Looking for Trouble

by Victoria Dahl

  “Is she home?” she asked as she approached.

  He shook his head and they stood in awkward silence for a moment.

  “I’m Lauren,” the brunette said, sticking out her hand.

  “Alex,” he said as he shook.

  “Um. Sorry about today. I was just coming to check on her.”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  Lauren cleared her throat. “Have you talked to her? She’s not answering when I call.”

  “I haven’t tried.”

  “Mmm.” Her eyes slid toward her car. “She’s probably at her dad’s.”

  He swallowed back the questions he wanted to ask. It was none of his business. “Right. Well. Good luck.”

  He felt her eyes on his back as he walked away. Maybe he should just go. If someone forced him to tell the truth, he’d have to admit that the reason he’d planned to hang around tonight was because he’d hoped to spend one more night with Sophie. But that wasn’t going to happen, and his brother didn’t even want to grab a drink, so Alex should just hit the road.

  He headed for the motel to pack. The sky was clear and he could put Wyoming behind him by sundown. What more could he ask for?

  When he hit the throttle, the roar of the engine drowned out any answers his mind had to that question.

  * * *

  IT WAS ONLY 4:00 P.M. when Sophie pulled up to her house, but it felt like she’d been gone for days.

  Her father had returned at two and they’d shared a big midday meal in silence before he’d headed back out to work. Her brother had disappeared into his room again, and Sophie had put the leftovers in the fridge and washed the dishes. Then she’d found herself sitting at the kitchen table, trying to figure out how to apologize to her dad for what he’d heard.

  She hadn’t said anything wrong, per se, but he must have been hurt. She’d never said that to him, not even during her darkest teenage years. You’re not my real dad. Even thinking it felt wrong. He was as real as any dad had ever been to any child.

  In the end, she couldn’t think of what to say, so she’d just left. Now she felt like her limbs were made of lead as she climbed out of her car and walked to her door. She glanced toward a passing car and saw both the driver and passenger staring at her as they slid past. Shit. She’d been so worried about the hurt she and her brother had managed to cause that she’d blocked out the bigger picture.

  Her secret was out. Everyone knew she was just like her mother. There was no hiding it now.

  The weight of her body multiplied again. She made it up the stairs and through the door and gave up any idea she’d had of stopping in at the library before it closed. She’d call Jean-Marie tomorrow. She’d call everyone she needed to call tomorrow. Not tonight. Tonight she’d draw the curtains and crawl into bed and sleep for as many hours as she possibly could.

  She locked the door behind her and dropped her purse.

  “Where is my husband?”

  Sophie squeaked in shock at the voice drifting from the dim of her living room. She slapped her hand to the wall and slid it in a wide arc until she found the switch, but she realized who the voice belonged to just before the lights revealed Rose Bishop.

  “Mrs. Bishop,” she gasped, “you can’t be here.”

  “Where’s my husband?” She wore the same black dress she’d worn at the dedication, but her feet were bare and red, her face blotchy and eyes swollen. Her short gray hair stood up in strange swoops as if she’d clutched it over and over.

  “Mrs.—”

  “Why can’t you just leave him alone? He’s mine. You have your own husband, your own kids. Leave my family alone or I’ll tell everyone what you are!”

  Sophie’s startled fear turned to a different kind of alarm. Something was very wrong here, beyond the fact that this woman had somehow broken into Sophie’s house. She hadn’t gotten off the couch, at least. She wasn’t charging at Sophie or trying to attack.

  “Mrs. Bishop, where are Shane and Alex?”

  “They’re at home where they should be. Where Wyatt should be. Why won’t you just give him back to me?” She began to cry, her face crumpling before she hid it in her hands.

  Keeping a careful eye on the woman curled onto her couch, Sophie dug her phone from her purse and called Alex. There was no answer, but she waited for voice mail. “Alex,” she whispered. “Your mom is at my house and I think there’s something really wrong. Can you come by? Please?”

  A tiny meow pierced the room just as she ended the call.

  Rose’s head popped up. Her puffy eyes narrowed, then they focused on the furry gray ball that curled up at her feet. “Pastel?” she whispered. She picked up the cat and cuddled it close. Then she looked around as if she were trying to get her bearings.

  “Mrs. Bishop?”

  Her head came around and her eyes cleared. “You stole my cat.”

  “What?”

  “You little bitch, you stole my cat, as if everything else weren’t enough.”

  Her heart dropped. Was that where Alex had found the kitten? At his mother’s? “Ma’am, I’m Sophie, not—”

  “I know who you are!” she screeched. She pushed herself to her feet, the cat clutched tight to her bosom. “It wasn’t enough to co-opt my son, you took my cat, too? You’re a monster! You’ll be hearing from the police about this. I won’t put up with your vicious attacks anymore.”

  “Mrs. Bishop,” she started, trying to gather her flying thoughts. “You broke into my house.”

  “You’re a liar and a slut.” With that simple defense, Rose Bishop limped forward on her bare feet.

