Chapter 24
Alice
The street outside Kimberly’s looked clear, but Carter and Alice took the route over the back fence, just in case, and quietly knocked on the glass door. Malik slid it open, his expression dark, and ushered them into the kitchen.
“We’ve been told to call the FBI if you contact us,” Malik whispered. “I’ve got a direct line to the chief investigator of some big task force. This is serious shit you’re in!”
“And you should definitely call,” Carter said. “Just as soon as we leave.”
Alice headed in the direction of the garage. “I just need some of Nika’s things—stuff I gave to Kimberly. We’ll grab them and go. Two minutes, tops.”
“She’s lying down,” Malik said, skirting around to head Alice off.
“Look, this is too much for her to deal with. I know she pretends that this whole dying thing is no big deal, and the fact that her sister is on the run from the authorities is some huge joke, but she’s struggling more than she lets on. ”
“I have great faith in my sister’s ability to—”
“Her next round of chemo has been canceled.”
“What?”
Carter stepped up beside Alice. “Is that a good thing?” he said.
“No, it’s not a good thing,” Malik said, scathingly. “It means there’s no point putting her through the treatment anymore. I’ve canceled the bachelorette night—no point going ahead with the maid of honor on the run from the cops, anyway. And I’m checking if we can bring the wedding forward.”
“It’s only three weeks away,” Alice said weakly.
Malik’s harsh expression relented. “She didn’t want to tell you, but you need to know.
Alice, you need to be here right now, and all this bullshit is sapping energy she doesn’t have.
The docs say it’s time to make her ‘comfortable,’ and that means taking away any other stresses, like for instance her sister being wanted by the FBI and the CIA and whoever the hell else. ”
“Alice?” Kimberly stepped into the kitchen, dressed in a bathrobe, a scarf roughly wrapped around her head. She had the distant look she got when she was on the serious painkillers. “I thought I heard your voice! What are you doing here?”
“Kimberly,” Alice said brightly. “How are you doing?”
“Good! Really, really good. Are you sure you should be here?”
“Uh, we came back to get Nika’s shoes—the ones I gave you.”
“They’re in the boxes in the garage.” Kimberly made it to the kitchen island and leaned heavily on it. “We could raise a fortune for them in the cancer support group auction.”
“Long story, but we need just one pair—the green platforms.”
Kimberly pushed off the island. “They’re buried at the back, but I’m sure I can—”
“I’ll get them,” Malik said quickly, “with Jason Bourne here. You two need to talk.”
Carter looked across at Alice, a question in his eyes.
“Sure, go,” she said.
Kimberly watched Carter and Malik leave—well, she watched Carter. “What does Malik think we need to talk about, do you think?” she said. “Can we talk about your spy? He’s even more scorching than I remember him, and I only saw him yesterday. More rugged.”
“Malik said they’ve canceled the last round of chemo,” Alice said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.
Kimberly smiled weakly. “I’d rather he hadn’t told you that.”
“Kimberly…”
“Alice…” Kimberly parroted. “I’ve always had a plan for this—God, half of my friends are making birth plans right now, and I’m making a death plan—and that plan does not involve everyone who’s close to me dropping everything to come and sit around while we all wait until the end.
How boring. And depressing. I’d rather have a vicarious adventure through you. Speaking of which, tell me everything.”
“Oh, back to me? I see your tricks.”
“Please talk to me about something other than my soul’s imminent departure from my body.” Kimberly narrowed her eyes at Alice. “Gotta say, you seem much more chill than you did yesterday.”
“Why do people keep saying that?” Alice said, though she wondered if it was Kimberly’s drugs that were making Alice look chill. “I’m not calm. I just get a blank face when I’m in total body panic.”
“You project a feeling of calm. Some might say you’d make an excellent spy.”
“Hardly.”
“Why not?” Kimberly said, opening a cupboard and grabbing a couple of glasses. “You’re smart, a good judge of character…”
“The aforementioned lack of courage could be an impediment.”
“Lack of courage, my ass. Look at you go—on the run with a super-hot spy.”
“I pulled out of an interview with the Montrose Gazette about the book because I was scared. Is that the behavior of the next Valerie Plame?”
“Oh, come on,” Kimberly said, filling a glass from the water filter.
“You nursed Mom and Poppy through cancer. You organized their funerals and gave the most beautiful eulogies when all I could do was sit in a corner, numb to it all because I’d spent so much time in denial.
You held us together. You’re still holding us together, those of us who are left.
