Chapter 32
Alice
Imess up three transactions before lunch. My fingers fumble the keyboard. The numbers blur together.
Mrs. Henderson’s deposit gets entered as a withdrawal. I give Mr. Peterson the wrong receipt. And I somehow manage to count out two hundred dollars in twenties when the customer only asked for forty.
“You okay over there?” Nora asks during a lull between customers.
“Yeah, I’m just tired.” I straighten the already-straight stack of deposit slips on my counter, then adjust my glasses.
Nora doesn’t buy it. She’s been giving me worried looks all morning, especially after I jumped when the door chime went off. Every time someone walks in, my stomach drops thinking it might be another investigator or my mother or worse.
The police interview yesterday is still fresh in my mind.
Detective Morrison's questions, each one designed to make me doubt myself.
"How well did you know Officer Edwards before the GPS tracker was discovered?
" "Isn't it convenient that he was the one to find it?
" "Did you and Officer Edwards discuss what you would say about Lance before filing charges?
" Three hours of reliving the worst moments of my life while they made it sound like I orchestrated the whole thing.
Like I put that tracker on my own car. Like I wanted Lance to break into my house and hurt me.
“Alice, seriously. What’s going on?”
Before I can answer, the door opens and Mayor Walsh walks in. He nods at Nora but his eyes land on me with something that looks like pity.
“Morning, ladies,” he says, still looking at me. “Alice, how are you holding up?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Walsh. How can I help you today?”
He slides a check across the counter. “Just a deposit. And Alice? If you need anything, you let me know. This whole situation with that officer… well, it’s got the whole town talking.”
My face gets hot. “What situation?” As if I don't know exactly what he means.
“Oh, you know. The investigation. People are saying he might lose his job over all this.” Walsh shakes his head. “Shame when a good man gets caught up in messy business.” I grip the edge of the counter.
I process his deposit with shaking hands. The whole town knows. Of course they do. In Pine Hollows, nothing stays secret for more than five minutes. I was naive for thinking otherwise.
“Have a good day, Mr. Walsh.”
He leaves, and I catch Nora staring at me.
“Investigation?” she asks.
“It’s nothing.”
“Alice.”
“Sawyer’s under investigation because of Lance. Because of me.” The words come out flat. “Happy now?”
Nora’s face softens. “Oh, honey.”
The door chimes again. This time it’s Mrs. Peterson with her weekly deposit, but she barely looks at me while I help her. Usually she asks about my weekend plans or comments on the weather. Today she hands me her slip and stares at the floor.
After she leaves, the bank feels too quiet. I adjust my glasses, but the action doesn't calm me like it usually does.
“Is it true?” Nora asks. “About the investigation?”
“State police think Sawyer arrested Lance because we’re involved. They think maybe I made the whole thing up.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? Sawyer comes in here all the time. Everyone saw us together.” I push my glasses up my nose again.
My phone buzzes. Text from Madison.
Madison: Hey I heard about Sawyer. You okay?
I delete it without responding. How on earth did Madison hear about it?
Nora comes over to my station. “You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think Lance’s family has money and they’re using it to make trouble. And I think you and Sawyer are getting railroaded.”
“Doesn’t matter what we think. It matters what the investigators think.”
The door opens again. This time it’s Sawyer, and my stomach does a weird flip. I suddenly can't remember how to breathe normally. He’s in uniform, which means he’s working, which means he still has his job. For now.
“Hey,” he says, walking to my station.
“Hi.” I’m aware of Nora listening to every word. I point to his cup. “Coffee?”
“Yeah.” He leans against the counter. “How’s your day?”
“Fine.” I look at my shoes. “Yours?”
“Could be better.”
I'm surprised he's even in here talking to me. With all the gossip going around town, he knows what people are saying. Even Madison heard about it, and she doesn't even live in Pine Hollows. My chest starts to feel tight, like there’s a weight on it I can’t move.
“Alice?”
“Sorry. What?”
“I asked if you wanted to grab lunch later.”
Every instinct tells me to say yes, but then I think about Mayor Walsh’s comments. The whole town talking. Mrs. Peterson avoiding eye contact. The way Sawyer's career is hanging by a thread because of me.