  More than a little freaked out, Sophie moved sideways toward the kitchen, circling the path from the couch to the door. Rose watched her just as warily until she got to the door. She fumbled with it for a moment, and Sophie was faced with the bizarre decision of whether or not to unlock the door for her trespasser. But Rose finally realized the problem. She unlocked the door, then threw it open as if she were the one under threat.

  A few seconds after she disappeared, Sophie tiptoed forward and carefully peeked her head out, half expecting the woman to be lurking in the corner of the porch. But the porch was clear and Alex’s mother was limping down the sidewalk toward her house.

  Sophie was frozen, half crouched and clutching the doorjamb as she craned her neck to keep track of the woman’s progress. Was she delusional? Had she suffered some sort of spell?

  “Shit,” Sophie breathed. “Holy shit.” What the hell had just happened?

  She leaned farther out, but Mrs. Bishop was out of sight now, and Sophie felt suddenly guilty. What if she just kept walking and wandered out of town or into the street and got hurt?

  When she stood and stepped outside, Sophie realized her hands were shaking. She laced her fingers together and held tight. “This is crazy,” she whispered to herself as she moved down to the walk and crept forward.

  She caught sight of Mrs. Bishop just as the woman stepped into her house. The door closed behind her with a solid thunk that Sophie could hear from her house.

  Now what?

  She couldn’t just stay out here staring at the woman’s house. Someone would see her and add stalking to the epic tale of the Heyers versus the Bishops.

  Sophie sprinted back into her house. She had no idea why she was the one feeling guilty. Rose was the criminal here.

  Before she even got to her door, she heard her cell phone ringing and gave up any pretense of calm to sprint up the steps. “Hello?” she asked on a gasp. “Alex?”

  The wind stole his voice for a moment, blowing into his phone and crackling into her ear.

  “Alex?” she asked again.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just... I didn’t know who to call.”

  “What happened?”<
br />
  “I came home and your mom was in my living room.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? I hope you called the police.”

  “What? No. She wasn’t okay, Alex. She was confused.”

  “She’s been confused for a long time.”

  “I mean it! She thought I was my mom. She kept asking where her husband was.”

  Alex sighed. “Listen, Sophie, I’m already on my way out of town. You’ll have to call Shane about it.”

  The shock of the whole day must have finally caught up with her. Sophie nearly dropped the phone. Her knees went so weak that she had to sit down. He was gone? Just like that?

  But of course he was. After today he wouldn’t have felt any obligation to even say goodbye to her. “Okay,” she finally managed to croak. “She’s home alone and I don’t think she should be. I’ll call Shane if you’ll give me his number.”

  The wind caught his phone again. She wondered where he was. If he’d left right after that nightmare today, he could already be in Utah or Colorado or Idaho.

  He said her name.

  “Yes?”

  “I said I’ll text you his number.”

  “Thanks.” She hung up before she could say more. If she told him she was sorry, all the emotion inside her would come bubbling up. She was so damn tired, anything could’ve pushed her to tears, and hearing that he was already gone was more than just anything.

  But she had to hold it together. She couldn’t crawl into her bed just yet. Or could she?

  If Rose had been such an awful mother that her own son didn’t give a damn about her, did Sophie have an obligation to take care of her? Rose had been calling Sophie’s mom a slut and a whore and home wrecker for a quarter of a century. She’d transferred all that spite to Sophie. After all the awful ways Rose had tried to hurt the Heyer family, why help her at all?

  But the devil on Sophie’s shoulder had nothing on the very loud angel sitting on the other. She checked her texts for Shane’s number, then closed them and checked again. Nothing. Just as she was checking a third time, her phone rang. Alex’s name popped up.

  “I called Shane,” he said gruffly. “He’ll be at Mom’s within the hour. It’ll take me about that long to get back to town.”

  “Okay.”

  “I got a late start,” he said as if she’d challenged him.

  “Sure. All right. I hope she’s okay. I’d offer to go over, but...”

  “Yeah. You’d better not. I’ll see you in a while.”

  He hung up before she could apologize, but she was thankful. She didn’t know what to say. The next forty-five minutes ticked by. She paced from the porch to the living room to the bedroom. She changed into yoga pants and brushed out her hair. She poured herself a glass of wine, then changed her mind. What if she had to file a police report or something? But she managed to screw that up, too, by spilling half the wine on herself when she tried to get it back into the bottle. Reeks of alcohol, any police report would start with.

  Finally, just as dark was setting in, she heard the roar of Alex’s bike approaching. She opened the door before he even knocked.

  “My brother says she seems normal. Whatever that is.”

  “She’s not. Or she wasn’t. She was talking to me like I was my mother.”

  “Sophie.” He ran a hand over his head, drawing her eye to the smooth skin. She shook her head and looked away, but he kept talking. “Her whole thing has been treating you like you’re your mother, right?”

  “It wasn’t like that. She was confused. She was looking for your dad.”

  “Again, pretty standard.” His words were hard. Removed. Far cooler than they’d ever been with her before. He was pissed. At her and his mother and the whole world.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He shook his head like he didn’t understand.

  She felt a brief moment of irritation, but she knew it was ungracious. “About today. I’m sorry that I showed up and set her off.”

