Vendetta(55)

He released me and I stumbled backward, my hand clutching my chest. I was getting a tight feeling in the base of my throat. I swallowed it, hoping it would go away, but the way Jack was looking at me with my father’s eyes, so full of worry and relief, made me want to cry.

“If I had let anything happen to you, Mickey would have broken out of prison just to kill me,” he said, trying and failing to lighten the mood.

“What are you doing here?” I mushed the words together to distract myself from the lump rising in my throat. Behind me, my mother was hovering. I could almost feel the suspicion seeping through her skin.

Jack rubbed the buzzed hair on his head. He was unusually disheveled, his typical suave suit replaced by loose-fitting jeans and a nondescript black sweatshirt. He didn’t look half as important, or affluent, as he usually did. “I’ve been calling you all day, Persephone.”

I grimaced. He must have meant business. “I was in the hospital.”

“I heard. I was going out of my mind with worry.”

“You and me both,” said my mother. She drifted over to the sink and started to fill the kettle for tea.

“How are you feeling?”

“Where have you been?” I asked at the same time.

Jack rubbed his eyes. “All around the state,” he replied wearily.

“Doing what?”

“Business things.”

He was being curt. He never talked to me about his other business ventures. I knew it had something to do with investments and interest rates, which was why I never bothered to press him about it. The boredom would have overwhelmed me.

“Are you back now? In Cedar Hill?” I was surprised at how childlike the hopefulness in my voice sounded, and felt embarrassed because of it. I had obviously missed him more than I’d realized. He was the only real male presence in my life, and without him, it felt emptier than it should have been.

He shook his head grimly. “Not yet. Not completely.”

My mother had been busying herself at the stove. She passed a mug of peppermint tea to Jack. He took it with an arched eyebrow for good measure.

“Thank you, Celine.”

“Before you ask, there’s no booze in it.”

I winced. It had been going so well. He took a sip without breaking eye contact with her, leveling whatever his response would have been for my benefit.

“Couldn’t this visit have waited until a more reasonable hour, Jack?” My mother’s voice was edged with disapproval. “Do you always have to do things in the dead of night?”

He ignored her this time, setting his mug down on the table. “What happened last night was really serious,” he said to me. “And on your birthday, no less!”

“I know,” I said, biting my lip to stop it from wobbling.

“Do they know who spiked your drink?”

“No,” I responded, feeling tired of the same question already. The police had already interviewed me at the hospital, and that hadn’t exactly been helpful. It’s not like there were any leads, and I was pretty convinced I would never regain full memory of the night. I knew, too, that Robbie Stenson, whenever he resurfaced, was going to avoid me forever. He had finally texted Alex back to say he was out of town for “family reasons,” and that he didn’t realize how out of it I had been. He actually thought I liked him and wanted to kiss him, and he was sorry my “boyfriend” got so angry about it and interrupted us. If he was so apologetic, he could have texted me, but he didn’t even bother. And the only other person who had any knowledge of the forgotten parts of my night was my “angry boyfriend,” Nic, who was already doing a trophy-worthy job of avoiding me.

“Was it someone at the party who spiked it?” My uncle Jack continued his pointless interrogation.

I gave him the same answer I gave the police. “Yeah, but there were so many people there, it could have been anyone.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully. “Was there anyone you didn’t recognize? What about that new family on Lockwood Avenue?”

“No,” I replied resolutely. “In fact, if it wasn’t for that family, I might have ended up in way worse condition.”

“What?” he snapped, the softness in his voice disappearing.

“One of them found me on my way home and brought me to the hospital.” I left out the part about Robbie Stenson; I didn’t want my uncle thinking about me kissing a boy. Besides, I could barely think about it myself without feeling my skin crawl.

Jack set his mouth in a hard line, squaring his jaw. “How do you know he wasn’t the one who drugged you in the first place?”

“What are you talking about?” I didn’t bother to keep the mounting irritation from my voice. I would not let Jack taint this good deed with his preconceived notions of Nic’s family. “He didn’t drug me. He wasn’t even at the party!”