Recap of Previous Chapter: Lizzy meets Darcy the cop in Charlotte's diner; she and Ray get away before he can question them. Lizzy spends the rest of the day in school and finishing up her last day temping at the doctor's office. Upon arriving home, she is met by Darcy, who somehow managed to track her down. She finds out he's really a detective, he questions her on Ray's whereabouts, warns her about Wickham, and leaves. Chapter one ends with her telling Ray about the meeting.
"Get rid of those cards." Ray warned, and then he was gone.
Lizzy took them back out of her pocket, tearing up one of the cards the detective had given her to give to Ray and then throwing it away, but looked thoughtfully down at the other one. She had done what Ray asked with his card, but the detective had given this one to her, and for some reason she was reluctant to destroy it. Lizzy laughed at herself; it was probably because he was so hot. Did she really have a school girl crush on this guy? Shrugging, she hid the card in a book on her bookshelf before heading into her room to finally get into her comfy pajamas.
The next morning, Lizzy was up early. She had her first class at eight, but had to be at the bus stop by seven if she wanted to make it on time. Charlotte was up as well; she opened the diner at seven, but liked to get there early to have time to prepare. Lizzy could tell Charlotte was tense and preoccupied that morning but could only guess at the cause. She had fired her previous cook for selling drugs in her place and has since been struggling for weeks using temporary cooks on loan to her from a restaurant nearby that she was friendly with. A lot of them were happy to get the extra money that she paid them under the table for the hours, but Lizzy knew Charlotte was eager to hire someone permanent so she wasn't constantly on edge that someone would even show up that day. At first Lizzy assumed no one had called to confirm they would be there and that was what had Charlotte stressed, but that morning she told Lizzy that she finally had a new cook starting. Lizzy was confused as to why her friend seemed uneasy about the seemingly good news until Charlotte told her that her brother JJ was the one to recommend him.
Things between Charlotte and her twin were generally easygoing, as it had been their whole life- at least as long as Lizzy had known them. Things only ever got tense between them when JJ's gang activities came between them. Charlotte had grown up with an uncle who was the head of the local gang; she was no stranger to the lifestyle. When her brother became her cousin's right hand man, Charlotte, like Lizzy, was disappointed but accepting. However, when Charlotte became serious about taking over the diner she was currently in charge of, she confronted her brother about her desire to keep any gang association with her diner to a minimum. She did not, she told him, want her diner to be known as a house for the Families. JJ was affronted with her attitude, especially as he was helping finance her purchase. He accused her of becoming too full of herself, putting too much stock in owning a business, and most of all being ashamed of her gangster brother paying the bills for her dream.
This resulted into the biggest and pretty much only fight Charlotte and JJ got into. It lasted months and made things especially tough for Lizzy, who was oftentimes thrown in the middle and asked to choose sides. She only ever said they both misunderstood the other and that they needed some time alone without their egos to talk it out. Through careful planning by Lizzy and a dose of good luck, this eventually happened and any hard feelings were put aside. The effect of the fight was that JJ and his friends stopped in from time to time, but JJ made it known that if a gang member were to visit, he should eat and move on. Lizzy knew that JJ was aware of how much his sister loved her diner, and how much it meant for her that it not be on the radar as a hangout for the Families. If he recommended someone for the job, Lizzy was confident the new cook would know the way things worked.
Still, Charlotte seemed worried; Lizzy came out to her wiping down the already spotless stove, a clear sign that she was stressed out.
"If this guy doesn't work out, you can always keep looking for someone else." Elizabeth commented without preamble. Charlotte made a face while giving a sort of shrug.
"I'm sure it'll be fine." She replied somberly, scrubbing hard at nothing. Lizzy smirked, but dropped the subject. She told Charlotte what had happened with Ray and the detective after leaving the diner yesterday morning, to Charlotte's mix of disapproval and amusement.
"Maybe if you get closer to Wickham, the Detective will come looking for you instead of that idiot friend of yours." She said with a knowing smile, referring to Ray.
"God. I don't know if the punishment of being close to Wickham would be worth the reward of Detective Adonis paying me any attention." Lizzy replied with a laugh.
"I dunno. From the way you were drooling over him yesterday, it seemed to me you would be willing to do a lot of things to get that man's attention." Charlotte teased.
