Chapter 28

Jess

Alice looks like she's drowning. I know because I've been there, too.

I've brought her to Black Lake's British tearoom. It's set in a Tudor-style building, Bea's Teas, written in curly white cursive across the front. Inside, it's cozy with painted ceiling beams, dark hardwood floors, faded vintage chairs, twinkling Christmas lights. Red stockings hang from a fireplace, a small, decorated Christmas tree in the corner. Wham! is singing about last Christmas.

I was on my way to the River Rothay when I spotted Alice running into Killer's Grove. I almost didn't stop. Theo Moriarty's body having milfoil on it, possibly from the River Rothay, has made me uneasy. I needed to go there, to pick through these confusing facts. But then I thought I heard someone shouting Isla's name.

I order Alice a chamomile tea, thinking it will be better than giving her caffeine. The girl looks keyed up enough as it is. The waitress sets the tea and a little pot of sugar on the table. Alice curls around the steaming mug like she wishes she could climb inside it. Her hands shake as she lifts it to her lips. The liquid shivers, a bit splashing onto the saucer.

The Christmas lights twinkle in the hazy warmth, catching a sheen of sweat on Alice's face and turning her waxy and gray, more lost than I've ever seen someone. A girl shipwrecked from another planet. Dark, puffy circles under her eyes. Lips raw and chapped. She looks so faded, so tired she could nearly blend into the cold, wintry snow outside.

Alice has texted her aunt Mel, and now we're waiting for her to arrive. It's busy, lunchtime, and we're lucky to get a table. The sounds of china and cutlery tinkle around us. I dip a teaspoon into the sugar bowl, stir it into my coffee as the waitress sets a massive slice of chocolate cake topped with ice cream, whipped cream, and crushed peppermint in front of Alice.

Alice stuffs a giant bite into her mouth. Her cheeks poof out like a chipmunk. I stare at the cake, wondering how they get it so fluffy. My cakes are always so dense.

"Want some?" Alice asks around her mouthful of cake.

"No thanks."

My phone buzzes. It's Mac. Again.

I think about the other night, but I don't know what it means. I don't know what to tell him. The truth is, I don't know if I'll ever get to the point where I can simply accept his love. His forgiveness. I want to, I really do. If I could snap my fingers, I would find my way home to him. But it isn't that easy. Because you can't tell people you're good, that they can trust you and you won't hurt them. You have to show them.

Mac is kind, compassionate, and loyal. He believes there's honor in defending people who would otherwise have nobody to stick up for them. He goes for a two-mile run every morning. He would live on tacos if he had the choice. He likes the windows open when he's sleeping and he always wanted a dog, a big, smiling golden retriever. He doesn't deserve any of the pain I've caused.

I press "End" and slide my phone back into my pocket. I yearn for a drink, my throat bone-dry. I tightly grasp my one-month chip in my pocket, letting it bite into my palm.

"Did you know that clouds aren't actually light and fluffy at all?" Alice says, shoving another bite of cake into her mouth. "One cloud can weigh over a million pounds. The water's super dense, that's why it weighs so much."

"How's that possible?"

"The air below the cloud is heavier, so the cloud can still float."

"Huh."

Alice is unlike anyone I've ever met before: sweet but shrewd and highly perceptive, clever but breathtakingly naive, young but with eyes that are old beyond her years. Part of me thinks she's as innocent as Bambi, but the other part thinks she's playing me like a fiddle.

At the root of it all, however, is a girl lost in the chasm of grief and tragedy. In her I see something I found in myself. Strength. This girl is a survivor.

On the other side of the café, somebody drops a plate, glass shattering. Alice startles, hands lifting to cover her ears like it physically hurts. She sees me looking and blushes, drops her hands. She looks so young, her face pale, her upturned nose sprinkled with freckles.

"Sometimes I'm, like, really sensitive to things," she says. "Like sounds and smells."

"I'm the same way," I admit.

"Especially socks," we say at the same time. Our eyes meet, and we laugh. There aren't a lot of people who understand the torture of loose socks.

"Some people call me a freak," Alice says.

Pity squirts through me, like someone's stepped on a ketchup packet. After everything she's been through, having to deal with cruel peers. It sucks.

"I'm sorry. That must hurt."

"It does." Alice's face crumples, and I feel a physical pang in my heart at everything she's going through. I know and I understand. I wish I could tell her how to move through it, but I have no answer for that. You just do. You surrender to the unfairness and the despair, and then you hope the people who love you will be able to pull you back again. It's the only thing you can do.

"Alice, I know we've spoken before, but would you mind if I ask you a few more questions?"

I shouldn't question her. She's a minor and there is no lawyer around, nor her legal guardian. But we're just talking, and I can keep it informal. A chat over tea and cake.

"Off-the-record, of course."

"Okay."

I leave my notebook in my pocket and keep my hands loose on the table. "Before your family disappeared, had you all been to the River Rothay?"

"What, like in the summer?"

"No, within a month or so of that night."

