Chapter 11
Alice
Present day
Once Alice and Carter reached Oxford Falls, she directed him to Kimberly’s house by tapping on his thighs for left and right. As they approached the house, she tapped the code for “stop.” He kept on riding, pulling up in the next street over.
“You think someone’s watching her house?” Alice said as she dismounted.
“Nah, just wanna get my steps up,” he said, unclipping his helmet. “First rule of tradecraft: never park right outside where you want to go.”
“Would they track my sister down? Is she in danger?”
“If the authorities can’t find you, then sure, they’ll come knocking on her door.
And her name is likely to be in the document metadata on the transcripts, or they’ll be able to track the IP, so they’ll know she was involved.
But it’ll take them a while to sift through what they’ve collected, figure out what’s important, make a plan.
And if they figure out you’re on the run with me, they’ll assume we won’t be dumb enough to come here. ”
“Little do they know. Wait—we’re not ‘on the run,’ are we? Sounds a bit … Thelma and Louise.”
“Which one am I?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Nah,” he said, “we’re just … checking a few things out.”
“Sure. Well, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t trust me not to call 911?”
“Just thought you’d like some company. Do you intend to call 911?”
“Haven’t ruled it out.”
As they skirted around the block, she got the feeling he was surreptitiously checking their surroundings.
He gave her the all-clear to knock on Kimberly’s door—not that she’d been waiting for it.
While they waited, he read aloud the nameplate nailed to the porch.
“Dr. Kimberly Thornton, Grief Counselor.”
“Comes in handy. Grief is basically our family business.”
“Explains a lot.”
She started to ask what he meant when the door opened.
“Omigod, Alice?” Kimberly cried. She dropped a folder she was carrying, yanked Alice inside by her arm and slammed the door in Carter’s face.
“Kimberly, what are you doing?” Alice said, rubbing her arm. For a dying woman, she had a good grip.
“Saving you!”
“From what?”
“From him! I’m calling the cops.”
“The hell? Give me that phone.” Alice stopped the call, opened the door and hissed at Carter to get inside. No neighbors were visible, so hopefully they hadn’t been seen.
Kimberly stared at Carter like she was meeting a celebrity. “But on the news, they said—”
Alice nearly dropped the phone. “On the news?”
“They said a teacher had been kidnapped, and he was a ‘person of interest,’” Kimberly said, retrieving the phone, her gaze glued to Carter. “They said he could be armed and dangerous. I’ve been trying to call you.”
“On the news?” Alice repeated.
Carter scratched his hair, which had been messed up by the helmet. “Armed, no.”
“I wasn’t kidnapped—well, not exactly.”
“Not exactly? His photo is everywhere. I’ve been getting calls.
Must say though, you look much better in person.
” There was a note of awe in Kimberly’s voice.
“I mean, much less sketchy. That photo they’re using—they haven’t named you,” Kimberly said, turning back to Alice, “but word has very quickly gotten around town. You were taken right from your classroom, and no one saw! I’ve been getting calls from everyone we know, thinking you’ve been captured by some maniac.
Malik has gone out searching for you. Did you know your phone’s switched off? ”
“I … lost it. Listen, I can’t explain now, but I’m not in any danger—well, not from Carter. At least, I don’t think I am.”
“Not at all,” Carter confirmed.
“But I need my dictaphone, the one I gave you.”
“Uh, sure, okay.” Kimberly didn’t move.
“Kimberly?”
“Just trying to think where I put it. Alice, how about you help me search the office? He can search … the living room, if he wants.” Alice rolled her eyes. A transparent attempt to get her alone.
“Don’t worry,” Alice said to Carter, “I’ll make sure she doesn’t call 911.”
Wait—when had Alice changed her mind about that?
“It’s just through there. Knock yourself out,” Kimberly said to Carter, pointing down the hall. Once he was gone, she tugged off her Marilyn Monroe wig to scratch her wispy head. “Sorry, this is driving me nuts.”
“You’re wearing a wig at home now?”
“This way I look in the mirror and go, ‘Check me out!’ Not, ‘Holy shit, I look like a cadaver already.’ Now, where would I have put it?”
Kimberly’s study reflected her personality.
It was the former main bedroom, split in half by a rice-paper screen.
One side was repurposed as a consulting room and could pass for the waiting room of an upscale spa, with comfy armchairs, a vibrant artwork, and a table with a potted plant, not that she was seeing many clients anymore.
