Accompanying Alice Page 3

bought into his story, his emotion.

  Deep inside her the little flame she thought she’d put out ignited again. Reaction hit her before she could control it. Inside her chest, her lungs compressed, refusing to let her breathe in anything more regular than shallow gasps. The reckless sensation in her stomach that always preceded her doing something brave but stupid grabbed her, tried to warn her not to do what she was already doing. Her hand slipped under the tail of his T-shirt, found the waistband of his

  jeans, touched the gun. Fast but casual, his hand whipped around, caught her wrist in his fist.

  Holding her tight, he eased her around in front of him, tipped up her chin and smiled down at her, eyes hard. Don’t, they warned her silently, because I know what I’m doing here, and you haven’t got a clue.

  “So, what do you think, honey?” he said aloud. “Great speakers, aren’t they? Come on, let’s take ‘em home.”

  Chapter Two

  The car jerked to a halt in the driveway at 88 North Rutgers.

  Alice swung herself out of the car and stood for a moment, face raised to the rain, looking down the mostly tree-lined street with its rows of tiny post-World War II tract houses. Home at last, she sighed. But it felt more like, Free at last, free at last! And thank God for it.

  She moved toward the house, vaguely aware that Gabriel had set the first of his speakers on the front porch and returned to the car for the other. She mounted the steps and unlocked the door, thinking.

  Corrupt cops, politicians on the take, murdered informants, drugs missing from police property rooms, “hits”—Gabriel had told her he’d been called out of a pair of cases going nowhere in New Jersey to investigate the lot.

  Instead of distrusting her for attempting to turn the tables on him at the pawnshop, he’d taken her partway into his confidence, explaining what he hadn’t been able to explain to her before. With growing horror, she’d listened to him tell her how he and his partner had been shot in the wooded park not far from Alice’s house shortly before dawn this morning retrieving evidence—a thumb drive and the gun—how he’d watched his partner go down, how there’d been nothing he could do for him but run until he’d collapsed.

  How he thought the evidence he’d hidden with his badge and his personal emergency fund in one of the speakers weeks ago, coupled with the weapon and the thumb drive, would tie this case into a tight neat bundle that would bring arrests within the week.

  If he could stay alive, that is.

  To Alice, who’d been raised to balance life between the Ten Commandments and the West Point cadet code, and who read the newspapers with an eye entirely focused on what books to stock in the store and what movie titles to recommend, and as little as possible on police cases and politics, the story was unbelievable. Things like this didn’t happen in her world. Her life was forever bounded by the petty and the sensible, honed by soapbox family drama and—

  She stopped to push open the door and let herself in, then shut it, leaning against it as though to keep the world at bay, automatically slapping the dead bolt into place and securing the chain. Maybe her sister Sam had been right yesterday when she’d said Alice could use an attitude overhaul. Or, more appropriately, a life overhaul. Whichever, Alice would have to think about it later. Because, if what Gabriel said was true, then the entire county’s judicial system was on

  the rocks—and she’d brought the evidence home with her for a shower, a shave and tea.

  As if she needed this on top of worrying about her daughters, Grace’s wedding, that damned investment broker and all the seed pearls she had left to sew onto Grace’s veil. And she’d thought last week was the worst of her life. Ha! But she supposed that only went to prove how relative worst could be. At least last week the “plethora of evil things,” as her grandmother used to say, had only happened one per day, instead of one every five minutes. Just as soon as she could scare up the energy, she meant to have a serious talk with whoever dealt out lives and demand recompense for the past few days of hers. Surely in the heavenly scheme of things she was entitled to a reduction in purgatory time. If not for last week, then at least for today?

  A clear conscience is payment enough, her mother whispered wisely to her thoughts, and Alice sighed. Wasn’t that exactly what she’d been trying to teach Allyn and Rebecca for the past eighteen years? Wasn’t conscience what she now prayed would carry them through their reckless rush to come of age? And wasn’t conscience exactly what had landed her in the middle of this terrible, horrible day?

  Nothing’s black and white, Allie, her father’s voice assured her. Your mother forgot to tell you there are always shades of gray.

