Chapter 10
Alice
“Six… seven… eight… nine… ten! Ready or not, here I come!”
Merit barks at my mad dash across the playground.
Wood chips scatter beneath my feet, giving away my position.
Not that it matters. Nellie and I are playing her version of hide-and-seek tag.
Even if she knows I’m close, she can just run and try to reach the safe zone, which happens to be the old wooden bench where I tied Merit.
The park is small and quiet. One of those hidden gems only the neighborhood kids know about.
Sutton told me that there’s a much newer one on the other side of town, but this one is within walking distance and works just fine for us.
Plus, it’s on the way home from school, giving us the perfect excuse to stop.
Little giggles echo through a concrete cylindrical tube painted in purple-and-yellow diagonal stripes.
I slow my jog and breathe in the late spring air. The sun shines overhead in a cloudless sky, reminding me of back home. The weather is hot, but nothing like the scorching Arizona heat, where a day like today would reach the mid-90s and feel unbearable to be outside.
“Are you behind the slide?” I call loudly, throwing my body around to check the back. I probably look ridiculous to passersby, but her giggles grow louder. She’s the only audience I care about.
“What about inside it?” My muscles burn as I climb the rope ladder to the top and peer down the tube slide. For probably the first time in twenty years, I put my feet in and let gravity pull me down. Air rushes past. Static levitates my hair, sticking it to the edges of the slide.
“Nellie-Jo!” I singsong her name on my trek toward the cylinders.
Just as I anticipated, she sprints out of the other side.
“You can’t catch me!” she squeals. Wavy brown hair fans out behind her, bouncing against her back.
I release a playful scream and sprint after her. The two of us shriek as we tear across the sun-dried mulch.
The slap of her hand against the wooden bench rings out before she collapses tiredly onto her back. Her little feet dangle over the edge, swinging back and forth. Merit swipes her tongue across Nellie’s arm.
“Ew, Merit!” She buries her fingers in her dog’s fur.
“She’s congratulating you.”
“Told you you couldn’t catch me!” Her smile is wide as she pushes her messy hair out of her face with her other hand.
“I’ll get you next time.”
“I don’t think so, Miss Alice. I’m just going to get faster.”
I drop onto the bench beside her and look down into her flushed face. I never realized the ways she favors Sutton. She has his chin, but on her face, the angle is more feminine. The slope of her nose. Those eyes, so much like her dad’s, sparkle.
“We’ll see about that.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“Should we walk back home?”
Nellie nods, pushing herself upright. “Since it’s Friday, can I have a pop when we get there?”
The term throws me, delaying my answer. It takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about a soda.
Nellie tugs on my hand.
“Can I?”
I gather Merit’s leash in my hand. The watch on my wrist vibrates. “Sure thing, kiddo,” I reply absently. Sutton’s name flashes across the screen.
My brows furrow as I contemplate all the reasons he could be calling. Only one way to find out.
“Officer Sunny, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Why aren’t you home yet?” he inquires without greeting.
The way he says home does funny things to my body. It’s been so long, I’m not even sure what home feels like anymore. Not that he’s talking about me or my home.
My spine grows rigid at his grumpy tone.
“We’re on our way now. We stopped to burn some energy at the park after school.”
Sutton’s sigh is audible across the line. “I’ll meet you halfway.”
“That’s not necessary. It’s a ten-minute walk.”
“I could use the exercise,” he quips.
“I doubt that.”
Shit.
I rub my forehead, wishing I could stuff the words back in my mouth. Inside thoughts, Alice! Why on earth did I say that out loud? The man clearly takes care of himself. He doesn’t need me to admit that I’ve noticed his hard muscles and the low percentage of body fat.
The growing silence exposes Sutton’s obvious lack of response.
“If you don’t want to hear me breathe for the next five minutes, I’ll see you when you get here.”
“Be there in five.” Sutton ends the call.
“Was that my dad?” Nellie walks a few paces ahead of me, her pink backpack bouncing against her with every step.
“It was,” I reply brightly. Sutton might have colossal trust issues, but I refuse to let that affect how I am with Nellie. She doesn’t deserve to bear the brunt of her father’s bad attitude toward me, especially when he’d never react like that toward her.
For some reason, I’m the only one who seems to prickle his bad mood.
Nellie slows and slips her small hand in mine. “I missed him,” she admits quietly.
I give her hand a gentle squeeze. “It’s been a long week, hasn’t it?”
