It was nearly 4:30 a.m., and Jeff wondered if Lila Waters was an early riser, or perhaps a night owl. Then he noticed the car in the driveway and the sticker in the back window that said CSU—Sacramento. Some parents were proud and put stickers on their cars of their kids’ colleges, but something told Jeff this wasn’t the case. The car belonged to Alicia. It was a newer model Honda Accord, and although it was an average car, it stuck out in this neighborhood. While some neighborhoods in Pine Valley were extravagant, this neighborhood hadn’t changed in decades. Most of the people who lived here were lower class. Husband and wife both worked, aging in-laws lived with them, and their cars were older models.
Jeff kept apprised of these types of demographics so he could better serve his real estate clients. Finding the right comps and getting the most value out of a house were what made his deals successful. Like any real estate agent, he was a slave to the market, so it was imperative that he find every advantage possible. Whether it was to highlight a nearby park, or the friendliness of the neighbors, or the low crime rate, or the closeness of the ski resort . . . it was all part of the sales pitch.
The air in the Land Rover had grown cold enough to start bothering him, and he’d been here a while, so he reached to turn on the ignition when someone came out the front door of the Waters’ house. Jeff paused to watch, not wanting to start the ignition while the woman was outside. Yet, she didn’t walk like the sixty-something woman Lila Waters would be.
No, this woman’s dark hair was illuminated by the porch light and swung about her shoulders as she hurried down the porch steps. Alicia? Jeff stared as she continued her swift strides toward the Honda and unlocked the trunk, then stuffed a large garbage bag inside. She jumped in the driver’s seat and started the car. The brake lights glowed, and she backed out of the driveway. Where was she going at 4:30 in the morning?
Without thinking about what he was doing, Jeff started his engine and pulled out behind the Honda. Not too close so that she became suspicious. It was quite easy to follow her at a distance, since there were no other cars on the streets. Her taillights were the only thing to keep track of.
Jeff slowed again when she exited the neighborhood and pulled into a gas station that was closed. Was she getting gas? Pine Valley had yet to adopt an all-night gas station. He pulled to a stop at the curb about one hundred yards away and turned off his engine and lights. The interior dome lights came on, and he scrambled to switch them off manually. Finally, in the darkness, he watched Alicia park by a dumpster, then climb out of her car. She popped open the truck and lugged the garbage sack out, then dumped it into the trash.
She stood there for a moment, as if she was rethinking her plan of throwing away a large amount of trash so early in the morning. Then she turned back to her car. Her actions were no longer quick, but slow, as if she was tired. She couldn’t have gotten much sleep between her shift at the restaurant and now. Or maybe she hadn’t gone to sleep at all.
Jeff wasn’t exactly sure why he was spying on Alicia Waters, especially after all these years. Despite the fact that she’d developed into a gorgeous woman and seemed more real compared to Paige, he had no right to follow Alicia this way. He really knew nothing substantial about her. Social media wasn’t an accurate depiction of anyone’s life; he knew that better than anyone.
Alicia shut the trunk of her car, climbed in, and pulled out of the gas station. He slid down in his seat as she turned onto the road and drove right past him. He doubted she’d seen him, especially with his tinted windows. But he’d definitely seen her. And memories surfaced about their childhood, their friendship, and how they’d confided in each other until he was an idiot and destroyed everything between them. Even her walk was familiar, the tilt of her head when she was speaking with the restaurant patrons, the habit she still had of tucking her hair behind her left ear. Some things about her had changed, though. He’d had time to observe her when she was speaking to the older couple at the restaurant. Her voice was deeper, smoother, her cheekbones more defined, and she hadn’t been wearing a ring.
Of course, he knew she wasn’t married. There would have certainly been something on social media if she had. But no ring also told him there was no fiancé either. And something about that made him happy. Jeff didn’t let himself analyze why he was happy about that, and he started the engine and drove to his office on Main Street. He might be two hours earlier than usual, but he’d be surrounded by plenty of work at his office, and it would distract him.
