by Alana Terry
“Then why Anchorage? Why so fast?”
“I need to get out of here. I need time to think. Decide if I even want to keep living as Jo anymore.” Her voice caught. “And I can’t make a decision like that while you’re here being so nice and caring and understanding, and I can’t do it with him spouting off Bible verses and talking about how it’s some big miracle we found each other.”
Kurtis frowned. “But don’t you find it just a tad suspicious that after four years you just randomly bump into him, in Glennallen of all places?”
Lacy sat up in her seat. “I told you I’m not leaving with him. I need time to think, and I can’t do that if both of you are ...”
Her phone beeped. Probably another text from Raphael. She ignored it.
“I can’t do that if both of you are trying to pressure me.”
Kurtis relaxed in his chair. “So you’re going to Anchorage to take a little time to figure things out. Is that it?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“And where does that leave me? What about this Raphael guy?”
“I already said I don’t know. I can’t be expected to make any decisions like this until I know more what I want. At this point, I’m thinking of just flying back to Boston and living my old life again.”
“You can’t do that. It wouldn’t be safe.”
“That’s what you’re telling me. But how am I supposed to know until I get a little breathing room and figure things out for myself?”
He sighed. “All right. I’m not going to try to stop you.”
She eyed him quizzically. “You angry?”
He shook his head but remained quiet.
“You understand why I couldn’t tell you the truth?”
“Of course. I’m a trooper, remember?”
She stood up. “You’ll say good-bye to Madeline for me, right?”
“If that’s what you want.” He sighed. “Do you need a ride to town, or is he taking you?”
“I’m driving myself.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is your check oil light still blinking?”
“Only sometimes,” she lied. She had forgotten all about that.
“Why don’t you let me at least change it before you go?”
She stared at the door. “I’m sure I’ll make it just fine.”
“It’s a four-hour trip, Jo.”
“I know. I’ll be ok.”
Why couldn’t he understand? Didn’t he realize she couldn’t keep accepting his help whenever a problem came up? Didn’t he realize this move was something she had to do on her own?
She took a few steps toward the entryway but stopped and turned around. “I’m sorry. About everything.”
He avoided her eyes. “Me, too.”
She couldn’t leave him like this. She inhaled deeply. “If I was Jo, you know I would have said yes yesterday and meant it.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He didn’t stand up to see her out. As she passed the stairs to the basement, she heard the soundtrack to Madeline’s princess movie playing softly. She paused for just a moment to listen and then opened the door and let herself out.
Chapter 8
THE WALK BACK TO HER apartment seemed to take hours. Was she really doing the right thing? Was she ready to pack and go? She felt bad leaving the daycare on short-notice, but Kim and one other part-time worker could pull together to make up her extra hours. Attendance was low this time of year anyway, with so many families going fishing or camping or vacationing in the Lower 48. She was probably doing the daycare’s budget a big favor.
She thought about Carl and Sandy, about how easy it would be to hop on a plane and fly back to Massachusetts. If she had the money, that is. She could sell her car in town, maybe get one or two grand for it. That was a start. Enough to get her back home. Or put down a payment on an apartment in Anchorage. A very small apartment. What should she do?
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. Yeah, well, so far his plans for her life hadn’t worked out all that swimmingly. It was time for her to make her own decisions. Make her own plans.
Whatever that meant.
She got home and pulled the small suitcase out from under her bed. Drisklay had told her to keep a small bag packed and ready so she could take off at a moment’s notice if her cover was ever blown. She had packed it four years ago and never opened it since. She couldn’t remember what was in it anymore. She took the contents out one at a time and laid them on her mattress. Two blouses. A pair of jeans. Hair brush, tooth brush, tooth paste. Socks, underclothes, and a coat. That was all. You could study the whole thing without learning anything about her except her bra size. How was it that her whole life had been stripped away from her until all that was left was this little carry-on full of belongings that meant nothing to her? It was because they weren’t hers. They weren’t Lacy’s. They belonged to an imaginary woman named Jo who worked at a daycare, had never gone to college, and lived in a remote town in Alaska where the temperatures could drop to negative fifty over Thanksgiving.
She had been living Jo’s life for too long.
She put the nondescript items back in the bag and pulled out a few more things from her closet. If she was staying in Alaska, she should take the heavy winter stuff she had accumulated. But if she went back to the East Coast ...
No, she couldn’t think like that. She hadn’t made a single decision herself in four years, at least not an important one. Even dating Kurtis had felt like part of her cover story, not something she would have done if she were still living her own life, if she were still Lacy. She tried to ignore the memory of his expression when she left his house earlier. She had expected him to be hurt. Of course he would be. It would have been easier if he had tried to talk her out of moving or even lost his temper. Instead, he was so stoic, which wounded her even more deeply.
She sniffed, reminding herself that nothing was finalized. She might spend two days in Anchorage. She might spend two years. All that mattered was that this was a decision she was making for herself. Nobody was making it for her, no witness protection marshal, no larger-than-life boyfriend, no former love who had materialized out of nowhere after four years of torturous waiting.
