The Liberation of Alice Love - Abby McDonald [134]
“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