Jeff parked in the back of the row of Main Street buildings. He climbed out of the Land Rover and was immediately greeted by a pitiful meow. A few weeks ago, a stray calico cat had shown up in the parking lot, searching for scraps of food. Jeff’s receptionist, Clara, had felt sorry for it, bought a bag of cat food, and begun leaving a bowl at the back door of the office. So now the cat had expectations, although it still wouldn’t let Jeff touch it.
“All right, all right,” he told the cat. “I’ll get you something.”
He unlocked the back door while the cat walked in little circles, as if it couldn’t stand the wait. Jeff poured some cat food into the metal bowl, and the cat pretty much attacked it, eating and purring at the same time.
“I guess purring is how you say thank you?” Jeff said. “Well, you’re welcome.”
He pulled the door shut and left the cat to its blissful meal. Then he turned on the rest of the lights in the office. It would be a full hour before the corner café opened and he could get a couple of muffins. For now, he settled for making instant coffee. He couldn’t remember when he’d last stayed awake all night. Well, he could remember—it actually was his senior prom.
Jeff groaned and shook his head. Would he ever be able to completely forget about that night? Would he be able to forget the look on Alicia’s face when he’d heard her enter the hallway and he looked up from kissing Shannon? Jeff had been a hormonal teenager, and even though he had no problem with Alicia’s looks, it always felt like she was off-limits because they were best friends. They’d even talked about their crushes and dates.
He remembered when he told Alicia about his first kiss, and how she’d laughed and blushed, then asked a million questions. Alicia had never told him about her first kiss—and now he wondered if she’d kissed anyone in high school.
Shannon had been flirting with him for weeks, and all of his friends had agreed she was hot. So at prom when she came up and talked to him when Alicia was talking to some other friends, he acted his normal, friendly self. Yes, he was interested, but he also wasn’t prepared when Shannon had whispered in his ear, “I have something to show you in the hallway.”
Like an idiot, he’d fallen for the line and met her in the hallway a few minutes later. She kissed him first, yes, but he also kissed her back. And then to save face, he kept dating her for a few more weeks. But what he didn’t realize then was that by saving face around his friends, he’d lost his best friend.
Alicia never spoke to him again.
Jeff powered on the office laptop and sipped at his nuked coffee as he opened Facebook. He shouldn’t . . . but he did. He typed in Alicia’s name and watched her profile load. She’d posted about a week ago—a picture of her and another woman who looked vaguely familiar. They were standing in front of a homeless shelter—which had to be in another city, since there wasn’t one in Pine Valley—and the caption said, “Spending my day off with Gwen.”
Gwen. Jeff gazed at the blonde woman next to Alicia. He clicked on her name and was taken to Gwen’s profile. Ah. She worked at Alpine Lodge, and she was the waitress who had served him last night. The one Paige had been upset about—if only she knew it was the hostess he actually had a history with.
Jeff scrolled through Gwen’s pictures, seeing that she must spend most of her time off working at that particular homeless shelter. Needless to say, he was impressed. If Gwen was a waitress, she was probably just getting by herself, and she seemed like a selfless person. And a good friend to Alicia. For some
reason, that made Jeff feel better, and perhaps less guilty for being such a lousy friend ten years ago. It seemed that Alicia had moved on, had good friends, was back in her hometown, and was most likely happy. She’d looked incredible—wasn’t that a good indicator?
Still curious, Jeff returned to her page and scrolled through her posts and pictures. He was interested about one thing. Why would a college graduate want to work as a hostess at a restaurant, even a posh one, and live at home in a run-down neighborhood? He wondered what her Facebook profile wasn’t showing. What heartaches might lurk beneath her smiling face and breezy posts. He found one picture of her with her dad—it looked like they were at some sort of Christmas party from a few years back. There were no pictures of her mom, and a search for Lila Waters brought up no hits.
Jeff sat back in his chair and scrubbed a hand through his hair. He felt drained. But he knew even if he took the morning off and went home to sleep, he’d never be able to sleep. So he did something he didn’t think he’d do in a million years. He sent a Facebook friend request to Alicia Waters.
