Chapter 10
ALICE - NOW
He says he’ll protect me, that he won’t let anything bad happen to me. But how can he promise that? He can’t possibly protect me from every potential threat. No one can.
Shopping with him at Navarre was the most normal thing I’ve done in ages. The fact I needed an all-new wardrobe, not so normal. But the act of going to a department store, trying things on, buying them—that felt normal.
Spending time with Landon, also normal. I missed him after our friendship ended.
Him and Cody, both. When we were still friends, we would go out for brunch after group counseling.
A couple of times, Cody came on a run with me, easily keeping pace.
And Landon was always up for grabbing a cup of coffee before my shift at Carol’s Closet started.
I used to work. I used to have an actual job, and earn my own money, and decide how to spend it, where, and when.
That was normal.
Life with Brayden? It was normal enough for the Community where members of Seven Blessed Days lived.
But it wasn’t my normal.
“Hey, where’s your mind going?” Landon asks.
I exhale a short laugh. “Everywhere. Nowhere. I was thinking about the things we did, before I got married.”
He nods, pursing his lips together. It’s hard to see his full expression, thanks to the short beard he wears, but I get the feeling his mood has taken a dive.
I shouldn’t have brought up the past, because it creates opportunity for a conversation about what went wrong. Is he going to ask me why I cut things off with him and Cody? It was hard enough at the time; I don’t want to relive it.
But he doesn’t pry. He simply says, “I’ve missed our brunches at Pancake Pete’s.”
“Those were the best.” The three of us would stuff ourselves and talk about anything and everything.
I frequently blushed, because having two handsome men ask me questions about myself was sometimes a lot to handle.
Their attention, the way they would focus on me and only me, was overwhelming at times.
I blush now, remembering.
Landon gives me a little smile. He never commented on my pink cheeks, but Cody always did. Which would, of course, make me blush more.
We soon get past San Esteban and onto the quieter portion of the freeway, leading to the foothills. Few people come out here. The landscape is bleak, all brown and yellow grass that is only green from January to March. My happy brunch memories fade into low-grade panic.
“Wonderland.” Lincoln’s voice is low. “I’ll turn around now and take you back to San Esteban if you really don’t want to do this.”
I nod, the movement short. “I know you would.”
“It can’t be easy, not being in charge of where you go. Should we get you a car?”
“A car?” I laugh. “Landon, don’t be ridiculous. If you don’t want to drive me around, I can order a ride.”
“No, that isn’t it at all.” He gives me a long look. “I’ll drive you wherever you want to go. But maybe you’d like more freedom, is all I’m saying. When’s the last time you could just up and decide to go somewhere, without having to arrange several things in advance?”
Before I met Brayden. I don’t say it, but I’m sure Landon can guess.
We don’t talk much for the rest of the drive, each of us lost in our own thoughts, I suppose.
I sneak looks at Landon’s profile. There’s something about the way a lock of his short brown hair falls in the center of his forehead.
I want to stroke it and smooth it to the side, then maybe press a kiss to it.
He’s just as breathtakingly handsome as he was when I first met him five years ago.
I still feel as awkward and unworthy of his attention as I did back then. Only this time, it’s worse because I’m “impure.” Then again, I don’t think he or Cody would have expectations of purity, not if they were in love with, and going to marry, the same woman.
“There’s Cody.” Landon points at another SUV ahead, an identical one to his. I wonder if they ever accidentally grab the wrong keys. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, since the cars and the house are all the same.
We pull up to the shoulder where Cody has parked. The hills are close, trees in the distance.
“Is this where those guys found me?” I ask.
“We’re pretty close.” Landon turns off the car and faces me. “Do you remember any of that?”
Two men, probably in their sixties or seventies. Shouting at each other to call 9-1-1. Two heavily-booted feet slowly approaching me. I struggled to get up because I thought, at first, it was Abe in his heavy boots. I thought he was taking me back to the cabin.
But I was so weak, I could barely make my fingers twitch.
“You alive, girlie?” the man asked.
Landon is waiting for my answer.
“I remember some of it,” I tell him. “They brought me a blanket from their truck, tried to get me warm. They were so kind, like they really cared.”
Cody is striding toward us. My heart clenches in my chest. Like Landon, he’s only gotten more beautiful since I last laid eyes on him. He’s tall like Landon, and with slightly broader shoulders. The white t-shirt he’s wearing shows them off.
I stand awkwardly next to Landon. I remember when I first saw Landon, how I ran to him and hugged him.
Cody holds himself differently. Maybe it’s only my imagination, but he no longer feels approachable. If I were to run up to him and try to hug him, I have the feeling he would step to the side to avoid me.
He nods at Landon. Then his gaze flicks to my face. “Hey, Alice. Are you ready to take a look around?”
