beckoned Howie closer and, checking to make sure the deputy couldn’t hear, whispered, “You still have the book, right?”

Howie made a great show of glowering at the deputy, who didn’t even notice. “Yep.”

“Where did you hide it?”

“I sort of forgot to. It’s sitting on my desk at home.”

“Howie!”

“Chillax. No one knows what it is. They can’t be looking for something they don’t know about.”

Jazz supposed that was true.

“So what was your plan? Kill Billy, then get the book, decipher it, and start hunting down Crows?”

“Something like that.”
I HUNT KILLERS
was still emblazoned on his chest, after all.

“Maybe we leave that to the cops, hmm?”

“Sounds good to me.” Jazz grabbed Howie’s hand. “Thanks, man. For having my back.”

“Always.”

Connie was there later, when he woke from another impromptu nap. Or maybe he’d slept for days. He rubbed his beard stubble, but he’d never grown it out before, so he didn’t know how long it accounted for.

When she rolled herself into the room, he began weeping uncontrollably. She had a cast on her leg, which jutted out before her, and her face was puffy and mottled with bruises and swelling, her scalp covered in butterfly stitches, bandages, and gauze. She rolled to his bedside in her wheelchair and took his hand—cool, slim,
the
hand—and his shame turned his head away from her.

“Jazz, look at me.”

He couldn’t. She was in pain, she was
damaged
because of him. Because of his quest for redemption, his ego, his self-absorption. How could he look at her?

She raised his hand and kissed it, softly. At her touch, a fresh wave of tears broke out. “I’m so sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry.”

She held his hand and stroked his arm and sat quietly until the tears could come no more. With a gentle hand, she touched his temple, his ruined cheek, fluttering nimbly around the stitches.

“We’re a matching pair,” she said.

He laughed again, the pain proving the life. He finally turned to face her, and she was as beautiful as ever. They
were
a matching pair. The world saw a black girl and a white boy, but he knew the truth. Connie was the other half of him.

“ ‘If you go—if you kill him—we’re over,’ ” he quoted.

“I changed my mind,” she said, and leaned over to kiss him. He didn’t have much range and she couldn’t lean very far, but it was still the sweetest kiss he’d ever had.

“You lied to me,” he said.

“No, I changed my mind,” she said with some sass. “There’s a difference.”

“Not then. Last year. During the Impressionist case. We were at the Hideout, and you told me that when you came to the Nod, you knew who I was, but you fell in love with me, anyway.” He paused, gathering his strength. Talking for a long stretch hurt his cheeks, his neck, his chest. Pretty much everything. “But you didn’t know who I was until you looked me up online after our first date. I forgot all about that until recently.”

She shrugged. “Okay, you caught me. But you were in a pretty bad place last year, and it was what you needed.”

“Feel free to lie whenever I need it.”

“Deal.”

“I think that’s when I realized I’d fallen in love with you,” he said soberly. “But I get it if you—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence.”

“Don’t you wonder, though? It was bad enough when I had Billy weighing on me. But with both parents… How could I possibly—”

“Howie and I talked about that. When we realized your mom was Ugly J, we thought the same thing.”

“It’s okay; I don’t blame you.”

“I wasn’t asking for forgiveness. We thought it, too. Of course. But you know what? First of all, not everything is passed down. Not everything is genetic.”

“But I grew up in—”

“And second of all.” She tightened her grip on his hand to silence him. “Second of all, you didn’t just have Billy in your life. You had the whole world. TV and movies. Books. Other kids. Other families. School. Plenty of examples, plenty of role models. Including the goofiest white boy ever and the foxiest girlfriend on the planet.”

He realized he’d spent his life trying to understand Billy. But had never really understood himself.

“A part of you always knew that what you were learning was wrong. And you resisted what they taught you. You’re stronger than any person I’ve ever known.”

“What they did to me—”

“Other people have been abused. They had problems.
You
have problems. But they don’t all grow up to—”

“I know. I know that. Now.” He wished he could sit up, wished he could take her in his arms. “I know what’s ahead of me. All the pain and the struggling. The survival. But I know something else, too—I made it this far. I got here. Here and now. And I’m still the same person. They made me, but they don’t own me. They don’t get to decide who or what I am. Only I get to decide that.” His voice had risen and cracked. He forced himself to relax.

“Only I get to decide that,” he said again, much more quietly.

“Maybe that’s the first step,” she said.

“Of a million.”

“It’s not like you’re walking it alone, doofus.”