“What have you done?” a woman screamed through Alicia’s bedroom door while simultaneously pounding on it.
Alicia groaned. She hadn’t meant to fall back asleep, and now the winter sun was high in the sky. “Hang on, Mom,” she called back, her throat still scratchy with sleep.
“You threw away my blue hot pads, didn’t you?” her mom shrieked.
Alicia felt ill. She’d thrown away the food-crusted, half-burned hot pads weeks ago, hoping that the other dozen or so sets that her mom kept around would mask the missing blue ones. Apparently not.
Alicia nearly stumbled when her foot caught on the edge of the small area rug in her room. She unlocked and opened the door to face her mom’s reddened face.
“Those hot pads were a wedding gift!” her mom said, not yelling quite as loud, but her voice still had plenty of power. “They were from Aunt Irma, who knitted them herself.”
“I’ll help you find them,” Alicia said. “Have you checked all the drawers in the kitchen?” She was lying to her mom, but she had to talk her off the ledge and get her calmed down before she told her the truth. Today might require an emergency therapy session.
Her mom’s voice was calmer when she said, “I looked everywhere.”
“Okay, I’ll start looking too.” Alicia led the way down the hall and walked into the kitchen. The place was a disaster—more so than usual. In addition to the stacks of clutter, every drawer was open, and kitchen towels, ketchup packets, bread bag ties, and various colored hot pads were scattered about the floor. There was also a very distinct smell of something burning in the oven.
Alicia flew to the stove top and turned off the oven. “What are you cooking?” she asked as she opened the oven door. Black smoke poured out, and Alicia waved it away so she could peer inside.
“I’m making cookies—is that a crime now?” her mom said.
Burned lumps on the cookie sheet were all that were left of her mom’s creation. Alicia grabbed a hot pad from the floor and pulled out the cookie sheet. Then she moved past her scowling mom and opened the front door. Alicia set the burned pan with the black cookies on the front porch.
She hurried to open the kitchen windows, even though it was cold outside, while her mom stood and watched, her eyes narrowed.
“We don’t want the smoke detector to go off,” Alicia said, as if she needed to explain this to her mom.
“They won’t go off because I disabled them,” her mom snapped.
“Why did you do that?” Alicia folded her own arms. There were some things that were just plain unsafe, and not having working smoke detectors was one of them.
“The chirping drives me crazy!”
Alicia wanted to laugh, a crazy laugh. Her mom was driving her crazy. “The chirping sounds means you have to change the batteries.”
“I know,” her mom said. “But one of them kept doing it even after I changed the battery.”
Alicia blinked. “Then it probably just needs to be completely replaced. How long have the smoke detectors been disabled?”
Her mom shrugged and turned away. All of the yelling must have drained her, because instead of continuing her search for the blue hot pads, she sat at the table and propped her elbows on a stack of grocery coupons that she religiously cut and saved but never used.
When her mom was quiet and pensive like this, Alicia found that she felt a lot more compassion for her. She wished her mom could have a normal life, that her phobias and anxieties didn’t keep her home-bound. That she could garden, walk around the neighborhood, go to a mother-daughter lunch.
Alicia took a deep breath and sat in the other chair at the table. “Those blue hot pads were so damaged that they couldn’t even be washed,” she started. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t know they were a wedding present. When I moved in, I didn’t think they were usable anymore, and you had so many others I didn’t think to ask you about them. I’m sorry I didn’t ask.”
Her mother didn’t react for a moment. This was actually a good thing. In therapy, they’d both been told to listen to each other, then take a moment before replying. Alicia had also learned to not call her mother’s things “clutter” or “garbage” but to understand that they were valuable to her mom.
Alicia was also supposed to ask permission before throwing anything away—but until the therapist saw the actual state of their house, Alicia had to take some things into her own hands. Her mother had never given her permission to throw anything away, and every request turned into a major argument. Thus, Alicia’s early morning forays to a dumpster.
