Chapter 28. Alice
ALICE
Alice woke up, disoriented. She blinked the sleep from her eyes, adjusting to the dim lighting from the one bulb. She reached over and felt Tom’s sleeping body beside her.
A sound. That was what had woken her. She strained her ears, held her breath. Was it in the basement? A rat, maybe. Or was it coming from upstairs? She shifted to a sitting position.
Now the scrape of the hatch door opening. Footsteps on the stairs.
Tom moved beside her. She glanced at him. He was awake and watching.
Feet, then legs edged into view. Simon was hunched over as he peered down at them huddled together on the opposite wall. The handgun was out in front of him, his head swiveling between the two couples like he was making sure they were all accounted for.
“Alice, get up here.”
She didn’t like the sound of the beer in his voice, the thickening of the words.
“Why?”
“I’m hungry.”
She looked at Tom, who had a worried frown. He rested a hand on her knee. “You can refuse,” he whispered. “He’ll have to come down if he wants you.”
“Then what? More fighting?”
“There’s more of us now.”
But two of them were elderly and one still had a broken collarbone.
“Stop talking,” Simon said. “It’s pissing me off.”
“Give me a moment. My legs are cramped.” Alice touched her lips to Tom’s, so it looked like she was kissing him goodbye, and murmured against his mouth. “I’ll find out his plans.”
Simon moved to the top of the stairs. When she stepped into the kitchen, he dropped the hatch behind her with a slam. He pushed the table and chairs back in place.
The clock on the wall told Alice it was two in the morning, and clearly Simon hadn’t been to bed yet.
On the kitchen table, smoke floated up from a cigarette propped on the side of a saucer, crowded with butts.
Simon kicked one of the chairs out and pushed her into it.
Then he took a glass out of the cupboard, picked up a bottle of whiskey, and brought them both to the table, where his nearly empty glass waited in front of the other chair.
A light breeze drifted across her neck. She looked over her shoulder. The back door was open.
“Don’t even think about it. I’ve still got my gun.”
Alice sighed. “I am aware of the situation.”
“I’m aware of the situation,” he repeated in a high voice, mocking her, then he collapsed onto his chair. He poured whiskey into the two glasses and picked up a pack of cigarettes. He smacked the bottom of the pack until a cigarette popped out. He offered it to Alice.
“I don’t smoke.”
“Tonight, you do.”
“No. I don’t.”
“It won’t kill you.” He placed the gun on the table and spun it hard. Alice held her breath as it went round and round. Finally, it stopped. The nose of the gun pointed toward the sink.
She let out her breath and lifted her gaze to Simon, taking note of the shadows under his eyes, and the sweat stains circling the neck and armpits of his yellow T-shirt. His fingernails were black with grease and his hair looked sticky, like he’d been running his hands through it.
“I thought you wanted me to cook.”
“Just chill for a minute.”
He held out the pack again. When she didn’t move, he leaned over and shoved the filter end of the cigarette against her mouth with one hand while the other held the gun to her head. She wished she saw some hesitancy in his face, a flicker of doubt, but there was only a flat stare.
“Open your mouth.”
Her eyes watered. She couldn’t bear the pressure of the gun against her skin any longer.
She opened her lips, and he pushed the cigarette in.
Then he picked up a silver lighter, flicking it so the flame burst forth, and held it to the tip.
She took a small, tentative inhale. It felt as though her throat was closing, her lungs on fire.
She started coughing and blew the smoke out in a rush.
Simon laughed and slid a glass of whiskey across the table. She hated whiskey, but she took a sip to placate him. Simon took a larger swallow, then leaned back in his chair with his cigarette hanging out of his mouth. A thin stream of smoke spiraled upward.
“Where’s Jenny?” Alice said.
“She went to bed. She’s mad because I’m drinking.” He shrugged.
Alice was surprised by his ambivalence. He had always seemed concerned when Jenny was upset other times. Maybe he was only acting as though he didn’t care.
“My mom used to make me grilled cheese sandwiches when I couldn’t sleep.” Simon frowned. “I’ve made them myself, but they never taste the same.”
“Memories are like that.”
“She drowned in the bathtub,” he said.
