Chapter 11 #2
“Then maybe you need the courage to do that. Check the box on the middle shelf. Cake baking stuff, mostly.”
“Why would it be…? Oh, never mind. You think that’s what I should do—go to the cops?”
“I think you need to follow your instinct and not let fear chart your course.”
“Ah, but fear is the most basic survival instinct.”
“Rational fear is. But very few of our fears are rational anymore. I think if you wanted to go to the authorities, you wouldn’t have stopped me from calling them just now. I think you believe in this guy.”
“Hardly. I just … I want to get to the bottom of this, that’s all. Why is your bike bell in with your icing nibs?”
“Oh, is that where it is? I was on some interesting medication when I was sorting out that box. Like I say, I think you should heed your instinct. What harm can come from giving him the benefit of the doubt, just until you find out a little more about what’s going on?”
“Er, let me see. What harm could come? I could be convicted of a federal crime. I could lose my job and my reputation. I could be killed. Other than that, yeah, risk-free.”
“One day you might regret spending your life so cosseted. Every book you read, every movie you watch, every TV show—they’re all about adventure, about people stepping outside of themselves.
Even when we were kids, you were reading Marvel and Harry Potter while I was reading The Baby-Sitters Club.
Check the bag down there—random electrical cables, old earbuds, that kind of stuff. ”
“So, I’m a fantasist. There’s a massive difference between getting vicarious thrills about that stuff and actually doing it.
I mean, sure, I would like to do something interesting one day—backpacking in South America.
Eat at roadside stalls. Strike up conversations with strangers on the bus.
Have a one-night stand. I’m not sure insurrection is the best path to adventure. ”
“It’s not surprising you believe you lack courage, considering what you’ve been through the last few years. What you’re still going through.”
“I do lack courage. No, not in the bag.”
“Try those boxes.” Kimberly indicated a precariously stacked pile.
“No, you just fear hurt. Your life has been marked with loss, ever since Dad died. You’re afraid to take a risk with anything, from a job to a relationship, in case you lose what you have.
Remember when you said you’d come home and teach after college, but only long enough to nurse Mom?
And then Poppy got sick, so you stayed. Remember when you broke up with that nice photographer because you said you couldn’t see it working out long term, even though it was working out perfectly well in the short term? ”
“Because I couldn’t see it working out. I wasn’t in love with him.”
“Because you wouldn’t let yourself be. Wouldn’t let yourself go. That remarkable self-restraint you’ve always shown—at some point it grew arms and became a straitjacket. Do you want my bike?”
“I have a bike.”
“Mine’s better. And it has a really nice bell!”
“I hardly use the bike I have. How did I get involved in all this, of all people? And I’m supposed to be spending this time with you. You’re my priority.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be. Anyway, it’ll make for an epic anecdote for my wedding speech. That time my risk-averse sister ran away with a dashing spy.”
“Oh God, I’m definitely going to the authorities.”
“Listen to your gut.”
“All I can hear is a loud churning. Hey, here it is! The dictaphone!”
“Oh yes, I remember now. I put it in the box with the hairdryer I was going to give you next time I saw you—it’s a really good one, and obviously I have zero use for it.
I don’t know what you’re going to get off it, though—the dictaphone, not the hairdryer.
It was mostly just a lot of rambling in Russian.
I transcribed everything that made sense. ”
“Carter speaks Russian, so…”
“Of course he does. He’s even hotter than I imagined.”
“Me too, and I have a good imagination. Also, very out of my league, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Ridiculous. What about the stuff in the book about him not being able to let his wife go—bouncing between hope and despair and refusing to deal with the pain and not able to begin to heal. Is that true?”
Alice shushed her. “You wrote half of that! Believe it or not, it hasn’t come up in conversation—and could you keep your voice down?”
“You know me—obsessed with death. It’s tough enough to face up to the reality of losing someone when you have answers, let alone when you don’t. So, you’re sure you don’t need me to save you from him?”
“I’m starting to wonder if I need to save him from you.”
“You do trust him.”
Alice stared at the dictaphone. “I think I do. Is that silly?”
“You are the best judge of character I know. It’s all that natural reserve.”
“Such a good judge of character that I pinned a murder on him. You’ll have to be my character witness when I’m facing federal charges for … whatever it is I’m doing here.”
“You’re doing what you believe is right, like you always do. And there’s a high likelihood that what you believe is right is right.”
A series of shouts sounded from the living room, followed by a crash.
Alice and Kimberly stared wide-eyed at each other, then ran down the hall.
A glass table was lying on its side, and Carter had Kimberly’s fiancé in a headlock.
“You’re the guy,” Malik gasped. “You’re the guy they’re looking for. The guy who took Alice.”
“Who is right here, and fine,” said Alice, stepping to where Malik could see her. “It’s okay, Carter, you can let him go.”
“I caught him going through our stuff,” Malik said, straightening, and stretching his neck. “I thought it was a burglar and then I saw his face.”
