Chapter Nine
Chapter
Nine
For the record, I didn’t follow Theo’s instructions, because I’m an independent woman, one who doesn’t take orders from kids, preteens, or teenagers.
At least, I didn’t do it right away. It could wait until that evening.
Until then, I planned to focus solely on my niece.
After walking Livy home, I set her up at the kitchen table with a snack of celery sticks and peanut butter while I helped her practice math.
She didn’t have any actual homework, but we’d started a routine back in the spring, doing math together once or twice a week.
Sometimes I printed out worksheets from the Internet, and other times we played math-related games on my laptop.
I tried my best to make each session fun and engaging.
The whole point was to prevent Livy from developing negative associations with math like the ones I’d battled back in school.
Ones I still battled, actually. The mere thought of having to do anything beyond basic addition and subtraction on the spot always triggered a wave of near panic, thanks mostly to an unfortunate experience in fifth grade when my teacher, Mrs. Klein, had berated me in front of the class for not knowing my times tables as well as she thought I should have.
My brother, Ethan, however, had loved math, and that was part of my motivation as well. I knew he’d want his daughter to succeed at the subject, if not love it like he did. So far, my strategy seemed to be working. Math was one of Livy’s favorite subjects, right up there with art.
Today, though, she was struggling to stay focused on the addition maze we were working on. Then, when she got one of the equations wrong and found herself at a dead end in the maze, she burst into tears.
“Oh, Livysaurus,” I said with dismay, running a hand down her glossy hair. “What’s wrong, sweet girl?”
She climbed onto my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck, burying her face in my sweater.
Worry rushed in, like a quickly rising tide that threatened to surge up over my head. “Livy?”
She sniffled before speaking in a quiet voice. “Navneet told me she and her family are going out for dinner tonight because it’s her dad’s birthday.”
“Oh.” My heart sank.
“Daddy’s birthday is in a few days, but he’s not here. I wish he could come back from heaven.”
“I know, sweetie. I do too.” My words came out thick with emotion, and I fought against the tears burning in my eyes and the fierce grief in my chest.
Even though nearly a year had gone by since my brother’s death, I didn’t think a single day had passed that I hadn’t felt like crying at least once, but I rarely allowed the tears to fall. I feared that once I started crying, I wouldn’t be able to stop, and that wasn’t what Livy needed from me.
I would have done anything to make Livy’s wish come true. I would have traded my own life. But bringing Ethan back wasn’t something anyone could do, so I needed to find some sort of comfort for my niece.
Memories of childhood birthday parties—mine and Ethan’s—fluttered through my brain. Happy times. All in the past.
“Tell you what,” I said as I stroked Livy’s hair. “Why don’t you and I bake your dad a cake on his birthday?”
“Can it be chocolate?” she asked in a tiny voice. “That’s what he liked best.”
“ ‘Any cake that isn’t chocolate is a wasted cake,’ ” I quoted, having heard my brother say that many times over the years.
“I like other flavors too.” Livy looked up at me, her eyes shimmering with tears. Blue eyes, so similar to Ethan’s. “But chocolate’s the best.”
I kissed the top of her head. “I think so too. And, yes, we can bake him a chocolate cake.”
“With chocolate frosting?”
“Lots of chocolate frosting.” I gave her a squeeze, and she smiled, just a little. “And for now, how about some mac and cheese?”
She nodded and climbed off my lap, running to grab a stool so she could help me make dinner. Within minutes, she was chatting away, telling me about the fun she had with her friends at school that day.
She was such a resilient kid, and she amazed and inspired me every day.
She’d lost her mom as a baby and her dad at age six.
If she could keep smiling after all she’d been through, I could get my life on track.
I could find myself a steady job and succeed at adulting.
Maybe I could even recall a detail of some sort that would help clear Mr. Nagy’s name.
I spent extra time with Livy that night after I tucked her into bed, making sure she was sound asleep before I tiptoed out of her room.
Then I grabbed a notebook and pen, curled up in my own bed, and wrote down everything I could remember about the scene of Freddie’s murder.
It wasn’t a whole lot. The smell of alcohol.
The broken bottle. The blood. The buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead. The flecks of gold leaf.
Immersing myself in the memory became too much—I swore I could smell the blood and alcohol again. I slapped the notebook shut and tucked it away in the drawer of my bedside table. The exercise hadn’t resulted in any new insights, and I didn’t know how else I could help Mr. Nagy.
My gaze landed on the box of business cards I’d left on the floor by my closet. An image of Wyatt popped into my head, looking unfairly hot, his eyes doing that damn twinkling.
“Nope, nope, nope!” I told myself out loud.
I punctuated that statement by flicking off the bedside lamp.
As it turned out, thoughts of Wyatt—as dangerous as they were—would have been far preferable to the worries that plagued me all through the night. There was nothing I could do for my elderly neighbors, but knowing that didn’t help me sleep.
It didn’t take long to get the latest news the next morning.
I heard it while checking my mailbox (empty except for flyers and other junk) down in the lobby.
Mrs. Nagy was in the hospital, Carmen álvarez reported as she collected the contents of her own mailbox.
She’d collapsed from shock but was expected to return home soon.
As for her husband, he was still in police custody.
I tried my best not to dwell on the Nagys’ predicament, but my heart ached for the neighbors who’d been so good to me and Livy since we’d moved into the Mirage. Perhaps a job offer would have helped to distract me, but none materialized. I hadn’t even been offered an interview.
Still, I was unwilling to accept defeat.
That simply wasn’t an option. Not with Livy to take care of, so I returned to my apartment determined to accomplish at least one goal: fix the leak beneath the kitchen sink that had been dripping water into Livy’s blue plastic pail for the past couple of weeks.
A plumber I was not, but wasn’t everyone an expert with a little help from YouTube?