Chapter 15 Alice
ALICE
“She’s gonna be just fine, aren’t you?” A perky, happy voice I don’t recognize finds me through the haze.
I struggle weakly to open my eyes until I feel Zoey’s little hand in mine.
“Mommy, what happened? Did you fall?”
“She’s okay, little love. Your mama’s okay. Let’s just let her sip some water.”
I sit up and realize I’m on a kitchen chair, surrounded by Lia, Zoey, and Morris.
Morris is holding my phone, and his face is red with a rage I haven’t seen since he found us at the side of the road with the stranger.
“Here you go.” Lia hands me a glass of cold water. “I would add some herbal remedies, but all my stuff is out in Dad’s truck.”
“I’m all right, thank you.” I take a sip and squeeze Zoey’s hand. “Go ahead and play with the puppies, baby. Mommy’s fine. I just felt a little light-headed.”
Zoey gives me a hug. “Okay, love you.” She kisses my cheek and then bounces back into the living area. “Lia, can the puppies have treats?”
“Well, of course, they can have treats,” Lia tells Zoey.
Morris comes to sit beside me and places his hand over mine. “I put your sister’s number in my phone. I texted her that you’re with me and she’s not to answer any calls from that motherfucker. I told her I’ll have you call her and to not, under any circumstances, give my number to anyone.”
I nod. “Okay, who did you tell her you were?”
“Your boyfriend.” His answer makes the room start to spin again, but then I focus on the salt-and-pepper of his beard.
The strength of his grip on my hand. Morris leans close and whispers in my ear, “We need to get you out of here. Do you have all the numbers you need from this phone? Is there anyone you need to be able to reach?”
“My sister. Just a few friends, but no one I need right now. Anyone I need to reach, I can e-mail in a few weeks.”
“Okay.” He looks me in the eye. “Baby, this phone’s gotta go. He’s tracking you.”
No, he can’t be.
I shake my head again, fear and confusion warring for control over my thoughts. “That’s not possible. I disabled location services on my phone. There’s no way he can find me with it.”
Morris presses his lips into a thin line. “Baby, who bought the phone? When it was new? You or him?”
“We got new phones together,” I explain. “Why?”
“Who set them up? Do you have a family plan, a shared account?”
“Well, yeah.” I struggle to remember. The phone is almost a year old now, so not new.
“Jerry’s business paid for all the accounts.
Our cars were titled to the business. That’s why I didn’t take his SUV.
He could have reported it stolen and called the cops.
It wasn’t in my name, so I had no rights to it. ”
Morris nods. “Baby, it’s possible he’s installed something on your phone.
It’s not at all uncommon. Spouses use apps that you’d never know are on the device to track where their partner is.
If you’re not where you say you are, he probably knows to within a couple of blocks exactly where you are.
He knew the minute you didn’t get on that plane this morning. ”
“No.” I drop my face in my hands. “How? How do you know? How’s that possible?”
“I told him,” Leo says. He comes closer to us and lowers his head to explain. “Sorry, Alice. Morris isn’t as tech-savvy as you probably are.” He gives Morris a smile, but Morris just lifts a brow in silent warning.
“I’m not,” I admitted. “But I checked the phone plan before I left. I didn’t see anything on there that would make me think Jerry did anything to the account.”
“If there is something on the phone itself, it’s likely not on the account,” Leo explains sweetly.
He points to the phone. “Invisible apps. It could be anything. No way to know for sure without some kind of tech specialist. There are so many ways to chase down a cheating spouse, a lying teenager. I mean, parents use all kinds of tricks to keep track of their kids without the kids knowing about it. Can you imagine all the ways you can do the same thing for a spouse?”
“And I’d never see it? I wouldn’t even know it was on the phone?” I ask.
Goddammit all to fucking hell.
I’m an idiot.
“Don’t feel bad about it, Alice,” Leo says, trying to be positive. “It’s a really specialized thing. It’s not like you can just hop on to Facebook and see ads for spouse-stalking apps. And if you’re an honest person, which I totally know you are, you’d never even think to use something like this.”
I nod. That much, at least, is true.
“The technology will come in handy when Zoey’s a teenager,” Leo says with a lighthearted grin, but Morris shoots him a look, and Leo backs away and stands near Tiny.
“So, what do we do?” I ask Morris. “Jerry knows I’m here. He’s seen me. He might even be right outside. Right now.”
I feel sick, and the room swims again before my eyes.
“Alice!” Morris grabs my arms and brings me to standing. “We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to go someplace Jerry can’t find you. And I sure as hell hope that asshole is outside. I’ll end this right here, right now.”
“No, no,” I say. “Just, please…” I put a palm on his arm and slide it down to his hand. I lace my fingers through his and squeeze. “What are we going to do? Do you have a plan?”
Morris nods. Without releasing my hand, he grabs my phone off the table. “We start with this,” he says, then drops it on the kitchen floor, and with a single stomp of his boot, the phone shatters into a million pieces.