Page 120 of Not Quite Dead Yet

Not an answer, and not a lie.

The chief clicked his pen twice more. ‘So, you understand why we have to ask it, don’t you?’

‘Sure,’ Jet said. Now she had no choice but to lie. She kept her face blank and her reddened hand in her lap. ‘I was home. Billy’s apartment, I mean. That’s where I’m staying.’

The chief wrote something down.

‘Alone?’

‘No, with Billy.’

‘Billy Finney?’

Jack coughed into his hand.

‘Yes sir,’ Jet answered.

‘All night?’

‘All night.’

The chief glanced over at Jack for a moment, then closed the file.

‘OK. If there’s nothing else you think we should know?’

‘Is there nothing else you thinkIshould know?’ Jet countered.

The chief stared blankly at her.

‘Aboutmycase,’ she said. ‘I have about two days to live. Did you forget that?’

‘I didn’t forget, Jet.’ He held the file against his chest. ‘There’s nothing new. JJ Lim has been arrested.’

Jet’s turn to lean forward, only one elbow on the table, the other hanging lifeless by her side. ‘Are you going to charge him? Doesn’t the fire change things?’

Jack answered instead.

‘Detective Ecker is interviewing him again now. He hasn’t confessed yet, but we believe the prosecutor will move forward without a confession.’ His eyes hooked onto hers. ‘We will get him, don’t worry. I made you a promise.’

‘Thank you, Sergeant Finney,’ the chief said, standing up. Not a real thank you, a warning disguised as one.

The chief gestured toward the exit and Jet took the hint, getting to her feet. But she blinked and the door doubled before her eyes, another world intruding over theirs, Jack’s hand – twice – grasping the handle, holding it open for her, two ways to go, one of them not real.

‘Thank you,’ Jet said to him, not a warning, just a thanks as she stumbled through.

Outside in the rec-rece-re-re – ah, fuck off, the waiting room, Billy and Jet’s parents sat, well, waiting. Another doubled man behind them all too: Gerry Clay.

Billy jumped up, but Mom reached Jet first, folding her into a hug that Jet couldn’t return, because her arms were pinned down, and one didn’t work anyway.

‘It’s just awful, isn’t it,’ Dianne said, voice breathy in Jet’s hair before she pulled away. ‘We wanted to be the ones to tell you.’

‘I’m sorry, Dad.’ Jet’s eyes found him, struggling up from his chair, hand pressed to his side, to his kidneys, a wince of deep pain on his face. ‘Must be hard for you. You spent your whole life building that place.’

‘We’re insured,’ he said, hiding the pain in his voice. ‘We can come back from this. I’m just glad nobody got hurt.’

Jet found Billy’s eyes and she found his. Hazel and blue. One blink and a thousand silent words.

‘Does Luke know?’ Jet asked, looking between her parents.