You’ll hold Malik together when I’m gone—I’m counting on that, by the way.
” She passed the full glass across the kitchen island to Alice, who took it gratefully.
Alice was thirsty. It was hard to keep up your regular water intake when you were navigating international spydom.
“I did those things because there was no choice. I was probably just trying to keep busy, because it’s the pauses and silences when it hits you—but you know about that.”
“Isn’t that what courage is?” Kimberly said, filling the second glass.
“Doing what you have to do when it’s hard and scary and actually you just want to run and hide under a blanket, like I did—a grief counselor who couldn’t deal with her grief!
You did what you did then because you needed to step up and you’ll do what needs to be done now.
You are doing what needs to be done, what you think is right. ”
“I know, but … I am so over my head, in multiple ways. Like, every time I stop and think, it’s like, ‘What the fuck?’”
“Oh, come on, that’s why you wrote the book, right? You wanted to do something outside of yourself?”
“While not leaving the street I grew up on. It’s like I’m living in a choose-your-own-adventure.”
“Um, isn’t that what life is?”
“I wouldn’t classify my regular life as an adventure.
More a choose-your-own curtain fabric.” Alice lowered her volume.
“He says he needs me, Kimberly. Needs my help, I mean. Whoever needed me for anything but essay writing and funeral preparations? Sorry, not that I mind at all, though I wish it wasn’t necessary. ”
“Everyone likes to be needed, especially you. And to be needed by a guy like that.” Kimberly groaned. “Is he as hot when you get to know him as he is on first impression? And second impression?”
“Hotter. I feel like I failed him, in the book. I might have to rewrite it, if I get out of this alive. Sorry—God—shouldn’t say that.”
“I wish everyone would stop apologizing every time life or death is mentioned—I’m not going to take it personally.” Kimberly finally got her water to her mouth, though she seemed to have a hard time working it down her throat. “Have a fling with him at the very least,” she said.
“Shh!” Alice glanced in the direction of the garage, though the muffled voices suggested Carter and Malik were well occupied.
“It’s obvious he likes you.”
“How can you possibly tell that from the two minutes you’ve spent in the same room as us?”
“I have a doctorate in being able to tell when a guy likes you.”
“You have a doctorate in palliative counseling.”
“It’s the way he looks at you. It’s different from how he looked at you yesterday. What if I make it my dying wish that you should have a fling with him? Then you’d have to make it happen.”
Alice raised her eyebrows. “I thought eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich at Graceland was your dying wish? Or was it putting it all on red in Monaco? You’re so milking this.”
Kimberly shrugged. “Dying woman’s prerogative—and now you’re changing the subject. Omigod,” she said, slamming the glass down, sloshing water, “you’ve already slept with him!”
“What? Shh. Jesus.”
“You have!” Kimberly pointed the glass at Alice accusingly, spilling more water.
“How did you…?”
“Sorry,” Kimberly said, planting both palms on the counter, dropping the glass. It rolled away and clanged into the sink. “I think I … I have to sit down.”
Alice was beside her in a second. “Kimmy?”
“I need a minute, that’s all,” Kimberly said, pushing past Alice into the living area. “Sit here with me.” She half-sat, half-fell onto the calico-covered sofa. “Just the shock of my big sister becoming a bona fide Bond girl.”
“So, the chemo?” Alice said, sitting. “Somehow we ended up talking about me.”
“I would much rather talk about you. We never talk about you. It’s always me.
And before it was me it was Nika. And before that it was Mom and Poppy.
No one ever talks about you.” Kimberly turned and planted her hands on Alice’s cheeks.
“I’m so goddamn grateful to have you. But you know what worries me?
Who you’ll have after I’m gone. I’m not sure how much help Malik’s gonna be, bless him.
So forgive me if I’m excited about this development. ”
“I don’t know that an ex-spy who’s still heartbroken about his wife’s disappearance is a good choice as a steady life companion, even if that choice were on the table, which it’s not.”
“How was it, sleeping with him?”
“Kimberly!” Alice pulled back, and Kimberly’s hands dropped away.
“Humor a dying woman, please.”
Alice stared straight ahead at the TV, not that it was on.
“It’s hard to describe. I mean, yeah, the sex was good—like, holy shit—but it was also more intense than anything in my life.
Like, I feel like I have such a strong connection with him, in all sorts of ways.
I guess that’s the situation though, right?
It’s all so unreal. It’s ridiculous, really—me and a guy like that. ”