Where she went after Anchorage was her choice as well. If she came back to Glennallen, that would be her decision and no one else’s. Same thing if she returned to Massachusetts to be with Carl and Sandy. If she accepted Kurtis’s proposal, or if she and Raphael resumed their romance after a four-year hiatus, or if she found someone else entirely down the road or chose to stay single for the rest of her life, those were decisions only she could make. She wouldn’t let anybody dictate her life anymore.
Her phone beeped, and she realized she had missed several texts from Raphael. She was avoiding him. It was all so strange, his coming back from the dead. And all his talk now about God and the Bible and Carl’s church? His family had been Catholic, if she remembered right. He came to church with her on holidays or if Carl and Sandy invited him over for lunch after the service, but it wasn’t a big part of his life. Hers, either. They were too busy living to really settle down and dwell on the metaphysical for long. She knew there was a God, she knew the Bible was basically true, and she figured that one day she might actually study it on her own instead of just at the dining room table with her foster mom. How many Bible verses had Raphael mentioned last night when he came over? What had gotten a hold of him? She needed time to absorb it all. She sent him a text back. She had already decided she’d meet him for lunch and explain to him what she had just told Kurtis. She was going to Anchorage until she figured out her next move, and if Raphael was the same man he’d been four years ago, he’d be ok with that.
Her packing was interrupted by a knock on the door. Kurtis? In all honesty, she would have felt hurt if he let her leave without trying to change her mind, but she wasn’t ready. Not yet. She bustled into the kitchen, where a pile of dirty dishes overflowed from the sink onto
the counter and stacked themselves into precarious three-dimensional shapes. Great. Her landlord would love her for this.
The knocking again. It wasn’t like Kurtis to be impatient. Raphael, maybe? But she had just texted him and made plans to meet in an hour.
The door burst open. She slammed her rag onto the counter and stormed into the dining room. “What are you ...”
She froze when she saw who it was.
“You didn’t lock yourself in.” Detective Drisklay stood in the middle of her living room, frowning. He pointed his paper coffee cup at her door. “How many times did we tell you to lock yourself in?”
Lacy couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t explain to him that this was Glennallen, Alaska, where people went on month-long vacations without locking up. While they were thawing out in Hawaii or whatever warm coast they escaped to, their neighbors brought in the mail and placed it on their dining room tables.
Drisklay pulled out the chair where Kurtis and Raphael had both sat the night before. He was a detestable sight. Lacy didn’t trust him enough to take her eyes off him. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“You need to get your things together.” He spoke so casually, as if they were discussing a piece of math homework.
Lacy had always despised math.
“You said we were done meeting face to face.”
He shrugged and took a big swig of coffee. “Things change.” Drisklay scanned her apartment. She knew he was taking everything in. He wouldn’t miss a single detail. “So, how much time do you need to pack?”
The room was spinning. Her head was as light as the helium balloons Raphael had won for her at the Salem fair so many years ago. She steadied herself on the table. “Do I have to?”
He shrugged. “You’re a free citizen, but obviously I can’t guarantee your safety if you fail to comply.”
“Why?” she demanded, ignoring the nagging suspicion growing in her gut.
“Your cover’s blown. Someone in the trooper’s office’s getting a little too nosy.”
“That was just Kurtis. He wouldn’t ...”
“We’ve never lost a placement yet,” Drisklay interrupted. “You think I want the first time to be on my watch?”
“Where do you want me to go?”
“You know the drill. You’ll get all the details once you’re safe. It’s a total reboot. New papers, new name, the works. I’ll use the bathroom while you get your bag. I assume you’ve kept one packed and ready like I told you.”
Lacy forced herself to look at him in the eye even though her insides were quivering like one of the many minor tremors she had experienced since moving here. “No.”
“No, you don’t have a bag, or no you don’t want me using the toilet? It’s a long drive to Anchorage, you know.”
She took a deep breath. “No, I’m not going with you. I’m not going through it all again.”
He set his cup on the table and looked at her as if she had just told him she wanted to visit the moon because she was in the mood for some cheese. “So I guess you’ll just sit tight here, wait for the Mafia to come into your unlocked house and finish what they set out to do four years ago?”
“The trial’s over. Nobody has any reason to hurt me.”
He frowned. “Revenge can be quite a strong motivation. Sometimes I think you fail to appreciate just how powerful these men are.”
“I’m leaving Glennallen anyway. I don’t need you to relocate me.”
He shrugged. “It’s a free country, but I beg you to remember that these men know your identity.”
Good, she thought to herself, that means I can go back to being Lacy since the Jo cover’s already blown. “All you know for sure is that the trooper knows who I am, right? Good, because I just told him today when I broke off our engagement.” She didn’t know why she mentioned that part. What would Drisklay care?
He shrugged. “You think about it while I use your toilet.”