Her mother finally lifted her head, and it tore at Alicia’s heart to see the tears. Yet, on the other hand, their therapist had told her that tears were good—it meant that her mom was allowing herself to feel emotion instead of covering it up with more hoarding. “Blue’s my favorite color.”
The statement surprised Alicia—not that her mom’s favorite color was blue but that she wasn’t demanding to search a dumpster to get back the hot pads.
She swallowed back her relief, then did something she’d sworn never to do. “What if we look up blue hot pads on Amazon? See if there’s any you like.”
Her mom’s eyes immediately brightened, making Alicia feel even more guilty. She was totally playing on her mom’s weaknesses to deflect the guilt from herself. But sometimes, a girl just needed a break.
While her mom browsed Amazon and undoubtedly ordered more things than just blue hot pads, Alicia quietly cleaned up the floor. Her mom didn’t even say anything when Alicia brought out the broom and mop and scrubbed it clean. Perhaps they’d reached some sort of truce. Although it pained Alicia to put all the hot pads back into the drawers. Several of them were in no better condition than the blue ones had been.
Next, Alicia retrieved the pan of burnt cookies from the front porch. It gave her a few moments to stand in the cold air and breath it in. It was a beautiful, cold afternoon, and the layer of snow on the lawn had frozen. As a kid, she used to love to try and balance on frozen snow. Invariably, her boots would crack through, and Jeff would laugh at her.
Jeff. His laugh.
She shook her head, dispelling the memory. A car drove by, and someone waved. Alicia couldn’t see who it was, but she waved back—it was sort of a tradition in these types of neighborhoods. People waved to each other. Alicia had been gone for a long time and hadn’t kept up with all the new move-ins, but she did know that the Finch house had seen people come and go. She glanced over at the yard and noted that it was its usual pristine self. Even in the dead of winter, the bushes looked neatly trimmed, and the two pine trees held an elegant dusting of snow on their branches, making it look like a postcard house. The driveway and sidewalk were clear and completely free of ice. Alicia could almost picture Mr. Finch outside, methodical in his yard work no matter what time of year. And Mrs. Finch . . . she was one of those moms who baked cookies after school.
Speaking of cook
ies. Alicia looked down at the burnt mess she was holding as tears pricked her eyes. She was being ridiculous, of course. No one’s life was perfect, not even the Finches. But right now, anything sounded better than the situation Alicia was in.
She sniffled and wiped at her eyes, knowing she was just tired. Sleeping four hours hadn’t really been enough, although she’d survived it plenty of times. She wanted to call her dad and lay it all out on him, but she already knew what he would say. He’d tell her to let her mom figure things out on her own, that if she got arrested, then she got arrested. He’d tell her to move out and to get her own place.
But the problem was, Alicia couldn’t leave her mom alone. Her mom had literally no one. And she couldn’t imagine that jail would help her mom at all—and then what? Would her mother become a permanent resident of a psych ward somewhere? Alicia squeezed her eyes shut, and not sure if she was saying some sort of prayer or not, she pleaded to find a way to help her mother. The therapy had helped, but it wasn’t enough. And Alicia didn’t know how much longer she could live here.
She wiped at the tears again and inhaled sharply. She couldn’t go back inside crying. Finally, feeling calm again, she entered the house. Her mother was still on the computer, so Alicia started to scrape off the burnt mess into the sink. She scrubbed the baking sheet clean and dried it. After putting it away, she glanced over at her mom, who was in her own little world, a crooked smile on her face. Alicia scanned her mom’s ratty bathrobe, her unwashed hair—another battle Alicia had fought and lost—the way her mom’s skinny foot tapped at the floor.
And suddenly the tears were back. Alicia hurried from the room and walked to her bedroom, where she changed her clothing. She’d go for a long, cold walk and clear her head. Then she’d take a nap before work.
When she returned to the kitchen, she told her mom, “I’m going on a walk. You can call my phone if you need anything.”
Worth the Risk (Pine Valley Book 1) Page 3