"Shut up, I was not that bad." Lizzy defended, blushing. Charlotte raised an eyebrow. "Anyway. I better head off to school. Good luck with the new cook. I'll stop by after class to see how things are going."
"Alright, I'll see you later." Charlotte said with a wave, turning back to scrubbing the stove. Lizzy shook her head, grabbed her backpack and headed out the door.
School was pretty normal that day. It was the first lab day for her geology class and she was paired up with a young girl fresh out of high school. Emily was quiet and withdrawn and Lizzy felt like she was pulling teeth to get her involved in completing the lab they were both supposed to be working on. In the end she simply went through the exercises herself while Emily watched on and recorded the information in her lab manual. As soon as class was over Emily was out the door. Lizzy debated approaching the teacher about her subpar partner, but decided to give the girl another chance.
Lizzy's next class that day was an intro computers course. The work was tedious and repetitive, but she got to work alone and for that she was grateful. She finished early, as she usually did in this class, and spent the remainder of her time Googling detective Darcy. Not much information came up, besides a picture of him looking young and clad in police uniform, paired with an article about a big drug bust he apparently had a big hand in a few years back.
After class was over she partly walked and partly rode the bus to Charlotte's diner. She ate lunch with her, asking her friend how the new cook was working out. Charlotte kind of sneered and rolled her eyes. "He's alright. Got a big attitude on him, but so far his cooking is okay. I don't know if I can stand working with such an arrogant show off, but…" she trialed off with a shrug, knowing Lizzy was fully aware of how badly Charlotte needed a long-term cook.
Like most diners, there was an open window behind the counter to the kitchen. Lizzy leaned over slightly to get a look at the new cook, who was busy concentrating on whatever he was grilling. He was an average height, a bit on the bulky side with not too many muscles; his bare arms showing off a few tattoos she couldn't make out from this vantage point. She guessed one was the sign of the Families; even Charlotte had that tattoo. She and her brother had gotten them together in their youth. Lizzy was almost tempted to get it as well, but tattooing herself with the sign would permanently tie her to the gang; besides having many friends in the Families, she was not dedicated to them. Rather than seeing it as allegiance, members of the gang would see her as not taking them seriously, or making a joke out of their loyalty and commitment.
"Well, maybe you'll get used to it. You can always threaten to dock his pay for giving the boss attitude." Lizzy shrugged, sitting back in her chair.
"So far the only thing that shuts him up is straight up leaving the kitchen." Charlotte replied in a huff. "Anyway. After you left this morning, the university called. They said they wanted to talk to you about scholarship opportunities."
"Yeah, they called last week, too." Lizzy commented without enthusiasm.
"Girl when are you going to take one of the many opportunities these schools been trying to give you?" Charlotte asked, suddenly exasperated.
"What the hell?" Lizzy asked, surprised at the outburst.
"If I had half your brain I would have gotten myself out of this neighborhood years ago." Charlotte told her. "You're always blowing your teachers out of the water," she said, ticking her statements off on her fingers, "Every school you apply to wants to pay your way through, any place you temp for wants to keep you on full time, when are you going to make a move?"
"I don't even know what I want to do." Lizzy defended herself. "These schools want you to have a clear idea of a major before they'll commitment to shelling out free cash. You knew you wanted to own this place and you did it. I'm sorry I don't have a dream like you."
"You are just stagnant and you need to move on. You can't live in this place forever; you are too smart and too talented." Charlotte replied, standing up and clearing their plates away.
"If I'm so smart and so talented than why am I still here?" Lizzy mumbled back darkly, perturbed at Charlotte's criticism of how she was handling her life. .
"Because this place is your security blanket. Your dad did a lot for this neighborhood and the kids in it, but you are not doing him any favors by wasting your life away in it. You need to grow up and live the life you were meant for." Charlotte replied.
"Thanks for the pep talk, but I am old enough to take care of myself." Lizzy told her, scowling.
"Apparently not. Are you going to call that school back?" Charlotte challenged her.
"I am going to do whatever I want to do, because I am in charge of my life, not my roommate." Lizzy growled back, standing up to leave.
"Well don't blame me when you're forty and still working temp jobs, wondering where your life went." Charlotte waved her off. Lizzy huffed and not being able to get in the last word, then stormed out.
