Dead Set (Aspen Falls Novel)

by Melissa Pearl

  Alaina was standing on the doorstep of the house she’d grown up in, her mother in front of her, wearing a look of disapproval.

  “I don’t have a key anymore,” Alaina told her.

  “The door was unlocked.”

  “Still,” Alaina said, yanking her hat off as she stepped inside the house. “I didn’t want to just barge in unannounced.” She unzipped her coat and shrugged out of it.

  Wordlessly, her mother took it from her and marched it over to the coat closet. Alaina breathed deeply through her nose, trying to get her feelings under control.

  Coming home always did this to her, always messed with her head a little bit, and even though she knew her father wasn’t home, she still half-expected him to come storming into the room any minute, yelling at her and berating her. And the trauma from a few weeks back only added to the anxiety ricocheting through her.

  “What brings you here?” her mother asked, once the coat was safely put away.

  Alaina’s mother took her job as a homemaker seriously. It was the only thing she had—no career for her; Alaina’s father was adamantly opposed to his wife working outside the home—and Alaina’s childhood had been filled with homemade treats, home-cooked meals and always-spotless rooms. As a kid, she’d appreciated everything her mom did for her—well, as much as a kid could. But as she got older and started thinking of what she wanted for her own future, Alaina couldn’t help but wonder if her mother was satisfied with her lot in life or if she’d simply stepped into the shoes Alaina’s father insisted she fill.

  “Can’t a girl just drop by and see her mother?” Alaina asked, her tone a little snippy.

  Her mother looked startled and Alaina immediately felt guilty.

  “Of course,” her mother murmured. “Would you like something to drink? I’m afraid I don’t have any homemade cookies or bars. I haven’t baked in a while.” The sentence hung over them like a dark storm cloud, and Alaina knew what had been left unspoken. Her mother hadn’t baked since Noah died. “I have some store bought cookies if you want those,” she murmured, like it was some kind of failure on her part.

  They were still standing in the entryway, Alaina clutching her purse and her mother fingering the pearl choker around her neck. A stranger watching them would say they both looked awkward, unsure what to do, and Alaina wondered if that was normal. She’d lost a brother and her mother had lost a son. Would they ever be able to talk about it? Would they ever want to, or would it be this chasm destined to always be between them? She thought it might be.

  “I’m not hungry,” Alaina told her.

  “Are you sure? If you want to stay a while, I can put some brownies in the oven. You know, the double-chocolate ones…everybody…loves…so much.”

  The ones Noah used to love so much.

  The thought of trying to eat one made Alaina’s stomach knot. She shook her head. “I don’t have time.”

  Her mother’s face fell and guilt flooded Alaina.

  “Are you here because of the private investigator?” her mother asked. “He didn’t have much to say.” She clutched her necklace a little tighter. “Why was he here? What are you having him look into?”

  Alaina knew telling her mother about the real reason for Lucas’s visit would be a monumentally bad idea. “I just…” She paused. “I just want answers.”

  Her mother’s eyes moistened. “What do you mean?”

  Alaina folded her arms against her chest. “I want to know why it happened.”

  A tear slid down her mother’s cheek and she nodded stiffly.

  “I’m going to his room,” Alaina said.

  Her mother’s eyes widened. “What? Why?”

  “Because I want to,” Alaina said simply. “Because I need to.”

  Her mother shook her head. The tears were flowing freely now. “I can’t go down there.”

  “I don’t need you to,” Alaina said. “I can go by myself.”

  Her mother gave her a long look, and Alaina willed herself not to cry at the sight of her mom’s tear-stained face. She was still a pretty woman, but the last few weeks had taken a toll on her. She looked tired and wan, and had attempted to use makeup to mask these things…makeup that was now running and smudging due to her tears. She looked sad and old, and it made Alaina’s heart hurt.

  Lots of things were making her heart hurt.

  She took a step forward, intent on giving her mother a hug, but the older woman turned away and Alaina was left with her arms half-outstretched.

  “I’ll make some coffee,” her mother murmured as she headed into the kitchen, leaving Alaina alone in the hall.

  Alaina watched her disappear.

  She stood alone in the entryway, feeling like a stranger despite the fact that she was in the house she’d grown up in.

  But she was a stranger, she realized. She’d effectively been cut out of the family years ago, at least by her father, and her visits had been mostly limited to holiday gatherings. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d come by just to say hello.

