Lucky(63)

She thought of Cary, and she wished he hadn’t suffered, no matter what he had done. She lit a candle.

She thought of the mother who’d left her on the steps of this church. She lit another candle.

She thought of the fact that the man she had believed to be her father was no one to her. She lit another.

The lottery ticket. One final flame.

Then she blew them all out.

“Lucky!” her father hissed. “You can’t do that! It’s… it’s…” Movement behind them. A nun was making her way down the aisle toward them.

“Hello?” she was calling. “What are you doing?”

Lucky had thought they were alone, but clearly they weren’t.

“I’m so sorry, Sister,” John began.

The nun stopped walking. She was just a few feet in front of them.

“Hey,” John said. “Mary Jean, is that you?”

Lucky was sure she saw recognition in the nun’s face, as though she knew who they were. But when the woman opened her mouth, she said, “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

The nun turned and walked down the aisle, fast, then out the front door of the church. She left them standing there, truly alone with all those extinguished flames.





October 2008





NEW YORK CITY




Sister Margaret Jean had recognized them right away. She had been standing near the door, letting the fall breeze blow over her, when through the front entrance they had emerged.

“Lucky.” It was the man. She knew this voice.

At this point, Sister Margaret Jean opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She took her cell phone out of the folds of her habit and held it in her hand, pulled up Valerie’s number, but didn’t dial it, not yet. She couldn’t be sure. She watched them approach the candles. The man was so much older. He no longer looked so sure of himself. But his shoes were still shiny. The young woman was beautiful, even with the ragged haircut, the bad dye job.

Sister Margaret Jean watched in silence as they lit candles. All at once, the young woman blew the candles out. Sister Margaret Jean was shaken from her dreamlike state. She ran toward them, calling out, but not sure what she was going to do.

If there had been any doubt in her mind that it was them, it was extinguished the moment she saw the woman up close. Her eyes were green like emeralds, the same as Valerie’s.

For almost thirty years, Sister Margaret Jean had held out hope that miracles could really happen in Queens, although she had never seen one—but now, here it was. It had come to pass. They had returned.

Her gaze moved from the familiar green eyes to the necklace that had once been familiar to her, now hanging around the young woman’s neck. It hadn’t had much meaning when she had owned it, but now that shining gold cross felt like a sign. Everything would break if she did the wrong thing. But what was she supposed to do?

That was when the man called her Mary Jean.

“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” she replied. She ran out the door of the church, pausing on the steps to write down the license plate number of the SUV she had seen them pull up in. She stepped into the street and hailed a taxi.

The drive lasted fifteen minutes. She got out of the taxi in front of the stately gray office building where Valerie worked. She had walked by it many times, although she had never gone in. They only ever met at the café. But today, for the first time, she pushed open those heavy glass-and-metal doors and walked to the security desk.

“My name is Margaret Jean, and I’m here to see the Manhattan DA, Valerie Mann. Please tell her it’s urgent. Please tell her it cannot wait.”





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


“What happened in there?” Reyes asked when Lucky and John came out of the church and got back in the SUV. Lucky squinted in the city sunlight, too bright after the dimness of the church.

“I don’t know,” Lucky said, still dazed.

“I’m sure that was her,” John said. “Mary Jean? Maggie Jean? I can’t remember her name. Oh, it was so long ago.” He wrung his hands and glanced back at Lucky. “And then she took off. Maybe it wasn’t her. I don’t know, I just don’t know.”

“Well, if you’re talking about that nun who ran out, she did take down our plate number,” Reyes said, starting the engine. “That’s probably not a good thing. Anyway, we have to go; we’re due to meet my private investigator friend in half an hour.” She pulled back out into traffic and eventually the church was far behind them.

Reyes stopped the car again, this time in the parking lot of a low-rise building in the Bronx.

“Best for you to wait here,” she said to John and Lucky. “Keep your fingers crossed.” She got out of the car, slammed the door.

“I’m sorry,” John said in the silence after she had gone. “I hope you can forgive me someday. I hope you can understand.”

“I hate you for what you did,” Lucky said, and it was the truth. “But I also miss you.” Her voice broke. This was the truth, too. “I have for years. And now you’re here and I just—I can’t do anything. I can’t tell you I don’t want you in my life, and I can’t forgive you. Not now. I need time.”