Despite her anger, her heart ached at the mention of her father. Thomas Bennet was a bright student. His parents were wealthy, but by the time he reached college age, they had both passed on. His older brother took over the family finances and cut him off completely. Elizabeth had never known the conflict that drove the uncle she never met to this, and Thomas became tight lipped whenever the subject of his brother was raised. Either way, as far as she could tell, her father did not let the lack of wealth affect his plans. He took out loans to pay for the tuition which scholarships and grants didn't cover, and when he finished school he decided to take a position in a low class neighborhood that was desperate for new teachers. He was at an age where he was determined to make a difference in the world, and thanks to the teachers loan forgiveness program, which eventually paid back all of his student loans, he was able to put a lot of his money back into the community he served.
Unfortunately, this did not sit well with his wife. Francis Bennet had fallen in love and married the smart, wealthy man who she believed was taking her to the top of the social class. They had been married five years when he got promoted to principal of the middle school and she realized noting would get him out of that neighborhood. It was just after Lizzy's second birthday that Francis Bennet packed up the car and his two girls to return to her mother's house. Lizzy and her sister Jane stayed with her mother's family during the divorce proceedings in which Thomas fought hard for full custody, but eventually lost. He visited his girls every other weekend, but missed them terribly on a day-to-day basis.
When Lizzy turned five, Francis was going to be remarried. She approached Thomas about taking full custody of his wayward daughter on a temporary basis. Where Jane was an angel in every way, Lizzy was a constant source of suffering. She fought her mother on every issue, didn't listen to her mother's fiancé at all, and only seemed to be able to behave herself when her father was in charge. When the therapist her mother had taken her to had suggested Thomas take a bigger role in his daughter's life, Francis agreed on the belief that switching schools and living in Thomas's tiny apartment would be so miserable that Lizzy would beg to return home. So it was that after the wedding of Francis and Henry Young, Lizzy officially moved in with her father, switching to seeing her mother every other weekend. They staggered the weekends so that Jane and Lizzy were able to spend them each together, one weekend at their mothers and the next at their fathers. Lizzy never did beg her mother to return home; as far as she was concerned her father understood her better than anyone, save Jane. Eventually Francis and Henry had two more daughters, Lizzy and Jane's half-sisters, Lydia and Catherine, and talk of Lizzy returning home fizzled out.
Lizzy grew up in a tough neighborhood, and things might have been a lot worse for her but for her father's influence in the community and the friends she was able to make because of it. Apart from his efforts in school, Thomas took charge of a local community center that was formally a hangout for gang members. It wasn't easy, but slowly and determinedly, he created a safe haven for kids to go to after school as an alternative to being on the streets. There were those who resented him for his efforts in keeping the kids off the streets, but they mostly went unheard. He stood strong through all the allegations; that he was some guilty former-rich white guy who looked down on the poor black neighborhood, that there was something wrong with him because he liked hanging around little kids all day, that he must have some kind of secret agenda to wanting to set up the community center. Throughout the years, this kind of talk slowly dwindled down, especially when, thanks to his efforts, many of the kids he mentored made it off the streets and into college, with many more now working decent jobs thanks to him. Even those that turned to the gang life remembered his kindness and support, and it wasn't long until he had protection, or at the very least indifference, from the gangs rather than conflict.
Within the community center he created a kind of club, choosing specific kids and making sure they became friends. Lizzy could never quite tell what her father saw in these network groups; the only thing she could guess was that they had a kind of gang to belong to that was safer than going out to join an actual gang. Lizzy and her friends fought for and protected one another, as well as helped each other in school. Lizzy especially often helped her father by tutoring the other kids.
She met Charlotte at the youth center when they were five and seven, respectively. It was the week she moved into her father's house and the center had only been opened for a short time; people were still wary of bringing their kids to a place that was very recently somewhere you went to score drugs. Charlotte's uncle was the leader of The Temple Families, a local street gang named so in combination of the fact that all the top level guys were related in some way, and because the large abandoned synagogue was their base of operations. Charlotte and her twin brother Jeremiah were some of the first people to come check out what Thomas and his volunteers had done to the youth center. Charlotte had walked right up to Lizzy, asked her her name, her favorite color, how she managed to have curly hair, and the rest was history. JJ was slower to warm up, but eventually the three were good friends.
