Chapter Six
M aybe today was just a cruel joke and she was going to wake up any minute. Alli pulled her car up into a parking space and took a deep breath. Getting pranged in her car was just the icing on the damn cake.
Still, if the woman bothered to follow up, Alli would just get her lawyer to handle things. She didn’t have time to waste on little people with little problems. Though, to be fair, the woman had been attractive in a strange sort of way. All smooth skin and shining hair so that Alli wondered what someone like that had been doing in a car that so obviously needed to be scrapped.
“Hello?”
She jumped and turned. A man was bending down and looking through the driver’s side window. The tinted glass must mean that he couldn’t see much. “Hello there?”
Alli took a breath. Alright. Fine. She could do this. She could be charming when she needed to. All she had to do was talk her way out of things. She buzzed the window down. “Hi,” she said with a smile.
“Well hello there,” the man smiled back. He was blonde and rough-shaven and had, at some point, had that messy surfer-boy attractiveness. He’d aged out of it now and looked twenty going on forty and the look wasn’t a good one.
“I’m Alli, Alli Williams.”
“Ah, our late addition,” he beamed. “Come on out, we’re all anxious to meet you, of course.”
He stepped back and Alli got out of the car. There was enough dim light in the evening to see that she was parked in front of what looked like a cheap boarding school, or maybe a starless hotel. She frowned.
“Ah, yes, St. Hilda’s. Up until last year, this was a teacher training college,” the man said, bending to pick up the case that Alli hauled out of the back seat. “And now we’ve taken it over for our own nefarious purposes.” He laughed at his not-at-all-funny joke.
“Right,” Alli said, still frowning.
“Luke, Luke Bradshaw. I’m the director of the wellness program. Let’s get you inside, shall we?”
“Do you greet all your inmates at their cars?” Alli asked.
Luke smiled again. “Clients, not inmates. And speaking of which, the others are waiting for you.” He turned to go into the building.
Alli followed. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed, there’s been some sort of mistake. I’m not really supposed to be in a place like this.”
Luke laughed again. “On the contrary, you’re exactly the type of clientele we hope to attract.”
“I don’t have an anger problem,” Alli said. Which was true. Alright, sometimes she got angry. But it wasn’t a problem. Not to her. It got the job done. It kept people out of her way. She had no problems with either of those things.
Again, Luke laughed and Alli thought that she might get pretty tired of his chuckle if she were to stick around.
“We are a wellness program and a relaxation retreat, as well as dealing with anger issues,” he said as he mounted the steps. “So you have no worries on that front.” He opened a large door. “In we go.”
Alli tried a different tack. “I had rather hoped that I could speak with you about possibly speeding this process along. A sort of fast-track, if you will.”
He stopped in a cold entrance hall. “A fast-track?”
“Mmm. Maybe I just stay for the program tonight and perhaps tomorrow and then…” She lifted an eyebrow.
“Oh no, I’m afraid that won’t do. We do need heads in beds, I’m afraid. Something to do with our funding. You’ll have to speak to our finance person on that.” He was looking around and finally, a large man loomed out of the shadows. “This is Josh, he’ll show you to your room.”
“Evening, ma’am.” He was approximately the size of a double decker bus and looked like he might eat her swish Mercedes for breakfast. He also called her ma’am. Again.
“I’m sorry, I really do need—” she began.
Luke waved her off. “My door is always open,” he said as he walked away.
“Now listen here,” she began. Then she caught herself. Luke hadn’t turned. And even she could see that losing it with the man she needed to convince that she didn’t have an anger problem probably wasn’t in her best interests.
“If you’d like to follow me, Alli, isn’t it?” said the bus. Josh. That was his name. Said Josh.
Alli gave him a look. The kind of look that usually sent assistants screaming for the hills.
Josh simply smiled at her. “I’ve been in prison,” he said. “A look like that can’t scare me.” He picked up her case. “I’m all rehabilitated now, of course. So nothing to worry about.” He eyed her. “Mostly.”
Jesus. Uncharacteristically unsure of what to do, Alli followed him as he mounted the stairs.
“It’ll do you no good trying to get the boss to sign you out of here,” Josh said calmly as they went up. “He’s right about the heads in beds. Half our funding comes from a government program and that means we need to keep places full. He’s more likely to try and persuade you to stay longer than to let you out early.”
