Vicki Pettersson - The Given

“Sit here,” Amelia ordered, already pushing Kit onto a high-backed stool. “I’ll get my bag.”

She left soundlessly and returned the same way. She must have kept her doctor’s bag close, and Kit thought about how nice it must be to always be ready for an emergency. The thought surprised a laugh from her, and she smothered the sound with one hand. Marin looked panicked.

So Amelia was the one who asked, “What happened?” as she pulled Kit’s hand away to treat it first. Kit stared down in surprise. Where had the blood come from? She didn’t remember cutting it.

“Katherine!” Her aunt’s voice, strong and familiar, snapped her back to the present, and she was suddenly directly in front of Kit, blocking Amelia’s ministrations and cupping Kit’s cheeks. “Tell us what happened.”

Pretend you’re pitching a story, Kit thought, closing her eyes. Like you’re angling for a lead at the paper. Make it good.

So, leaving out the part about seeing her best friend outfitted in wings and stardust, Kit told them about going to see Ray at the club, emphasizing that it was a public space, open at the time, and that she’d felt relatively safe given their previous encounters.

“You were obviously mistaken about that,” Marin snapped, the bite back in her tone, criticism crowding out her worry. She was recovering more quickly than Kit, and that pissed Kit off. She wouldn’t have had to go to Ray, or ask about the past, if Marin had been straight with her last night. “Why would you want to meet with him at all?”

“Because of you,” Kit answered coolly, and was pleased when Marin gaped. “I asked you about the old feud between the DiMartinos and the Salernos last night. You told me that some things were better left buried. That’s how I knew exactly where to look.”

Marin’s lips thinned as she ran a hand over her head, causing her hair to stick up in spikes.

“He killed my father, Marin,” Kit said, before her aunt could speak. Holding out her left palm so that Amelia could clean it, she studied her aunt’s reaction. Had she known that all along and not told Kit? “Ray DiMartino said that the police were called to his father’s house fourteen years ago on a day that a woman named Gina Alessi showed up. There was talk of a map leading to stolen jewels. Jewels that had been missing since 1960. When one of those officers, my father, left with Gina, Ray followed.”

Marin had stilled in place, and now only her mouth moved. “He said that?”

Who’da thought I’d be using the same gun on you fourteen whole years after I killed your father?

Kit shuddered. “Right before he tried to kill me with the exact same gun.”

And Kit didn’t feel any different, or better, for having solved the mystery. Maybe it was still the shock, but she had no sense of peace to replace the wonder that’d always driven her. “Did you know?” she asked Marin, her voice low as she wondered something new. “Did you know that Dad was killed by the son of Vegas’s most notorious mobster?”

“No.”

“But you know why he died. You know what was in those papers he gave you.” Kit angled her head, giving her aunt time to do the right thing, but after just staring back at her, silence stretching for so long that even Amelia’s practiced hands took on a tentative touch, Marin only gritted her teeth.

“I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“But, Marin,” Kit said coldly. “That’s exactly what’s going to happen next.”

And she leaped from the barstool, snatching her keys from the counter as she yanked away from Amelia. She only paused at the kitchen’s threshold long enough to spare Marin one hard backward glance, and was gratified to see that it was now her aunt who was white-faced and too-still. “The truth, Marin. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“And are you willing to die for it?”

“I’m willing to live for it,” Kit retorted, swinging back around and down the entryway. Her point was already made, but she slammed the door behind her anyway, and hurried down the trio of steps that led to the drive. She was so focused, so furious, that she hadn’t realized Amelia had followed until a hand touched her shoulder.

“It’s just me,” the woman said, holding up her palms and taking a step back. She didn’t know Kit, and maybe Marin hadn’t yet told her that Kit wouldn’t hurt a fly.

No, she thought, heart collapsing in on itself. Not a fly . . . just the mob-rat that had killed her father.

“She loves you so much,” Amelia tried, tucking a soft wisp of blond hair behind one ear. “She’s only trying to protect you.”

Kit knew that. She huffed and climbed behind the wheel of her car anyway.

“I’ll try to talk to her for you,” Amelia said.

That surprised Kit so much that she almost flooded her engine. “You will?”

Amelia nodded. “I understand why you’re upset . . . and she does, too. No promises, though.”

No, they both knew Marin was too stubborn for promises. Kit nodded once. “Thanks. And for the medical care, too.”

“The blood on your face was just . . . spatter.” Amelia blew out a breath. “I didn’t get to the scrapes on your knees, though. You’ll need to take care of them when you get home.”

Kit drove by rote, looking neither left nor right, and not glancing down until she hit the first stoplight. It was only then that she felt the burn in her skinned knees, as if viewing the injuries was what made them exist. There was one cut that was more than a mere scrape, though she could butterfly it easily enough with only a Band-Aid.

But maybe she’d leave it. She had escaped near-death, after all. There should be a reminder of it. Fleur had made her get a tattoo to announce her return to the world after heartache, but maybe surviving near-death required more. Maybe blood and scars were what cemented your refusal to leave it at all. Glancing away from her injuries, Kit drove on.

The night had softened at the edges by the time Kit pulled into her drive, smoothing out the age and decay of her mid-century neighborhood, cutting back on the crumbling concrete walls and cracked walks that sat exposed in the raw daylight. Grif had never told Kit, but he’d been to this neighborhood before, back in his day. It was at some party that Evie had dragged him to, either on or near Kit’s block, and he could still hear Slim Whitman blaring from the record player as voices and laughter sailed up into the air and the arid desert night.

Back then the biggest headliners on the Strip had all wanted to buy these lavish ranch homes . . . for pennies on the dollar, too. Though it was long gone, he remembered the spot where signage had once flanked the wide community entrance, no backdrop, just that giant cursive scrawl that had been so popular back then: THE FUTURE IS NOW, TOMORROW HAS ARRIVED.

He wanted to share the memory with Kit. He wanted to take her hand and lead her to the community entrance, where she would glance at the crumbling wall posts and smile as he wrapped his arms around her from behind, as taken by the minutiae of the past as she was by him. It wasn’t just her car and hair and clothes that were faithfully retro, it was her mind and her thoughts, too . . . at least the dreamy ones. They ever lingered in the past.

“If tomorrow has already arrived,” she’d likely point out, “we wouldn’t be worried about tonight.”

“Or the future,” he’d say.

“Or even the past.”

But that’s where it all started, Grif knew now. Back in 1960, with Tommy DiMartino, who’d held a doll with diamonds for eyes in one hand and a butcher’s knife in the other. Despite his best efforts, Grif had gotten in someone’s way back then, whether it was old Sal DiMartino; his nemesis, Nick Salerno; or Barbara—who could have been at that long-ago party, lurking in the shadows, wishing him dead. Whatever he’d done, Evie had suffered an attack because of it fifty years ago, and now Kit was paying for it, too.