She met Ray a few years later. Out of all the kids she hung out, it was Ray who she often got into trouble with. With all he had going on and all the kids who vied for his attention, her father was perhaps a bit lax at times with who she went off with and what she was doing. She started off tutoring Ray in most of his subjects; he was strong and fast but never did well academically. That turned into cruising the neighborhood together, which inevitably turned into some kind of minor illegal activity; trespassing, mostly. Ray had a gift for getting into places he wasn't supposed to go and for all her efforts in helping him pass his tests, he passed what knowledge he had onto her. So the detective was right, she didn't have a record; but that only meant they had never been caught. Ray was on his way out of the neighborhood on a track scholarship thanks in a large part due to her father, but one night close to graduation he pissed off the wrong people and they broke his leg. He had no lasting injury, but his chances at the scholarship were shot. He seemed to take it in stride, but Lizzy knew he often thought about how different things might have been for him.
So Lizzy lived a life of relative peace thanks to her friendships and her father's legacy. Despite oftentimes hanging around dangerous criminals, Lizzy kept her record clean. At party's she would drink and smoke some pot, but that was the extent of her drug use and she never had any inclination to change that fact. After her father's death a few years ago, Lizzy became stagnant in school, not quite knowing what to do with her life. She thought about Charlotte's accusation, that she was simply too scared to leave the life she's known, or possibly too guilty that she was not living up to her father's image.
Thankfully, she didn't have long to dwell; Halfway down the road, she ran into Ray. They talked briefly about the detective looking for him, Ray reminded her once again not to say anything to Wickham about it, and then they dropped the subject.
"I'm heading over to Wickham's now actually. He's got a party going on. You're welcome to come with." Ray straddled his bike as he said this. Lizzy hesitated, remembering the detectives warning. "Come on, you could use a break."
"Yeah, alright." Lizzy said with a mental shrug. She slid in behind him and they took off downtown. She was probably making a mistake, as she was want to do, but today she didn't care. Her fight with Charlotte had her preoccupied and stressed out, and the thought of letting loose a little was very appealing. She knew contact with Wickham was dangerous even without detective Adonis's warning, but she also knew that, in a house full of people wanting to impress Wickham, she would be practically invisible.
Ray suddenly pulled down a side road. "What are you doing?" she asked, already guessing the answer.
"We can't show up empty handed. He can't stand leeches." Ray said, pulling off to the side of the road. She recognized the club as one of Wickham's favorite hang outs, as well as a known street pharmacy. It was an easy place to score anything illegal and, although he never said so outright, she was sure this was the place Ray 'did some work' for Wickham.
"Ray." Lizzy sighed. She hated this club. It was almost guaranteed that everyone inside was high on something, and fights constantly broke out, people got shot and the police raided it seemingly weekly.
"Look you can wait out here; I'll be back in five." Ray replied, sliding off the bike and giving her a pat on the shoulder. As much as he liked to look out for her, he also had his moments when he felt she was being paranoid. Lately he only felt this way when she showed reluctance to being around Wickham, who more and more was becoming Ray's sole employer.
"Your five minutes are more like twenty." Lizzy complained, tugging her coat tightly around her and pouting a little to gain pity.
"You want to come in?" Ray turned back, eyebrow raised and a smirk on his face. He wasn't buying it.
"Forget it. Hurry up its freezing out here." Lizzy slid up on the bike so she could reach the handlebars. "You need to invest in an actual car one of these days."
"Yeah, yeah. Don't we all" He waved her off, striding purposefully to the door.
Ten minutes later, Lizzy was off the bike and pacing the street in an effort to stay warm when a large black SUV pulled up alongside her. "Baby girl." A voice from inside said. She instantly recognized it as Jeremiah Jr., Charlotte's twin brother. He had come to her father's youth center as often as Charlotte and they had grown close, playing after school together almost every day. She even tutored him in math for a few years, though he was two grades ahead of her, back when it looked like he was interested in getting out of this neighborhood and on to college. He had been her protector, a big mean boy with connections that had given her her first kiss, and whom she had once thought she was in love with, although she never told anyone that little fact.
