Garbage went out today and no one found my dead dress. I’m more relieved than I would have expected. Everything’s still a secret, and I know what I’m going to do is right.
—Page 86 of Tessa Waye’s diary
“You can do it,” Griff repeats as we make our way down one long row of books. He stays ahead of me, mostly so the two librarians at the reference desk can’t see me, but also (probably) to keep me from bolting. I am so not on board with this plan.
He leans one hand on a bookshelf above my head, forces me to stop and look up at him. “It’ll be easy. Just sniffle. Cry a little. Look pitiful. You’re the daughter of a man who has cheated on your mother and you’re just asking for a little bit of help.”
I chew my lip, think it over. It does sound easy when he puts it like that. I can do this.
“We’re just two poor kids trying to track down whether their father came here.”
“That’s your plan? Why would they buy it? We look nothing alike.”
“Spin the story right, it won’t matter.”
He sounds cocky, and it should irritate me, but yeah, it kind of makes me want to smile.
Oh my God, he’s turning me into a total girl.
“They won’t think about details if you sell it right,” Griff continues. “We just need to catch her off guard, get her a little confused, get her making decisions from a knee-jerk reaction.”
“And that will make her give us the names?”
Griff grins like that’s answer enough. He looks so confident, I guess it is.
“Just look pitiful.”
I concentrate on Griff, think about being miserable—it’s not a hard stretch these days—and try to look suitably sad.
“No, no, no.” He shakes his head, but I can tell he’s holding back a smile. “That’s not pitiful. That’s pissed.”
I glare at him.
“And that’s really pissed.” Griff ducks his head and kisses me, hard. My fingers curl around his. “Just let me do the talking, Wicked.”
He makes it sound so easy.
We end up waiting in the romance section until the older librarian disappears into the children’s section, leaving the younger one running the front.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t go for the old one?” I crane my head to see better, but it doesn’t do me much good. I’m too short. “Usually, older people are easier to scam, Griff.”
“Yeah, but the younger one is recently divorced. She’ll be more receptive to letting us peek at the user log.”
“How do you know she’s divorced?”
Griff points to the fingers on his left hand. “White line where a wedding band would go. You can still see it, and the last time I was here, she was reading a self-help book about restarting life. My money’s on divorce.”
His money? I start to tell Griff I’m not into betting, I prefer guarantees, when he grabs my hand and hauls me forward. I almost trip. We’re walking too fast. We practically charge across the carpeted space and, startled, the librarian looks up.
“Can I help you?”
Griff loops his arm around my shoulders. “I hope so. I have kind of a personal problem I need to ask you about.”
Immediately, the woman’s eyes shutter. Her defenses go up, and so does my heart rate. I sniffle, round my eyes. Try to look pitiful and forlorn. I have no idea if it’s working.
“Our dad left us,” Griff says, and it’s almost imperceptible, but she winces.
“We think he used the computers here to access our family’s bank accounts. . . .” Griff trails off, glancing around like he’s scared someone’s going to hear. “He took everything: the savings, the money in the checking account. Everything.”
“I don’t—”
“Please, just hear me out. I know he used to come here. I was hoping if we could see the user logs and website histories, we could know for sure. It’s really for my mom. She doesn’t believe he would do it. She keeps coming up with all sorts of reasons why he couldn’t.” Now Griff is the one who winces. He’s talking about his mom, about what it was like to lose his dad. The best lies are the ones with an element of truth. He’s the one giving away pieces of himself, pieces he won’t get back.
And he’s doing it for me.
“She needs closure or whatever, and if she knew he really would stoop this low, it would help her to let go,” Griff says. “Please, we all need to know so we can get on with our lives.”
The librarian glances behind her where, thankfully, the old lady is still nowhere in sight. When she turns around, her lip is caught between her teeth. “I don’t know. We’re not supposed to give anyone information on who’s been using the computers. It’s confidential.”
“I know.” Griff presses a little closer, and she doesn’t back away. “I wouldn’t even ask except we’re in such a mess now.” He fidgets, thins his mouth until he looks like he’s holding in all the words he can’t—won’t—say. “We don’t know what we’re going to do. I’m just trying to help my mom deal.”
The librarian’s hand goes to her throat, plays with the thin, gold necklace at her collarbone. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry because it happened? Sorry because she can’t give us the names?
Or sorry because she won’t?
“Please.” I press my hand against the countertop, push down until my veins stand up. Our eyes meet. She’s thinking about her husband. I’m thinking about Lily.
And even before she opens her mouth, I know she’s going to say yes.
“I can’t believe you did that, Griff.” We push through the library’s double doors and turn the corner. “All the names and the website histories!”
“I can’t believe you thought I wouldn’t.”
It does seem crazy now. Totally delusional. I pull Griff close, and he pushes me into the library’s brick wall.
“I wanted you to see what I would do for you.”
“It’s not about what you can do for me. It never was.” His fingers are in my hair now, curving around the nape of my neck, pulling me apart. “I wanted your help because I needed you.”
It slides out of me so fast. Too fast.
“I need you, Griff.”
His lips find mine. “You’re not alone anymore.”