After Lacy moved in with the Lindgrens, her foster mother told her, “Hatred is a force as strong as death itself.” If that was true, Drisklay would have suffered a fatal catastrophe as he sauntered uninvited down her hall. Lacy stared at his half-empty coffee cup and wanted to spit in it. It was a childish gesture that wouldn’t have solved anything except relieve her tension for a few seconds.
She ignored the sweaty, clammy feeling around the collar of her blouse. She had already resolved to get out of Glennallen, but there was no way she was going through an entire relocation with Drisklay and his cronies. She’d drive into Anchorage, slip in anonymously amongst the hundreds of thousands of people there, and stay put until she made up her mind. This was her life, her future, after all. Not his.
He came out of the bathroom and picked up his paper cup. “You ready? Where’s your bag?”
“I said I’m not going.”
“You were serious?” There was something in his dead-pan expression that might have been humorous under different circumstances.
She nodded.
He sighed. “I’ll stick around through the end of the day. Call me when you come to your senses.”
Chapter 9
HER WHOLE BODY WAS shaking by the time Drisklay left, but she ignored the trembling and went back to her room to finish packing. Nothing could change her mind. Not now. She had regained control of her life for the first time since it started spinning rampant four years ago. She flipped through her wallet to see how much cash she had. Just enough to fill her tank and maybe buy a few groceries to start off in Anchorage. She didn’t know anyone out there, but that didn’t matter. Lacy was never afraid of meeting new people, seeing new places. This would be an adventure, an adventure she could determine for once.
Carl and Sandy would worry about her if they knew. They were always so safety conscious, which was probably why they were never thrilled with Raphael in the first place. But she didn’t answer to them anymore, even though she hadn’t stopped thinking of them since Raphael told her he went to their church. And if he was right, if Massachusetts was safe for her now, she could go home.
At last.
Of course, that was getting ahead of herself. First Anchorage. Give herself a few days to settle in. Decide from there what to do. It was too early to meet Raphael for lunch, but she was anxious to get on the road. There was nothing left for her here. Nothing but old memories, old identities.
And Kurtis.
Of course, there was still Kurtis.
But she’d have time to think about that in Anchorage. Her co-worker Kim had a sister in town. Maybe she needed a roommate. It was summer. Wouldn’t there be a plethora of kids in need of nannies? Or she could go to the University of Alaska, fill out their application for student aid, get a dorm on campus. There were enough options she didn’t need to worry. Everything was going to work itself out.
Finally.
She grabbed her suitcase and a backpack and threw them in her trunk, and then she came back to fill a Costco box with a few random items. The rest could go to whatever tenant took over after her. She wouldn’t get her security deposit back after leaving the apartment such a mess, but once she sold her car, she wouldn’t need the extra cash.
She took a deep breath.
Everything was going to be just fine.
She left her apartment keys on the dining room table, started up her car, and drove to the Elk Hotel. That was one nice thing about a town as small as Glennallen. There was only one place that lodged out-of-town guests. She hurried in and stopped at the front desk. “Hi, I have a friend staying here. I was wondering if you could call his room for me.”
“What’s his name?”
Lacy stopped. She didn’t even know what alias Raphael was using. “Umm, can you try ...”
“Well, look who showed up!” His voice boomed from the top-level balcony as he leaned over with a grin. “I was just getting ready to text you. Give me a sec, and I’ll be right down.”
Lacy smiled sheepishly and waited near the stairs. She f
elt as anxious as she had at her junior prom. She kept fidgeting with her hands, wondering what he would do when he came down. She didn’t feel ready for another kiss, even though that one last night had felt so good, if not long overdue.
Raphael was all smiles as he hustled down the stairs to his own syncopated rhythm. “How’s my girl?” He placed his hand on the small of her back and noisily pecked the air about an inch away from her cheek in classic New England style. He still wore the same cologne, that inviting masculine scent. How had she lived the past four years without him? “What have you been up to? I thought you weren’t free until later.”
“Plans changed. I, um ...” She glanced at the desk clerk. “Well, you want to head outside? Go on a walk or something?”
His eyes darted to the window. “Sure. My bike’s locked up and secure. I’m all yours.”
They stepped outside, and Lacy swatted away the mosquitoes that swarmed her face. She took her hair out of her ponytail to give her ears and neck more protection. “I’ve been thinking,” she began tentatively, “and I’ve got to tell you some things. Part of it’s good, and part of it’s not.” There, was that enough of a warning?
He walked beside her with his familiar, easy step. She had forgotten the simple joy of being beside him, being together, enjoying the outdoors. The Wrangell Mountains stretched out before them, tiny dollops of snow from last winter still capping the peaks. He slipped his arm around her waist, unassuming. Natural. “Start with the good stuff.”
“Well, I’ve made up my mind about a few things. I went over to see ...” She faltered before saying his name. It sounded so strange talking about him. “I went to see my trooper friend. And, well, I said I was going to Anchorage to give myself time to put everything together.”
Raphael nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds reasonable. He took it ok?”
“Yeah.” She wasn’t willing to get into details of their conversation and was glad he didn’t press it any further.