“Yeah.” Bewildered at his aloofness, I stutter, “Thanks for, uh, setting everything up for me last night. I really appreciate it.”
“Of course. Let’s go this way.” He spins on his heel and starts walking ahead.
I stumble to catch up, Landon at my side. I want to ask Landon what the hell happened to Cody, like why is he walking around like an alien wearing a Cody suit? But if I were to say anything, Cody would hear me. So I clamp my lips shut and hurry forward.
There aren’t many sounds around here, not even a nearby car. With how desolate this place is, I feel even luckier that those two men found me.
Cody steps off the shoulder and starts walking across a large clearing toward a line of trees. As we get closer to the trees, my sense of foreboding grows. Is Abe’s cabin back there? Is he waiting?
I reach out and find Landon’s hand, squeezing it in my own. He looks over at me and smiles, giving me a gentle squeeze, too.
This would be the right time to let go of his hand. But I don’t let go. My heart pounds, because holding hands feels like more than friendship. He doesn’t seem bothered, though. In fact, maybe he isn’t reading into it at all.
What secrets are swirling in his gray eyes?
As we approach the trees, I don’t see a cabin. Instead, neat little houses, their wood siding painted different colors.
“I didn’t make it out this far when I checked the area last week,” he says. “Cody, how’d you find this place?”
“It’s private property, so we can’t step onto it.” Cody gestures toward one of many prominent signs warning trespassers of the property owners’ deep love for the Second Amendment. “A commune of some kind. I found it on a map. Does this look like where you were held, Alice?”
“No. We were isolated. The cabin was run-down, not like any of these houses.”
“Let’s at least look at the outbuildings,” Cody says. “Maybe you were held off behind one of these places.”
I don’t think so, because I would peer out at the world through the cracks in the cabin walls. There was never a sign of another building, and no voices, ever.
But I humor him and his idea. I want to please him, and make him smile at me again.
That’s what’s missing—his smile.
In front of one little house, chickens cluck as they scratch and peck at the grass. The more we walk, the more lightheaded I become. The world goes dark gray at the edges. I stumble, reaching to my sides for balance.
Strong arms catch me as I faint.
ALICE - THEN
“Change. Now. Put on the nightgown.”
He flung a bundle of lacy white fabric at me. I made no attempt to catch it, letting it cover my head. It smelled like moth balls and dust.
“No.”
“Put it on. Do you want to live?”
I did want to live. Who was he to question that? I had a husband and a life, and the hopes of building our family, of growing old together in our beautiful home in the Community.
Tugging the nightgown away to free my face, I stared at him.
He was showing me his face. On the trail around Blackberry Park, he’d had his face covered with a ski mask. Now, I could see him. Square jaw, hook nose. Brown eyes that locked on mine with a mix of fury and fear. His hair was hidden under a ball cap, but what I could see looked black or dark brown.
Didn’t that mean he wouldn’t let me go? Because if he let me go, now I’d be a witness. So what was the plan? Take me all the way up here to kill me? He could’ve done that an hour ago. Heck, he could have done that in the park.
“Put it on,” he repeated. “Take off your other clothes, first.”
“Then…aren’t you going to turn around?” If I could get him to appeal to my modesty, I could dart over to the little kitchen space. I thought I saw a fork on the counter. I could stab him with it and run. If I got him in the eye, it would buy me extra time.
He folded his arms across his expansive torso. “Do you want to live?”
Angrily, I started yanking off my clothes. It was hard to be scared and embarrassed when I was mad, so I embraced that. He was mad, and so was I. We could hate each other and be miserable together.
He watched me dispassionately as every item of clothing came off. I stripped down to my underwear and kept my gaze on his. Let him look, I didn’t care. It was just a body.
“Bra, too. And underwear.”
Asshole.
But my anger fell away with my undergarments, and it was replaced with fear.
I shivered under his scrutiny and folded my arms across my chest, trying to hide myself.
Would the sight of my naked body cause him to attack me, to take away the purity I’d so closely guarded throughout my adolescence and into marriage?
He continued watching, dispassionate. I yanked on the nightgown, tugging it into place as fast as I could, hiding myself away.
“Don’t move.” He didn’t comment on my discomfort, merely gathered my running clothes, underwear, and shoes. He took them outside.
I risked walking to the open doorway. His back was to me, and he held a shovel.
He was burying my clothes.
To the side was a chicken coop. The hens clucked at him, protesting when I could not.
Shovelful after shovelful of dirt fell over my clothes until the man was satisfied. He spun around before I could move. His eyes narrowed, probably because I had moved when he told me not to.
My old clothes, my old life, dead and buried. And me all in white, like I’d been baptized anew.
Or worse—like I’d died. Like I was a ghost.