“Carter, meet my future brother-in-law, Malik. Malik, meet my hero—the one from my book, I mean. Antihero, technically, but there’s no need to call the cops.”
“Uh, too late?” Malik said, picking up his cell phone, which was lying on the floor. “Sorry, I’ll call them straight back.”
“They’ll come anyway,” Carter said. “We need to get outta here, dictaphone or no dictaphone.”
“Make that ‘dictaphone,’” Alice said, holding it up.
“Legend. Now how long did you say that recording was?”
“Nine very long hours,” Kimberly replied. “Do you need somewhere to hide while you find out what’s on it?” she added, warming up to the intrigue. “Aunt Helen’s lake house is empty at the moment. I have the key.”
“All good. We’ll find a motel on the way to D.C.”
A siren sounded, in the distance. Malik gaped at his phone. “Man, that was quick.”
“We’ll go out the back,” Carter said. “The neighbors over the fence aren’t home.”
“How did you know that?” Kimberly said.
“Never go into a situation unless you know at least two ways out,” Alice called back, running to the glass doors that opened out to the backyard.
“What do we tell them?” Kimberly pointed in the direction of the sirens—multiple sirens, now.
“Don’t lie, don’t omit,” Carter said, following Alice. “Don’t get yourself in trouble. We have nothing to hide, and you don’t want to get caught up in this. Answer every question truthfully—about what we took, where we’re going, whatever they want to know.”
“Tell them it’s all a misunderstanding,” Alice called back as she slid the door open. “That I’m okay, I haven’t been kidnapped. That we’re just trying to find out the truth.”
“But if you can avoid mentioning the headlock, that would be awesome,” Carter added, shouting over the siren. “And, uh, sorry about that, man.”
“I’m hardly gonna want to admit it, am I? I have a brown belt in jiu-jitsu.”
“And you’re very good at it,” Kimberly said, reassuringly. “Be careful!” she yelled, stepping onto the back deck as Carter and Alice crossed the yard.
“So on one hand you’re telling me to take the biggest risk of my life, and the other to be careful?” Alice called back.
“It’s especially important to be careful when you take a risk. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take a risk. Oh, and you be careful too, Carter. People around Alice tend to die. Correlation not causation, as far as we know, but no studies have yet been done.”
As Carter gave Alice a leg-up over the back fence, Kimberly and Malik stood waving, arms around each other as if this was a regular farewell. Weekend guests departing for home.
“I’m surprised you chose to stick with me,” Carter said as he jumped into the neighbor’s grassy backyard behind her. “You could have stayed behind, waited for the police. It’s not like I would have forced you to come.”
“I didn’t really have time to think it through. Snap decision.”
He smiled approvingly, and she could practically feel the dopamine release, though she really shouldn’t be savoring approval from a guy like him. “I find those kinds of decisions are usually the most sensible ones.”
“I suppose I want to know some answers, too. Before I turn you in.” She grinned, and then her face fell. “Omigod, what am I doing?”
“The right thing. Come on, talk and run.”
“The right thing for who?”
“For me, for you. For justice. But what did your sister mean—people around you tend to die?”
“Morbid jokes are a family trait—what’s left of the family. It’s true, but I’m pretty sure it’s not my doing. And I’m sure you won’t.”
“Good to know. Kimberly’s hair…?”
“Stage IV colon cancer. The other family trait. A type so super-rare they’re thinking of naming it after us. If you’re gonna go down, you may as well go down in history, right?”
“Shit, I’m sorry. So when she said that thing about not needing her stationery where she was going…?”
“Yep. Wait, you heard that?” Shit, what else had he heard?
“Jesus.”
“Why did you tell her about the motel on the road to D.C.? You told them to be honest with the police, or whoever that is with the sirens.”
“I’m counting on that. I want the Feds to know that we have something they don’t, to make them wary about publicly pinning anything on me just yet. And we’re not going to a motel. I know a place. We’ll have to stop for supplies to last the night.”
“The night?” Okay, so she probably should have figured that out earlier, since it was well into the afternoon and a motel had already been mentioned.
“Just one night, Alice. In the morning, if you want out, I’ll drop you off at the nearest police station—around the corner from it, anyway.”
There it was: Anderson Holt was practically begging to spend the night with her—which they would pass deciphering the ramblings of a dying woman, but still.
They reached the bike and put the helmets on. “Okay, now I get why we parked where we did,” Alice said.
“That’s the spirit. Thinking like a fugitive. I can’t even choose a seat at a café without taking note of the escape routes. Old habits.”
“I’m not the fugitive, you’re the fugitive. I’m the victim,” Alice said, getting on behind him. “Survive the day,” she added, in a mutter, as he started the bike.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Survive the day?”
“Just a thing I say. Sometimes merely getting to the end of the day is a win. Then you can start over. Of course, it’s not supposed to be literal.”
“Well, we’re nearly there. One night, Alice.”
“Sure, one night, whatever. Can we just please get away from here?”
“Okay, Thelma.”