But behind the screen it was a garage sale of half-packed boxes, kids’ toys for her play therapy sessions, her bike, and her plastic-covered wedding gown, which was hanging from a hook.
“The dress needs to be taken in again,” Kimberly said to Alice, as she shoved it aside.
“I might as well wait until the last minute so we know how much padding to put in the boobs.” Kimberly pointed to a box marked with Alice’s name.
“Stationery, for you, by the way. The pretty stuff—journals, nice pens, notecards. I won’t be needing it where I’m going.
Plus, you may as well have the shoes back that you gave me—my balance is shot.
I struggle to wear even one-inch heels anymore.
And my feet are too swollen. Maybe you can pass them on to someone else if they’re too small for you. ”
“Would you stop giving me your things? Except the dictaphone.”
“We both know what a pain it is to have to sift through a lifetime’s worth of home appliance receipts and random photos and chargers for long-dead cell phones.
My plan is to leave everything totally organized, so all you need to do is sit on your verandah and drink mimosas in my memory.
” She chewed the side of her mouth. “I should order some of those mimosa mixes. Maybe I should organize a cake. Could I leave instructions for the lawyer to do it? Would that be weird?”
“Kimberly? The dictaphone?”
“Yes, right!” Kimberly said, pulling open a drawer.
She was right about the dress needing to be taken in—she appeared to have lost five pounds in a week.
Not that Alice would mention it. Like the way Alice headed off conversations that might involve sympathy, Kimberly got sick of people constantly assessing her state of health.
I get comments like thirty times a day, no exaggeration, she once said.
I promise you, I’ll tell you how I’m feeling if it’s relevant.
I should put that on a sticker. Thus, Alice went to a lot of effort to sound effortlessly normal.
“So, what’s the story with the spy?” Kimberly said, lowering her voice.
As they searched, Alice gave her as straightforward a rundown of events as she could, given that the circumstances were far from straightforward, with Kimberly interrupting at least three times every minute with a “holy shit, you’re kidding!”
“Sounds like he’s got you convinced,” Kimberly said when Alice was finished.
“Does it? Do you think I’ve been sucked into something? He seems legit. As did those gunshots.”
“I’ve never in my life known you to get sucked into anything. You have good instincts. So are there, like, actual FBI agents at your house right now? I hope they don’t look in your bedside drawer.”
“How do you know what’s in my bedside drawer?”
“Haha, I don’t. But I can guess now.”
“I hope they’re not tearing the place apart. Oh God. That house is everything to me.”
“And you know my thoughts about that.”
“It’s my anchor, okay?”
“Sure, anchors can be good things,” Kimberly replied, searching an accordion file, “or they can hold you back. That place is a mausoleum. You think it’s stability and belonging but it’s a holding pattern.
You dream of seeing the world, and yet you’re scared of leaving the house you grew up in. You teach at the school you attended.”
“Yes, thank you for the observations, Doctor.”
“But hey, look at you now—on the run with an actual spy. And one who’d give Daniel Craig a run for his money.”
“And all I want is to go home and shut the door and read an Ian Fleming. I prefer to get my kicks vicariously.”
“Life is wasted on you. Vicarious kicks are all I have left right now.”
“Oh, stop with your guilt trip. I’d love to be some kind of free spirit who blows around in the wind and doesn’t worry about tomorrow, but I’m just not.
I want to read spy thrillers, I don’t want to be in one.
And I am doing something consequential, in my day job—I’m educating the leaders of the future.
And okay,” she added, catching Kimberly’s side-eye, “those kids are a very small minority of the ones I teach, but some of my students have gone on to great things. Moderately interesting things, anyway.”
“And you’re envious of them, aren’t you?”
“I envy their courage.”
“Courage is something you have to nurture, to build. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone.”
“And the people it does come naturally to are the people who tend to die young. No offense,” she added quickly, realizing she’d used the D-word, not that Kimberly shied away from those discussions. “What’s in that box up there?”
“None taken,” Kimberly said brightly. “That’s sheet music. Got any students who play the trumpet? I can’t even get a parp out of mine anymore. Have a look—the dictaphone could be in there.”
“Why would the dictaphone be with the sheet music?”
“It’s always in the last place you look… You know, courage isn’t a lack of fear—it’s doing what you believe in despite the fear.”
“I believe in the authorities and justice. I believe that if I go straight to them with this, it’ll blow over. No, it’s not in here.”