The Liberation of Alice Love - Abby McDonald [132]
And then she found them: a thick wedge of family photos, tucked into a plain black folder. Carl and his sister, Kate, together. They were there as children, in matching mud-stained outfits, and then surlier teens, gawky and overgrown. Christmases, birthdays, family holidays; ugly jumpers and embarrassing juvenile haircuts—the years flickered by as Alice pored through every last one, her hopes sinking with every new shot.
It wasn’t Ella.
The photo from the newspapers had been vague and full of promise, but watching Kate grow before her eyes it was clear that this was somebody else entirely. The nose was longer, the jawline rounder—aspects easily corrected with surgery, it was true, but other things were not. Alice held one of the last photos, a summer snap of Kate beaming over her shoulder. She was wearing a bikini with bright orange straps, aged in her early twenties, perhaps, but Alice’s gaze was fixed to the thick scar running down her left shoulder blade. It was twisted and deep, the result of some unknown surgery, and although the skin was pale again, its imprint was clear. And, Alice realized, surrendering her last hopes for good, permanent.
Ella had no such scar. Alice had seen her wearing strapless tops and low-cut dresses; her shoulders were dotted with a smattering of tiny freckles, but no pale crumple of skin.
She’d been wrong.
Alice slumped into a heap, all her fierce determination evaporating in an instant as her dreams became foolish fantasies. What was she doing there, browsing through a sweet man’s belongings in search of something that didn’t exist? Without the possibility of Ella’s story urging her on, Alice was simply a creepy woman skulking on the floor of a stranger’s bedroom. Kate Jackson was missing, probably dead, and there she was, rummaging in her brother’s private memories as if she even had the right to lay eyes on them. Alice shuddered, guilty.
A blast of music from a car radio passing outside snapped her back into action. She wanted to just flee, but caution forced her to carefully place the photos back in the approximate order she’d found them, adding the other folders and magazines and sliding the box into place. She looked around the room, checking everything appeared untouched. She wished she could magic it that she’d never been at all, but this cleanup would have to do. Hurrying, Alice all but tripped back down the stairs and out of the front door.
She was bent double, sliding the key back into place, when Alice heard an imperious voice behind her ask, “What are you doing?”
Alice stood up so fast, she felt a rush of blood fill her head. Standing at the end of the front path was the woman from across the road, watering can still in hand. She was wearing khaki trousers and a cardigan, her ash blond hair cut in a feathery sort of bob. To Alice’s horror, she looked the very definition of a nosy neighbor. “Is everything all right?” the woman asked, her tone clearly implying that it wasn’t.
Alice sucked in a breath, visions of police cells and angry interrogation suddenly looming. Again. Only this time, she wasn’t innocent, and her activities certainly wouldn’t be so easily explained.
“Hi!” Alice exclaimed, her voice artificially bright. “Can I help you?”
The woman glanced past her to the house. “Are the boys back so soon? They said they’d be gone all weekend.” She narrowed her eyes at Alice. “They asked me to keep an eye on things, you see.”
Alice forced herself not to panic. “Everything’s fine!” she declared, dragging her voice back to more reasonable levels to trot out the excuse she’d prepared. “Reese was just worried he’d…left his laptop unplugged.” She had named one of Carl’s housemates. “There was a game paused, and if the power had run down, he would have lost the high score.”
The woman’s frown lessened; it was a plausible excuse, at least.
“So, I really better