The Liberation of Alice Love(87)
Author: Abby McDonald

Chapter Twenty-nine

Alice was shaking by the time she arrived back at the house. The whole drive, she’d been gripped by a desperate panic, her careful planning nothing compared to the many ways in which she could be caught. What about CCTV footage and traffic cameras? What about her fingerprints, scattered over the plant pot and front door? She hadn’t been thorough enough—no, she shouldn’t have been there at all.

“Alice?” Flora caught her, just as she burst through the front door. “What happened? Are you OK?”

Alice nodded, then shook her head, words failing her.

“Come. Sit down.” Flora led her quickly to the kitchen, pushing her gently onto a chair. “Did something happen? Should I call someone?”

“No!” Alice cried, in a strangled voice. “No, you can’t—” She gripped Flora’s hands tightly. “Did you talk to anyone while I was gone? Does anyone know I wasn’t here?”

“No. Alice calm down.” Flora shook free and went to pour a glass of wine. “Here, drink this.”

Alice gulped obediently, her panic finally beginning to ease. Nobody knew she’d been there, she told herself again, and the neighbor would only name Lucy, a mysterious friend of Reese. There was nothing linking her to Carl, or Ella, or her own, precious identity. Taking deep breaths, Alice forced herself to calm.

When she’d finished the wine, she found Flora perched next to her. “So…” Flora prompted. “What did you do?”

“I…I don’t know what I was thinking,” Alice answered, and then it came tumbling out: the Kate Jackson lead, the lies to Carl, and the lapse in her sanity that led her to believe it was a simple proposition to break into someone’s house and rifle through their personal documents.

“Flora,” she wailed, as the full extent to her madness became painfully clear. “I groomed him. I found out all his favorite things, and then I lay in wait, like some kind of psycho stalker.” Alice gulped. “That’s another charge, isn’t it? Stalking. Oh God, what if they do manage to track me down? What happens then?”

Flora patted her shoulders. “Stefan knows lots of lawyers. We can claim some kind of temporary insanity, brought on by your trauma from the fraud.” She gave Alice a reassuring grin. “I’ll testify how you’ve been going mad for weeks, muttering under your breath and all that. It’ll be fine.”

“Fine!” Alice repeated the word. This was not, and would never be, fine. “But you’ll say I was here, if the police come asking questions?”

“Of course.” Flora struck Alice as being curiously calm, but that, at least, was a blessing. One of them should be.

Alice exhaled. “I can’t believe I’m even asking you to lie for me…God, I’m sorry.” She gave a pale smile. “Maybe it would be better not to, so I don’t drag you—”

“Don’t be silly,” Flora cut her off. “We’re in this together. You’re my sister,” she added, with extra force.

Alice nodded, closing her eyes for a moment. Her heartbeat was slowing and that fierce nausea in her stomach seemed to be subsiding. She was safe here.

It was over.

“I just can’t believe how easy it was.” She finally looked back at Flora. “So easy to get swept up in it all. I was so certain I’d found the truth—that Carl was the key, to tracking Ella.”

“It was a good idea,” Flora offered, before amending her statement. “I mean, if you look at it objectively. But don’t beat yourself up.” She gave Alice’s shoulders a sympathetic squeeze. “It’s not like you did anything really wrong. Nobody got hurt.”

“Well, I think that neighbor woman might have a sore bum.” Alice gave a rueful smile.

Flora grinned. “I wish I’d seen it.”

“No, you don’t,” Alice corrected her. “Not exactly my finest moment.”

“But you got away OK. That’s what matters.”

Alice nodded slowly. Yes, she’d managed to get away—just—but not through any skill or planning on her part.

There was silence in the kitchen, as Alice yet again ran through her near miss, the woman’s grip tight on her wrist.

“I know what you need,” Flora brightened suddenly. “Gilmore Girls! The next box set got delivered today. You always say that show calms you down. And it would back up your alibi,” she added, as casually as if she were discussing tea plans and not potentially obstructing police inquiries.

“Sure,” Alice agreed, exhausted. “Let’s go watch.”

***

But while the sofa, blanket, and a tub of Häagen-Dazs brought some comfort for the rest of the night, it wasn’t so easy for Alice to escape the seedy reality of her actions for long. How could she have been so reckless?

It wasn’t guilt or conscience that sobered her but fear. The lies she’d been telling with such ease for the past months suddenly seemed fragile and perilous, ready to tumble around her at a moment’s notice. Nadia, her classes, even the casual flirtations in bars and clubs—they were a catalog of small crimes she’d committed with enthusiasm, but now, Alice knew, they had to stop.

She flinched as the sound of a distant siren drifted by.

It was too dangerous, Alice vowed, surveying the neat pile of notebooks and files that she’d accumulated in her search for answers. How Ella herself had coped with this constant specter of discovery, she wasn’t sure, but this would be the end of Alice’s obsession. It had been months now since Ella had disappeared, and while she had scraped together what clues and insight she could, Nathan had been right. It was time to let it go, before her reckless deceptions caught up with her and left her worse off than any damage Ella herself had wrought.

***

“Alice, I need those copies down here for the delivery guy…” Saskia sounded far too pleased as she buzzed up on Monday morning. “Like, now?”

“Fine.” Alice prodded at the hateful new intercom that Vivienne had presented as “a little gift.” “I’ll be right down.”

With a sigh, she reached for the latest in what seemed like a never-ending stream of paperwork. Vivienne was rising to the challenge of burying Alice in contract work, and there hadn’t been a night for all week that she didn’t haul home a stack of contracts to finish. It was just as well that the rest of her schedule was almost entirely empty. Just as she vowed, she had cut off all contact with Ella’s activities, but without her dance classes, investigation, or even occasional drinks with Nadia, she had plenty of spare time—and a pang of wistful regret whenever she thought of the jazz class she should be in at that very moment.