She frowns. "In the winter? No. Not that I remember."

So it must've just been Laura or Pete. Or both.

"Do you know who Theo Moriarty is?"

I see a flicker on her face. Recognition. I hold my breath. We need to find out exactly how the Harpers are connected to Theo Moriarty. If, as Jack O'Brien said, Laura wouldn't have necessarily known him through work, how did they meet? Was Pete connected to Theo?

Alice seems to consider something. She sets her fork down, reaches for her backpack. She pulls out an envelope and slides it across the table to me.

"I found this in my mom's desk. She had a false bottom in her desk drawer. She used to hide her diary there."

Like she hid the bundles of cash.

I lift open the envelope and slide out a piece of paper. It's a paycheck from O'Brien Group Development for Theo Moriarty from last year. December first. The one Rose said hadn't been cashed. There are numbers scrawled on the bottom.

Laura must've taken Theo's paycheck. Which confirms what Jack said. Laura and Theo Moriarty knew each other. But why would she have taken his last paycheck?

"It isn't there anymore. The diary. I checked." Alice seems dreamy, half-asleep. She closes her eyes, and for a second I wonder if she's fallen asleep.

I tap her elbow. "Alice, have you been taking any drugs?"

Her eyes pop open, horrified. "What? No, I swear!"

"Drugs can cause a lot of problems," I tell her. "Even pharmaceutical ones. Like hallucinations, memory problems, anxiety."

"That's what you think, isn't it?" she says accusingly. "That I hallucinated That Night in Killer's Grove. I'm crazy. I'm just a druggy freak!"

"Trust me, that's not what I think. I just know drugs can—"

"I'm not taking drugs, okay?" she snaps, standing abruptly. She unzips her backpack and yanks out her scarf, ready to storm off, but something shakes loose, flutters to the table.

A picture. It settles on my hand like a whimsical butterfly. I lift the picture with numb fingers, feeling suddenly like the oxygen I'm breathing is made of something more volatile than air.

"That's Isla." I point at the picture.

Alice shrugs. "Yeah."

"That's my daughter. My daughter who died last year. Did you know her?"

Alice's eyes widen. "Isla was your daughter?"

"Yes. How did you know her?"

She swallows hard, teeth burrowing into her lower lip, tearing at a dry piece of skin. A new song starts up, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." It jangles discordantly in my head.

Finally, Alice sets her bag back on the table and drops into her seat.

"I didn't really. But my sister, Ella, was in a school play with her. Do you remember? Alice in Wonderland. It was the summer before last."

I think of all those after-school practices for the school play. Isla loved it, loved dressing up and being on the stage and delivering her lines. Mac was in charge of stuff like that. I was always working. I regret that now, regret that I didn't spend more time with her when I had the chance.

"They never hung out or anything," she continues. "Isla was a few years younger than Ella."

I rub my leg, staring at her, trying to see beneath her skin, to tell if she's lying. I don't know why, but Isla has chosen this girl. Because she's innocent?

Or because she isn't?

"Why do you have this picture?"

Alice frowns. "Not to be rude, but it's a picture of us, Ella and me. My mom took it, and Ella always loved it."

She's right. I hate that she's right. Isla isn't the focus at all.

I lift the picture. "This is who you saw the night of the accident?"

Alice flushes and looks away. "I thought ... but she wasn't really there."

I can see it in her face; she won't admit it. She's afraid of being different, afraid of being a freak. I don't know why she's seeing Isla, only that Isla is drawing a line between Alice and me, connecting us in ways I haven't quite figured out yet.

Alice drops her chin into one hand, as if she's so tired that her neck can't hold it up anymore. "Do you think people can ever be free of the past?"

"Speaking with some authority on the matter, no. I think we carry the past with us like turtles with their shells, taking it wherever we go." I pause, letting something settle on me, burrow into me. "But ... maybe that isn't a bad thing."

Alice looks down at her hands, and then her eyelids flutter. It's like she falls asleep for half a second right in front of me, her chin dropping, her mouth relaxing. And then she's back, her eyes widening. The tendons in her neck tighten, and panic and fear flare across her pale face.

"Alice?" I touch her hand, alarmed.

"I went back. That Night." Her eyes are unfocused, like part of her is still there, back in the forest the night her family went missing.

I lean forward, waiting for her to go on.

"I ran away, but I went back. That's when I heard it."

She went back? Alice never mentioned that in her original statement. She said she couldn't remember anything until the paramedic found her.

"What did you hear?" I keep my voice soft, neutral, afraid of disrupting this dreamy, truthful state she's in.

"My dad. He was crying."

"What was he doing?"

"He was by the side of the road, bent over something. He heard me, and he turned around." Her breathing has increased, her chest rising and falling faster. "There was ... something in his hand. Something dark. He shouted at me. I was so scared. I ran away."

She presses her lips together, Christmas lights reflecting in her wide, glossy eyes. "It was only a few seconds later that I heard a gunshot."