His uncle ran The Temple Families, and when his uncle had been shot and his cousin took over, Jeremiah had been asked, begged, and coerced into being his cousin's new right hand man. All thoughts of a different and better life out of the streets were gone. Lizzy was disappointed, as she knew he had been, but they had both lived in this neighborhood long enough to learn that was the way things went sometimes.
"Hey JJ." She smiled at him, stepping up to the car to get a good look at him. It had been awhile, maybe two months or so, since she had last seen him. He was big and muscular, with a mean looking face that spoke of trouble. "You look good."
"What are you doing out here girl?" he asked with a frown. The driver she didn't recognize, but he didn't even spare her a glance; he was busy casing the street.
"Waiting for Ray." She tilted her head towards the red door of the club Ray had gone into.
"That punk." JJ tsked. "You better stay out of trouble. If I hear Ray's getting you mixed up in anything I will personally beat the shit out of him, and then you."
"I love you too, JJ." She grinned impulsively at him and was pleased to see him look away in embarrassment. "You know I'm too smart for that. He's picking up something for Wickham's party tonight."
"Damn girl, where is your brain?" JJ asked in surprised annoyance, head snapping back to look her in the eye. "Those pigs are all over Wickham. That wanna-be dealer is going down."
"I know." Lizzy shrugged. "But not tonight"
He shook his head. "You always did dance too close to danger, baby girl. Do not jump that line." JJ's eyes bore into hers and she couldn't help thinking that this was the second warning in a short time to stay away from Wickham.
"I won't." She promised.
"Alright. You seen Renko?" JJ asked, changing the subject. She had in fact. She was hanging out with a friend who rode with the Uptown Riders, a small motorcycle gang not quite as large or well known as the Families. Renko was a squirrelly drug dealer who, rumor had it, had disappeared with two grand's worth of heroin. Everyone was talking about it because of JJ's partiality in very public displays of retribution and bets were being placed on how long Renko could stay hidden and exactly what JJ would do once he was found. Lizzy was on the back of Chavez's bike when she overheard some of the riders talking about seeing Renko recently. As much as she loved to stay out of whatever beef they had with each other, she knew loyalty to JJ meant telling what she knew. So she told him where she heard he was held up and told him to be careful. His return grin was menacing and confident, and then he was gone. She looked after his retreating car, a wave of nostalgia washing over her as she vividly remembered afternoons hunched over math problems, him laughing as she tried to explain algebra using guns and drugs in the equations.
"That's some racist shit right there." He would laugh at her, a real laugh that reflected his relaxation in her company. He had kissed her during one of these study lessons, when she had bemoaned ever finding a boy who would take her to some school dance. He had kissed her and smiled and told her no one would ask her because they were afraid of him, and he would just have to take her.
His uncle had died shortly after, and they never did go to a dance together, but he was always there for her when she needed him. He gave her the most valuable thing he could give her- the protection of his gang without any commitment to the life of being in a gang. So she could walk the streets in relative safety, and she could go places she wasn't supposed to go, hang out with dangerous criminals, all because her father had cared about these people when they were kids. For as much as people talked about criminals being all about themselves, with no loyalty's to anyone else, she had always observed the exact opposite.
She grew up with these kids, but it had been her dad who paved the way for her. They looked at her and remembered him, and to a kid whose parents were either dead, gone, or working all the time, the kindness from an adult who wanted nothing more than for them to have a place to feel safe must have meant something. She still got letters from the ones who got out, thanks to her dad, speaking of the debt they could never repay him, and she got the protection and friendships from the ones who didn't make it, all because her father had built them a home where they could escape the harshness of their lives for a few hours after school.
"You sure do have some interesting friends." A voice said from behind. She whirled, her hand on her heart.
"Jesus Christ." Lizzy was so far gone in memories of the old days, of her dad, that she didn't even hear his approach. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Did you just buy drugs from that man?" Detective Darcy was looking down at her in disapproval.
"What? No." Lizzy shook her head. "I don't do drugs. I was just saying hey."
"You know the leader of the Families?" Darcy asked, right eyebrow raised. It drew her attention to his scar.