  Shades of gray, Alice humphed wryly. Shades of mud would be more like it. Mud-colored choices, mud-spattered conflicts, mud-murky days, mud-coated bodies-speaking of which...

  She turned to the mud-coated body she’d assumed was right beside her, but the space was vacant. Her eyes lit. Maybe it had all been a dream. Maybe she’d never left the house this morning. Maybe between daily stress and her occasionally rabid imagination she was only in the midst of a PMS breakdown. What luck medication was available to take care of these things—

  Someone kicked the wooden door behind her. Whispering a word she’d never used before Allyn and Rebecca had left home, Alice undid all the locks and yanked open the door.

  Looking something like a drowned Big Foot, the being on her porch hefted one of his speakers and lifted a soggy hairy upper lip at her. “Fuller Brush Man,” he said.

  With a huff of irritation, Alice flung the door aside and grabbed a stack of newspapers from beneath the chair beside it. “Why can’t you and my parents leave me alone?”

  Gabriel stepped into the house and set the speaker on the floor, taking the non sequitur in stride. “Trouble with authority figures?” he asked.

  “I—” Alice shut her mouth and took a breath, then gave him her mother’s best I-am-not-going-to-rise-to-that-despite-untold-provocation face and opened newspaper sections, piling them on the carpet. “Drip on these.”

  Obligingly Gabriel stepped onto them “My mother used to say the same thing to me. Makes me feel right at home.”

  “Don’t,” Alice urged, and he grinned. Even through all that hair, he had a nice grin.

  As if she should notice.

  The fuzz on the small of her back rose, sent provocative messages helter-skelter through every nerve. For no appropriate reason at all, she suddenly felt connected to him, bound by something more than circumstance or the responsibility incumbent on saving his life. Her veins still tingled and her nerves rattled but, caught in his smile, she once again understood the legendary lure between schoolmarms and wounded desperadoes. She understood race car drivers

  and the thrill of speed. She remembered what Allyn was looking for on the road to California.

  And that scared her. And thrilled her. And intoxicated her.

  She never remembered feeling so alive, so reckless. Not even when she’d given Matthew her virginity. This is how Becky feels when Michael looks at her, she thought, then stamped on the notion in shock. She shouldn’t be able to imagine how her son-in-law made her daughter feel—especially not when she was looking at a man who’d held her at gunpoint, ruined her morning, then trusted her with a whole lot of information she didn’t want to be trusted with

  at all.

  Boy, had he rattled her cage.

  “Look,” she said uncomfortably, and he did. Looked her up and down, looked her patiently in the eye and dripped on the papers. Alice turned her back on him. It wasn’t right to feel the way he made her feel. It wasn’t safe.

  “Let’s get a few things straight,” she tried again, but the phone rang. Surprised, she looked at Gabriel, turned to the wall where the phone hung, automatically pointing a finger to keep him in place. “Wait,” she ordered.

  He reached for her wrist, aiming at her attention, captured both. “Careful what you say,” he cautioned. “I’ll be right here.”

  Alice swall
owed, aware of him as she’d never been aware of anyone. She nodded and answered the phone to hear her eldest daughter’s absurdly pleased, slightly rebellious and more than a little nervous voice at the other end of the line. Forgetting Gabriel entirely, Alice-the-mother pressed a hand to her mouth in relief. “Lynnie? Where are you? Why haven’t you called? It’s been three days—I’ve been worried sick. You were supposed to call—collect.” Frightened

  Mother Gambit Number One: attack and impose guilt.

  “Ah, Ma, get a life, will you? I’m fine. Jeez,” Allyn snapped.

  Alice shut her eyes at the automatic offense and swallowed Gambit Two. This was her child, her daughter, her life. She’s grown up now, Allie, she told herself. It’s time to let go. “I’m sorry, Lyn. I’m sure you’re fine. It’s just…” She looked at Gabriel. He gave her half a smile and

  shrugged. “It’s just been really hectic around here.”