“I should probably just eat the lunch I packed.”
Sawyer’s face doesn’t change, but something shifts in his dark brown eyes. “Yeah of course. Maybe next time.”
“Yeah.”
He leaves, and I watch him walk to his patrol car. Through the window, I can see him sitting there for a minute before he drives away.
“You’re an idiot,” Nora says.
“Excuse me?”
“That man came in here to check on you, and you brushed him off.”
“I’m trying to be smart about this. The less we’re seen together, the better it looks.”
“Smart would be not letting gossip dictate your life.”
My phone rings. The caller ID makes my stomach drop.
Mom.
I let it go to voicemail, but she calls back immediately.
“You should probably take that,” Nora says.
I grab the phone and walk to Nora’s empty office. I push my glasses up my nose before answering. “Hi, Mom.”
“Alice, we need to talk.”
“I’m at work.”
“Then we’ll talk after work. I’m coming over tonight.”
“Mom, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I don’t care what you think is a good idea. I care about my daughter making smart choices for once in her life.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone, my hands shaking again. When I come out of the office, Nora takes one look at my face and shakes her head.
“Your mother?”
“She’s coming over tonight.”
“Want me to come too? Moral support?”
“Thanks, but this is something I need to handle myself.”
The rest of the day crawls by. The fluorescent lights give me a headache. The air conditioning is too cold. Every customer who comes in feels like they’re judging me, wondering if I’m the woman who got a good cop in trouble. By closing time, I’m exhausted from pretending everything’s normal.
I’m locking up when Sawyer’s patrol car pulls into the parking lot. He gets out and walks over, still in uniform but looking tired.
“Rough day?” he asks.
“You could say that.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I look at him, this man who’s risking everything to stand by me, and feel the weight of all the eyes that have been on us today. “My mom’s coming over tonight.”
“Ah.” He leans against my car. “You want backup?”
“Thanks, but I think that would make things worse.”
“Probably right.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Alice, about lunch earlier…”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just… it feels like everyone’s watching us now. Waiting to see what we do next.”
“So?”
“So maybe we should be careful about what we do in public. At least until this blows over.”
Sawyer straightens up. “You mean you don't want to see me anymore?”
“I mean maybe we should think about how this looks.”
Even as I say it, I know I'm making excuses. Finding reasons to push him away before he has a chance to leave on his own.
“To who? The people who think you’re a liar? The people who think I’m corrupt?”
His voice has an edge I haven’t heard before.
“To the investigators.”
“The investigators who’ve already made up their minds?”
I don’t have an answer for that. We stand there in the bank parking lot, the late afternoon sun beating down on us, the space between us feeling bigger than it should.
“Alice, if we start hiding, we’re basically admitting we did something wrong.”
“Maybe we did.”
The words slip out before I can stop them. Sawyer stares at me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He takes a step back like he’s offended.
“Maybe we moved too fast. Maybe the timing was wrong. Maybe if you hadn’t gotten involved with me, none of this would be happening. You would just be stressing about your exam instead of all this.” I motion with my hands.
My throat is tight. I can't look at him.
“So this is my fault?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.”
And maybe he's right. Maybe I am blaming him. It's easier than facing the real truth. I'm terrified he'll leave, so I'm leaving first.
I want to take it back, but the words are already out there. And maybe part of me means them. Maybe everyone would be better off if I’d just stayed away from him from the beginning.
“I should go,” I say. “My mom will be there soon.”
Sawyer nods, but he doesn’t move away from my car. “Ali, whatever your mother says tonight, remember one thing.”
“What?”
“None of this is your fault.”
He waits, like he's hoping I'll say something. Stop him from leaving.
I don't.
He walks back to his car, and I watch him drive away. My hands are shaking so badly I have to grip the steering wheel to steady them.
For a second, I almost call him back. Almost tell him I didn't mean it.
But I don’t.
My phone buzzes with a text from him five minutes later.
Sawyer: No matter what happens tonight, call me if you need me.
I sit in my car for a long time, staring at the message. The steering wheel is hot under my hands. Then I delete it and drive home to face my mother.
Because pushing people away is what I do best.
It's safer than letting them stay and watching them leave on their own terms.