"He's not the leader. Anyway, I know a lot of people." Lizzy squared her shoulders, her hands in her pocket. "None of whom would be too happy to see me talking to a cop, so if you don't mind…"
"I'm not a cop." He put his hand out in a shushing manor looking around. "Not tonight." It was true he didn't look like a cop. His face was shadowed like he hadn't shaved in a week, and his clothes were plain jeans and that same leather jacket over a grey shirt, but looked even more rumpled than last time they had met. "Are you waiting for Ray?"
"Yes." She groaned. "Are you going to arrest him? Because he's my ride. And it's really cold out here"
"No." Darcy looked at her in that unnerving way. "Are you going to Wickham's party?"
"Uh, yeah, how'd you hear about it?" Lizzy questioned. "And don't say how dangerous it is to be around him because it's just one night and there's going to be so many people there that-"
"That's not what I was going to say." Darcy shook his head. "I need you to vouch for me."
"What?" Lizzy asked, shocked. "You want to go to Wickham's party?"
"Yes. I just need to get close to him, see his set up, that kind of thing." Darcy explained. "That's why I've been trying to meet with Ray, but he hasn't gotten in contact. I heard about the party tonight and couldn't pass the opportunity up."
"Um, no?" Lizzy shook her head. "No way. Not in a million years."
"Why not?" Darcy asked, his head tilted and a puzzled look on his face.
"Why not?" she laughed, and then turned at someone coming out of the club Ray was in. It wasn't Ray, but it reminded Lizzy that she was standing out in the open talking to a cop, who was apparently thinking about going undercover at Wickham's. She pulled Darcy into the alleyway so they were out of sight. "It gets out that I'm helping the cops, and my reputation is gone."
"But, you have no criminal activities, you are going to school to work your way out of this neighborhood, what is so important about you reputation?" Darcy questioned.
"Have you been here more than five minutes?" she asked gesturing to the street where right at that moment two men were getting into a fistfight across the street. "I have friends in this neighborhood. JJ back there? The guy you called the leader of the Families? He's a friend. A good friend. Do you know what that means?"
"Protection." Darcy guessed, a light of understanding finally entering his eyes. "Okay, but from what? You keep your head down, you don't deal drugs or participate in illegal actives, why would you need protection?"
"Everyone needs protection, Detective." Lizzy looked up at him like he was a different kind of species. "That's why every kid in this neighborhood joins gangs. Protection. And if you're a girl, you date someone in a gang. I have to do neither, because I have friends in the Families and the Uptown Riders. I even know Wickham, although he's only been here awhile and is apparently about to get sent up state."
"I understand. You can't vouch for me." Darcy nodded, squinting up the street then back to her with his hands on his hips. "But if I was to show up, and we saw each other..."
Lizzy hesitated. Would anyone be able to find out that she knew he was a cop and said nothing? Ray would know, or guess. Possibly even Wickham if Ray had told him about Darcy and Lizzy's meeting. She could always say it was a different cop; she knew Ray didn't even see Darcy yesterday. In the end, she would be helping Wickham by outing Darcy as a cop, and that thought alone made her skin crawl. "I won't blow your cover." He surprised her by putting his hands on her shoulders, gripping slightly.
"Thank you." He said sincerely. She felt her heartbeat rise.
"Alright, alright." She murmured, embarrassed by her reaction. "Don't get all mushy on me." Something came to mind. "What are you doing here anyway?" She squinted at him. "This meeting wasn't just happenstance, was it?"
"Not in so many words." Darcy replied. "I heard about Wickham's open invitation party tonight, and assumed that Ray would definitely be there, and that you may even attend as well. This is Ray's most well-known hang out," he paused to nod towards the club Lizzy had refused to go into. "From his silence I assumed Ray would not be open to talking about becoming a confidential informant on Wickham's case, but that you may be with him and may be open to it." She stared at him in amazement. "At the very least, I needed to make sure if we were to come into contact that you wouldn't expose me as a police officer in a house full of criminals."
"Damn." She finally commented. "I guess they didn't give you that detective badge for your good looks." She winced, wondering what had possessed her to say something so awkward.
"Liz?!" Ray was calling her, apparently done with his business. Thank god for Ray's good timing,
"Good luck, detective." Lizzy mumbled, hurriedly coming out from the alleyway and waving at Ray. "Five minutes my ass."
Author's notes: If there are any questions or anything that seems unclear or confusing, please let me know.