  “Oh, man. Becky told you she was pregnant and married, didn’t she? God, what a fool. I mean, I tried there, Morn, I did. I told her she should protect herself ‘cause Mike wouldn’t. I even went to the school dispensary to get her some condoms, but she wouldn’t take ‘em. Said Mike didn’t think it was ‘natural.’ I told her I thought Mike was an immature jerk. I mean, it’s her body. I said, use your brain, Beck, look what happened to Ma. But she said she wanted

  to be like you.”

  “Like me?” Something that felt like hysteria gurgled inside Alice. What was it her mother used to say about setting a good example and just wait till she had children of her own? Then the gist of Allyn’s tirade registered. “You knew?”

  Allyn made a sound of annoyance. “Who else was she going to tell?”

  Alice felt like strangling someone. It didn’t matter who, as long as she was an eighteen year old, hazel-eyed brunette named Meyers. “Me.”

  “Oh, right. Like, tell the person who’ll have the biggest hissy fit. Get real—”

  “God bless it, Allyn! I was seventeen when you were born and I am as real as it comes. You don’t always know how I’m going to react. Sometimes you’ve got to ask the questions before you give the answers. I’m concerned about Becky, period. Has she been to a doctor, is she really pregnant, is she taking vitamins, does she have morning sickness, does she…does she need anything, is she all right, is Mike…” She tucked her tongue behind her bottom lip to still its sudden trembling. “Is Mike good to her…?”

  “Ma—”

  “I just don’t want you girls to make my mistakes.” Oh, good, now she was criticizing them for not having hindsight. Her mother had certainly trained her well. “Look, I know that’s an awful thing to say. It’s a burden, and I hated it when your grandmother said things like this to me, but—”

  “Save the lecture, Ma. I’m up on the consequences of carelessness. I haven’t needed ‘em yet, but those were my condoms I was trying to get Becky to use.”

  “Allyn—”

  “No. No. Let me go. Get your own life, Ma, and leave me mine.”

  “Allyn. All—” The phone clicked hard in Alice’s ear. She hung up slowly, furious with herself for digging her heels into an argument with a daughter who was so far from home. Who did she think she was, anyway? Mother, rival, confidante, counselor—all and none in more or less equal amounts. They were too young to bear the crushing weight of daily life on their own, but she couldn’t—shouldn’t—protect them from it anymore. Alice punched the wall lightly with her fist. How was she supposed to let them go without dying a little inside, without wanting to smother and protect them from themselves and from each bent heart, broken trust, betrayed dream? She settled her fists on the dining room table and made a sound somewhere between a sob and a whimper, hoping semi-silent agony was what courage really was.

  Without thinking, Gabriel touched her shoulder. “Can I help?”

  “No.” Alice shook her head. “All they want me to do is get my own life and let them start theirs and I’m not ready to. I don’t know how.” She moved around the table settling already settled chairs in place. “Even if you were a single parent with twin daughters exactly like mine, the only thing you could do is commiserate with me for a while. I’d still have to deal with the worry on my own.” She glanced at him suddenly. “You’re not, are you? A parent with teenagers? I don’t know why I assumed—”

  “It’s all right. Most people assume. And no, I don’t have any kids. Never been married.” He gave her a story-of-my-life shrug. “An undercover cop can be tough to live with—one track mind, makes up his own rules as he goes, gone for months at a time, character compatible with the scum of the earth...”

  “Is that what you really think?” Alice swung on him abruptly, eyes flashing. “Is that what you want people to think? Because they will if you let them.”

  Surprised by both the passion and the challenge, Gabriel stood mute, watching her struggle with demons he could only imagine.

  Alice looked at her hands. “I guess that wasn’t my call to make, was it? Sorry. Your life, my life, cars on the expressway—they all look alike, don’t they?” Uncomfortably she smoothed her wet skirt over her hips, eyed the filthy T-shirt sticking to his skin. “Oh, gee, look, some hostess,

  huh? Here I am keeping you standing around in wet clothes when what you really need to do is change your life…” She rubbed her forehead. “Sorry, Freudian slip, long morning. It’s my life that needs to change. Urn, look, let me get you some towels and, um, what, a razor, some sweatpants, sweatshirt...” She moved through the tiny house as she spoke, collecting items as she came to them. “I think I’ve got some fat pants left from before my diet last year—yeah, here they are, these should do.” She piled everything into Gabriel’s arms. “Anything else? Scissors, shaving cream? If you don’t mind the stuff I use for my legs there’s some in—”

  “Alice.”

