The Lies I Told(36)

Two weeks in, I was in the kitchen prepping the garnishes for the bar when the cook, Tony, offered me a joint. “Jack says you need to stay sober, but this won’t hurt.”

Saying no wasn’t as easy as it sounded when all the cells in my body cried for a couple of tokes. But I’d held firm. For a while. Jack caught wind of what we were doing, and he fired Tony and me.

“Sorry I was late to your birthday party,” Jack said. “Weekends are my busiest time.”

“I remember well.” In the eight months I worked at J.J.’s Pub, staff came and went routinely. Waitresses and bartenders called in sick, quit without notice, or left early. But I’d always made my shift. Working was my way of proving that this time would be different. Turned out you could work pretty well stoned.

“You worked your share of thirty-hour weekends.”

“Who’s the manager?” I asked.

“Bill.”

The name conjured images of a tall, lean guy with thin hair. “Yeah, I remember him.”

“Goes back to the time you worked here. He quit for a while and now he’s back.” He looked as if he’d say more but then seemed to think differently. “Your party looked fun.”

“I wish you’d worn your hat,” I teased.

“Never.”

“Thanks for the camera bag. Very nice. And I love the instant cameras.”

“That was all Jo-Jo.”

I shrugged. “The party was nice. Everyone’s trying.”

Jack and Brit had been together almost the entire summer and fall semester before Clare’s death. I used to hear them in Brit’s room, going at it. Dad had hated Jack, said he was trouble, but Brit just waited until he was gone before she invited Jack over. She’d gotten everything she wanted, and I was jealous.

When I’d graduated from booze to pot and pills, Jack had hooked me up. The night Clare died, when I was with Jack, I’d gotten so high, my body wasn’t my own. After I’d talked to Clare, Jack had kissed me. I’d responded mostly because I felt like I was taking something away from Brit.

We’d ended up in the navy-blue sheets covering his mattress on the floor. He kissed me on the lips, my neck, and then my breasts. I’d been overwhelmed with sensation. I’d known he was undressing me, but I was too lost to care. And then he’d pushed into me.

The invasion had caught me off guard. For all the stupid things, screwing my sister’s boyfriend had not made the list until that night. I remembered feeling a little afraid and wishing I’d gone to the party.

After he made his final push and collapsed against me, I had passed out and didn’t wake up until 5:00 a.m., when Jack was stepping out of the shower. Towel wrapped around his waist, he was smiling at me.

He kissed me. We had sex again, though this time I was sober and really not into it. After, we agreed never to tell. And I hadn’t. Soon after, Brit and Jack broke up. They’d cited distance, different life goals.

“You get your two shots of tequila before I arrived?” Jack asked.

“I did. And I didn’t take a sip.”

“You got the real stuff, not water?” He frowned and looked worried, as if a demon had been unchained.

“It was no big deal.”

“You’d have gotten water if I was behind the bar.” He frowned. “Why the tequila? I never understood that.”

“Clare loved it. I was the one who hated it. I drank everything else, but not tequila. The shots are always for her.”

“I never knew that.”

I sipped my soda. “I saw Detective Richards Saturday.”

He picked up a rag and wiped down the bar. “Your annual update.”

“More or less.” I opted not to mention the case notes I’d found at my door. “He’s retiring.”

“Makes sense,” Jack said. “He was in his fifties when he was investigating the case.”

“He looks about the same.”

“Still has no answers?” Jack asked.

“He interviewed you, right?” I asked.

“Sure. Back in the day.” He looked wary, as if mentioning the past would rip open old wounds. “He talked to everyone.”

“What did you say?”

“Not much to say. I didn’t know anything. I was with you.”

I swirled the soda in my glass. “You never told Richards I was with you.”

“Didn’t seem like a good idea.”

“I would’ve been your alibi.”

“I had a few guys come by the house for some business. They all vouched for me.”

He’d been dealing out of his house while I slept, which I found oddly comforting. “You didn’t try to wake me up?”

“It was better you sleep it off. That way you could drive yourself home. Your car at my place would have sounded alarm bells with Brit.”

“Brit’s why I never told the cops I was with you. I didn’t need to lose another sister.”

“She’s not an easy woman when crossed.”

“Does Jo-Jo ever talk about Clare and the party?”

“From what Jo-Jo said, Clare was dancing and then had a fight with Kurt before she left. Jo-Jo and a few others thought she was you.”

“Jo-Jo had to have known it wasn’t me. She could always tell us apart.”