Her hair bounces with a choppy nod. “He’s always busy. Do you think he misses me too?”
I pause us right there in the middle of the cracked concrete and drop down to her level. Her bright blue eyes find mine, sadness beyond her age swirling on the surface.
“I know your dad misses you very much. Do you know how I know that?”
She pulls her lower lip between her teeth and shakes her head. This normally bubbly ray of sunshine looks on the verge of tears.
“That’s why he hired me as your nanny. Because if I help your dad with the chores and take care of you while he’s at work, he’ll have more time to spend with you when he’s at home.”
Nellie seems to let my words absorb.
“Is that how it is for kids who have a mom?”
“Moms and dads help each other with the work, but Nellie, your dad does a really good job on his own.”
“I wish I had a mom,” she whispers.
We are tiptoeing into unfamiliar territory.
I don’t know anything about Nellie’s mom except that her name was Jolene and she died when Nellie was only a year old.
Whitney shared that information when she told me about the job.
Other than that, Sutton hasn’t addressed the topic or how I should handle it. If I should handle it at all.
A loud, excited woof from Merit saves me from diving off the deep end into this conversation. The huge German shepherd yanks on her leash, straining to get to her favorite human. Nellie’s head snaps up at the commotion, joining Merit’s noisy greeting with her own gasp.
“Daddy!”
Nellie throws her backpack off her shoulders and sprints over the sun-dried weeds straight for her father. He scoops her up mid-run.
I watch them with a newfound pain in my chest. The scene slices into me like a dull, rusty knife, awakening long-buried hurt from my childhood.
Can you grieve over something you never really had?
I don’t have memories of my dad spending time with me.
But after watching the two of them, I wish I did.
I join them a moment later with a wistful smile plastered into place. Nellie’s backpack is slung over my shoulder, Merit’s leash clenched in my other hand.
“Let me help you with that.” Sutton keeps his arm around Nellie, but pulls the backpack from my shoulder and onto his. His bicep presses against the length of mine. I step back from the contact once he has the weight settled.
“Thanks.” My eyes flick over Nellie, her head on his shoulder and her arms wound tight around his neck.
“I can take Merit too.”
I wave him off. “I’ve got her.”
He scans my face. He’s probably trying to decide whether it’s worth fighting me on this sidewalk. Either that or he’s waiting for the snarky response.
We all start the trek home. After a few minutes, Nellie lifts her head and begins recounting her day. By the speed at which her mouth is moving, it doesn’t seem like she’s leaving out a single second.
My watch vibrates, dragging my attention away from Nellie’s story, and I fall a few steps behind. I’ve gotten so used to the unlisted numbers calling me that the text bubble on my screen stirs unease to the forefront.
UNKNOWN:
You think you can hide?
I won’t let you ruin this
I will find you, Alice
The next breath catches. All this for a show? This fucking podcaster is crossing a line I’d rather he not cross.
“Ms. Thompson?” Sutton’s voice draws me away from what I left in Arizona and back to this sunny sidewalk in central Minnesota.
An unreadable look clouds his face. Swallowing hard, I stare back. I could tell him. I could open my phone and show him the call list full of red numbers. I could show him the box of photos. He could help.
Or he could tell me to get out of his house and fire me for bringing this shit to his front lawn. And then what?
I’ll be back to square one. This time without a job.
“Sorry, I’m coming.”
The two of them watch me as I jog to catch up.
Sutton’s expression is such a contradiction to his daughter’s.
At some point during my delay, she regained her own two feet, but the earlier sadness is gone, not a trace of it left.
Sutton, however, wears a mix of assessing and annoyance.
Something I imagine he’s perfected over his years in law enforcement.
“You know if you keep looking at me like that, your face will get stuck that way.”
Sutton sends his eyes skyward.
I contort my face and stick out my tongue at Nellie behind his back. She erupts into giggles, sending me back a funny look of her own.
Nellie links her free hand with mine, causing the three of us to make a chain across the sidewalk. It’s oddly domestic, but I push away the thought.
“Miss Alice, can you stay for movie night?”
Sutton’s shoulders tense in my periphery.
Normally, I’d say no. I try to leave the two of them alone as soon as Sutton gets home, so as not to intrude.
But the unease from that text message changes things.
I don’t want to be alone right now, or I’m liable to start googling this fucking podcaster and renting a witch off the internet to curse him.
I’ll save the expense for my second paycheck.