  She ducked her head, not wanting him to see how close to folding she was. He saw, anyway. He was trained to see.

  “If you give me your clothes, I have to do a load of dark laundry, anyway. I can just throw yours in—”

  Reaction set in without warning. He’d seen it happen this way often—people strong through the most extraordinary circumstances falling apart afterward. His heart knotted. Her hands shook, and her lips trembled, but she was still in there, pitching; still hanging in, striding forward with life despite the curves it had thrown her. From listening between the lines, he knew there was nothing as simple about her as he’d imagined. She had a life as complicated as his own, just on an entirely different scale. And here he was adding to it. He wanted to say something, offer her something, some kindness. Thank you. But he knew without being told that she was the kind of person who’d pull herself together best if he left her alone. As he would.

  “That’d be great,” he said. “I’d appreciate that. You said scissors and shaving cream were in the bathroom?”

  ***

  Standing in the center of her too small kitchen, Alice shoved damp hair out of her eyes and pulled her old blue terry robe tighter. It had stood her in good stead over the years, kept her warm, caught her tears, weathered late nights full of panic while she waited for the girls. It somehow managed to give comfort when she needed it—a “blankie” for a grownup who had no other sense of security to depend on. Everyone needed a security blanket once in a while. There was no shame in that. Except today it wasn’t working. She’d put the robe on to find some sense of safety, lost this morning at the side of the road—or was it last week when she’d turned thirty-five, or been given notice on her job, or watched Allyn and Rebecca share the commencement address, or learned she was going to be a grandmother? When exactly didn’t matter, she supposed, only that safety was gone and the old blue robe couldn’t retrieve it for her anymore.

  Instead she felt restless, frightened, unraveled, on the verge... Confused. For eighteen years she’d known exactly who she was and what was important. She’d been mother, father, provider, drill sergeant and safety net, and Allyn and Re
becca had been everything. She hadn’t had to think about herself, for herself. Everything had been about them, for them—and through them, somehow, for her. Somehow. Now they were gone, the bookstore was gone, there was a

  hairy, aqua-eyed fugitive in her bathroom, and she didn’t know anything anymore.

  Sighing, she surveyed the cream-and-slate portion of her domain, looking for answers where there didn’t seem to be many. Something sticky made tacky noises underneath her slippered feet, and she reached across the counter for the damp rag hanging on the towel rack to clean it up. A bottle of light rum, two bags of nacho chips and the can of nuts she’d bought from one of her nieces at Easter caught the comer of her eye as she did so. Oh, rats, she’d forgotten. It was pre-wedding-and-Christmas-traditional “sisters, sisters” night here tomorrow. That meant no children, no mom, no men, just the seven original Brannigan girls, a pitcher of Bacardi and soda, a lot of pizza, the movie White Christmas and a command performance of the Rosemary

  Clooney / Vera-Ellen duet “Sisters” sung with heart.

  Her lips twitched. Trust thinking about her sisters to put life in its proper perspective.

  “Still feeling pretty martyred, aren’t you, Allie?” she kidded herself aloud. “Better perk up, be positive. Be as corny as Kansas and as cockeyed as the optimist, or they’ll take White Christmas out of the VCR and sing every song from South Pacific to you, and then go on to The Sound of Music and finish up by tying you to a chair while they act out the prism scene from Pollyanna. You do not want to sit through that, so buck up, girl!”

  She turned, changing places with herself to make the conversation two-sided. “Oh, shut up,” she told herself now. “I’ve been corny, I am cockeyed, and this is only a temporary aberration, so hop off and let me wallow in peace, hmm?”

  “Can’t do that, Alice.” She switched places again. “You don’t have time. Can’t let you—”

  She glanced around at a sound from the doorway. Gabriel cleared the chuckle from his throat. “Sorry,” he said solemnly. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation. It was