  “Yeah.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “What the hell was that, Sophie? Why were you there?”

  She’d thought she was ready to talk about it, but his questions made her insides quake. “I’m so sorry. My brother was...” She waved a helpless hand.

  Alex stared hard at her. “He was what?”

  “I don’t know. I was just trying to help.”

  “Right. He’s your brother. You want to support him.”

  “No!”

  His eyebrows rose in question, but his mouth was still a flat, cold line of doubt.

  “Alex, I wasn’t supporting him! I heard that he was there. I only wanted him to leave. That’s all. I didn’t... I’d never have gone. Never.”

  His stiff shoulders relaxed a little. “What was he doing there?”

  “I don’t know. He wanted to make a point.”

  “What point?”

  “A stupid point! How should I know? It was cruel of him and terrible and I only wanted to stop it. I’m so sorry, Alex.”

  “Jesus. Don’t cry.”

  She shook her head and swiped at her cheeks. “He thinks you’re his brother.”

  Alex’s head drew back. “His what?”

  “I guess there were rumors that he was your dad’s son. Like an idiot, he listened to them.” A little hiccup escaped her throat and she swallowed it back. “He looks like my dad, but I don’t think he got anything else from him. No dignity or work ethic or common sense... God, what am I going to do?”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “No, but I have to live with it.” She blinked her tears away and caught his eye. “I’m sorry. This isn’t about me. Your mom. She needs help.”

  “She’s always needed help.”

  “I’ve been on the sharp end of her obsession for a long time, but this is different, Alex. This isn’t martyrdom or stubbornness. There’s something wrong.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe she was just trying to freak you out. Do you think that’s beyond her? She broke into your house just a few hours after she called you a whore in front of the whole town. She’s nobody’s victim.”

  “And after everything she’s done to me, I’m still worried about her. Why aren’t you?”

  He didn’t answer her question. Instead, he dug his phone from his pocket and scrolled, looking angry that she’d even asked the question.

  “And you didn’t tell me you stole her cat! I thought she was going to kill me!”

  He grunted, but didn’t glance up from the phone. “She’s seeing her psychiatrist next week.”

  “Good. Okay.”

  “My brother’s texting me. I’d better get back.” He hesitated for a moment, but he didn’t say anything else. He only studied her face and then walked toward the door. “Thanks for calling.”

  That was it. He was gone again. As far away as if he was still on his bike, heading anywhere but here.

  Sophie locked the door, turned off the lights and crawled into bed. She couldn’t help anyone else today, not even herself. Tomorrow she’d try to clean up the mess. Again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ALEX PRETENDED THERE wasn’t a kitten curled up and purring under his chin as he scowled at his brother. “We’ll see how she’s doing in the morning. I’m obviously not going to get out of town tonight.”

  “You weren’t supposed to leave tonight anyway,” Shane countered. “What the fuck was that?”

  “You were busy. There wasn’t any reason to stay.” The kitten nuzzled his throat. He gave up ignoring it and scratched the back of its head. The purring rumbled more loudly. “She’s sleeping?” he asked, tipping his head toward the back room.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “What did Sophie say exactly?”r />
  “That she kept asking where her husband was, as if Sophie was actually her mother. Has Mom ever done anything like that before?”

  Shane shook his head.

  “Yeah. Maybe it was an act. I wouldn’t put it past her. I mean, Jesus, she sneaked into Sophie’s house and waited for her to come home.”

  Shane scrubbed both hands over his head. “I don’t know, man. We’ll see what her doctor says. Can’t you just stay? Maybe there’s something wrong. I know you think I’m as delusional as she is, but this summer it was almost like I was getting to know her again. I mean, before Dad disappeared, she was a real person with interests and hobbies—”

  “And grudges and feuds,” Alex interrupted.

  Shane smiled. “Okay, I’ll concede that she’s always been dramatic, but she was a whole person once, and it felt like she was inching back toward that. And this—” He swept a hand out to take in the whole room. “It wasn’t like this.”

  “She’s obviously been saving this crap for years, Shane.”

  “Yeah, but it was all in that little study.”

  “You mean the room where she sleeps? On a couch instead of a bed?”

  “She has a bedroom upstairs and she stopped using it. That’s my point. Things have gone south really quickly.”

  Alex sighed, then winced when the kitten dug her claws into his collarbone. “Fine. I believe you. But I still don’t know what that has to do with me. Frankly, she’s practically a stranger to me.”

  “We’re the only family you have.”

  “Well, Jesus. Way to make me feel better.”

  Shane laughed and reached for one of the beers he’d brought over. “I’ll sleep down here in the living room. There’s a spare bedroom upstairs, or you can stay at my place.”

  Shit. Alex knew exactly where he wanted to stay, and even though he knew there wasn’t a chance in the world, making another commitment felt like sacrilege.

  “So it’s true?” Shane asked softly after a moment.

  “What?”

  “You and Sophie?”

  Alex cursed and tensed up so much that the kitten uncurled and went to sit on Shane’s lap. Alex’s neck was ice cold without her. “It’s not true that she’s a whore who has her claws in me, if that’s what you mean.”