Alice flinched at the shocking words. She didn’t know how to respond. His thoughts were all over the place and she didn’t want to push any buttons.
“She did it on purpose,” he said. “Took a bunch of pills. She wanted my dad to find her, but I got home first because he was out drinking. Whenever he beat her, she’d take me driving around, and we’d look at apartments. I’d get so excited, you know? Then he’d apologize…”
She fumbled for something to say. “That must have been hard.”
“You get used to it.” He took a drag of his cigarette. “It’s only bad if you want them to be something else, but I know my dad’s an asshole. Even after Jenny got kicked out and was living with me, he wouldn’t give me extra hours at the marina. He didn’t care that she was pregnant.”
“Jenny was kicked out?”
“Yep. Shoved out the door with nothing. They wouldn’t even talk to her.”
“What happened to her father?”
“He died a few years ago. Then her mom got her claws into Robert. People thought he was so great just because he wrote a book. Like, Jesus, he had one bestseller, who cares? He inherited most of his money.” He snorted.
“He came to the marina once to ask my dad about sailboats. My dad told him all kinds of bullshit.” He laughed. “That was funny.”
“Jenny has talked about her mother. She sounded strict.”
“Hell yeah. She was ice cold.” He took another drag of his cigarette. “She wanted Jenny to be a star so bad. She started teaching her ballet when she was just a little kid. Her mom didn’t care if she had blisters or pulled muscles or anything. She put Jenny on crazy diet pills too.”
“She’s very thin.”
“You should’ve seen her before. She never smiled. I used to boat by their house, and I’d see her standing on the balcony. Hair so blond. She looked like a princess.”
“And you were her knight in shining armor.”
He shrugged. “Lots of guys in town thought she was beautiful, but they were too chicken to ask her out. Nobody thought I was good enough for her. My own dad figured she’d dump me.”
“Do you think being on the run is good for her?”
“It’s a lot better than prison, isn’t it?”
“Too many people have been hurt.”
“I didn’t want to hurt them. I’m protecting my family.”
“I was there, Simon. I saw it happen. You lost control.”
He took an angry inhale of his smoke. “I don’t need you sitting there judging me. My whole life people have looked down on me. I was the dumb kid who worked at the marina and was never going to make anything of himself. Well, they’ll remember me now.”
“For killing Jenny’s parents. What happened that night?”
“You think I’m going to tell you?”
“I want to understand. Her parents obviously weren’t keeping you apart. If you did it so she could inherit money, you wouldn’t have run away, and it doesn’t seem like you tried to cover it up. Was it revenge? You didn’t like how they treated you?”
“Jesus. You’re ruining my vibe.” He motioned to her glass. “Finish that.”
She took a few more swallows of whiskey, stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. She didn’t think Simon had even noticed that she’d only taken a few puffs after the first one.
“I’m hungry now,” he said.
With the conversation clearly over, she got to her feet. While she heated the frying pan, she buttered both sides of the homemade bread she’d found in the bread box and spread mayonnaise on the inside with the cheese. She served Simon, then sat across from him.
He took his first bite of the grilled cheese, nodding as he chewed. “It’s good.”
Alice hoped he ate quickly so she could get back to Tom. She was sick from the smoke and liquor and the long day. She just wanted to go to sleep.
“What’s next? After you fix the truck?” she said.
He tapped his head. “Still working that through.”
“But you are leaving us behind, right? You can travel faster.”
He kept eating, staring off to the side toward the back door, his eyes with a flat, glazed look. Maybe he already had a plan. Maybe he didn’t want any witnesses left. The whiskey churned in her stomach. He could shoot them all. He could do so many terrible things.
He looked back at Alice. “I’ll think about it.” She waited in silence while he finished his meal. When he’d taken his last bite, he stood up and wiped his fingers on his jean shorts.
“Time for you to go back in the hole.”
She got to her feet, wobbling for a moment.
The whiskey had made everything worse. She couldn’t shake the feeling of dread.
She needed to say something more. To convince him to leave them behind.
But she was out of time. He pushed the table out of the way and lifted the hatch to the basement.
When her head had cleared the opening, the hatch slammed down above her.