“Not even for good behavior?” Alli said. The paint on the banisters was flaking and the old lino on the stairs was curling at the corners.
“Come now, the place isn’t as bad as you might think. There’s a lot of time for reflection and relaxation. You might even enjoy the quiet, some of our clients do.”
“I couldn’t give a damn what the other inmates think,” Alli said tartly, starting to regain her balance. There were piles of dust in the corners of the stairs and the whole place smelled of wet cabbage and powdered mashed potatoes.
“That’s not the sort of attitude that will graduate you from the program,” said Josh as he took four huge steps down a corridor and stopped in front of a door.
He looked like some kind of troll guarding a bridge and Alli snorted in frustration. “What will get me graduated from the program then?”
He threw open the door. “Completing it,” he said simply. “This is your room.”
She looked in to see a slim single bed, a desk, and a tiny window. “No.”
“No?”
“Just no,” she said. “Not up to standards. I’m not staying here.”
Josh shrugged. “There’s not much choice, I’m afraid. None of the other rooms are any better, if that helps.”
“Not in the slightest.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m going to have to ask you for your cell phone, please.”
She just stared at him.
He looked slightly shame-faced. “All part of the program. If you could just hand it over, it would be better for both of us.”
“What’s the alternative?”
He just looked at her.
Oh. Wrestling with a bus wasn’t on her list of things to do. But then, neither was staying in a decrepit insane asylum. She reached into her pocket without thinking and pulled out her phone. She didn’t hand it over.
Josh sighed, but didn’t look angry. “Listen, I get it, being here can be a shock. But I assume you’re here for a reason? Very few of our clients make their own reservations.”
Alli thought about Darren. Thought about her job. She was walking a line here. She loved her job and she didn’t want to lose it, didn’t want to lose the life she had. Neither, though, did she want to be here. She weighed her options.
Josh rubbed his face. “Alright, how about this. Give me the phone and any other electronics you might have and then I’ll take you down to Mr. Bradshaw’s office and you can make your official complaints.”
“Official complaints.” She did sort of like the sound of that.
“You’re not the first, believe me.” He held out his hand.
To her surprise, Alli found herself handing over her phone.
“And the laptop that’s in your bag, please.”
She hadn’t been about to hand that over. But before she could kick up a fuss about it, he’d already opened the bag and slipped it out.
“Excellent. Now how about meeting your fellow participants?” Josh said, with a wide, patient smile.
“That won’t be necessary.” What had happened to official complaints? She had the distinct feeling that she’d been taken advantage of.
“They’re having coffee and waiting for the program to begin,” he said. “There’s cake. Sandwiches too. Celine whips up a very satisfying Victoria Sponge, light as air.”
Alli’s stomach grumbled. But she said nothing, just stared.
“Fine, fine,” Josh said finally. “We’ll wander through and have a look on the way to Mr. Bradshaw’s office, alright?”
Alli said nothing but stepped out of the dreary room and let Josh lead the way back downstairs.
IN A COLD room with damp air, a sad group of people gathered around a coffee urn and Alli’s patience was wearing thinner by the second.
“Coffee?” Josh asked.
“No,” snapped Alli. “Get me out of here.”
“No time to meet your fellow participants?” asked Josh.
A row of sad faces looked around at her and Alli could see immediately that they weren’t her kind of people. Not that she was a snob just, well, she could tell these things.
“Let’s see,” Josh said cheerfully. “We’ve got Julia.” An older woman. “Charles.” A sadder than average looking man. “Izzy.” Younger and slightly brighter than the others. “Marcus.” Probably a serial killer, or headed in that direction. “And Leslie.” So beige she was practically invisible. “Now, how about that coffee?”
“No,” Alli said, patience finally snapping. “Absolutely not. You’ve taken my personal electronics, you’ve practically kidnapped me, I’m not at all sure that I’m not a prisoner here, you are going to take me to see your boss right this instant or I’m going to be calling my lawyer.”
There was a stunned silence.
“You’ve got no phone,” pointed out one of the others. Probably Marcus. He looked like he had a death wish.
“Now!” Alli barked at Josh.
With a sigh, he turned and walked out. Alli stalked after him. She wasn’t staying here. Not in this cut-rate holiday camp. There was no way in hell.