  She pressed her lips together. It was fine. She’d had eight years to come to terms with all of it. And she had.

  Mostly.

  But this visit was different. This was all about Noah, which made it so much harder.

  Her legs felt shaky as she descended the stairs to the basement. The familiar smells washed over her: the lingering smell of laundry detergent and fabric softener from the laundry room, and the smell that she could only describe as the basement. She couldn’t put it into words, but the scent tickled her nose and immediately brought back a thousand memories: of watching movies on the big TV, a bowl of popcorn tucked between her legs; of trying to play Barbies with her toddler brother racing around, yanking the dolls out of their chairs and off their beds; of sitting with friends, listening to music and gossiping about boys and school and everything in between.

  She swallowed. Good memories weren’t something she thought of often, at least not when it came to home. She didn’t like how they’d slammed into her just then, taken her by surprise. She hadn’t been ready for the onslaught. And she didn’t want them.

  Alaina tried to clear her mind as she headed toward her brother’s room. New memories tried to force their way in, sinister, dark ones that had only been formed a few weeks ago, but she held them at bay.

  Slowly, she reached for the doorknob. The metal was cold and smooth. Her heart was hammering as she pushed the door open.

  Again, it was the smell that hit her first, faint but definitely there. The smell of Noah’s cologne. A memory flashed in her mind, of Christmas two years ago when she’d gifted him the inexpensive bottle of cologne she’d picked up.

  “So you have something to mask your boy smell,” she’d told him jokingly.

  Noah had immediately opened the box and spritzed himself. He leaned over, sticking his chest in her face. “Do I smell better now?”

  She gagged as the cologne assaulted her nostrils.

  “Barely,” she said through a fit of exaggerated coughs.

  He swatted her and they’d both collapsed into laughter.

  Alaina blinked, furiously trying to clear the image from her mind. So many damn memories.

  Her eyes stung with tears. The rational part of her knew that someday, those memories would be a blessing. But at that moment, they felt like a curse. Just like all the others.

  She sucked in a lungful of air and then slowly exhaled as she looked around the room.

  It looked like Noah’s room. Same bedding, same computer, same books on the shelves. Nothing looked any different than the last time she’d stepped foot inside of it. Christmas morning, when he’d convinced her to come downstairs so she could check out the new monitor he’d gotten and had already set up.

  But it wasn’t the same.

  Everything had changed.

  Everything.

  She took a tentative step into the room, purposely avoiding the closet. She knew she couldn’t look at the door because her mind would
betray her, would pull up the image she couldn’t bear to see. It was the same image she’d conjured up as soon as she’d found out what had happened: Noah’s lifeless body swaying in the doorframe, his desk chair knocked over.

  Her mother had been the one to find him. The morning after, when literally nothing could be done to save him. She and Alaina’s father had returned home from an overnight trip to St. Paul, some corporate dinner and party they’d had to attend. Neither of them had given a second thought to leaving Noah home alone. He’d been left before, dozens of times. He was the responsible one, the one her parents never had to worry about. He always did what he was told, listened to what they had to say. He was the one who would dutifully go to college, who would fulfill all of his parents’ expectations.

  Except he wouldn’t.

  Swinging feet.

  Pale skin.

  Blue lips.

  “No,” Alaina whispered fiercely, shaking her head. “Do not think of that.”

  She focused her gaze on the bookcase in front of her, and relief washed over her when she immediately spied what she was looking for. With confident steps, she marched to the bookcase and pulled the three black volumes from the middle shelf. Noah’s yearbooks. She set the tomes on her brother’s bed and began to thumb through last year’s book. It made sense to start with the most recent, and since this year’s yearbook hadn’t come out yet, his junior year one was it.

  Emotion flooded her as she paged through the book. Not because she saw pictures of Noah—there were a couple, but not many—but because there were so few signatures in the book. Alaina thought back to her own yearbooks, to the novel-like writing her friends had left for her. She’d had dozens of friends, and even more acquaintances. She was well-liked, she was active in student government and the student newspaper and choir…and Noah was not.

  It was painful to read the messages his classmates had left for him. Most had just signed their name. A few had written generic messages. “Have a good summer.” “See you next year.” Those weren’t the messages a friend would write, or even an acquaintance.

  Alaina swallowed against the tears clogging her throat. She realized she had no idea what her brother’s high school experience had been like.

  Because she’d never asked.

  She closed her eyes briefly. The guilt was going to kill her.

  She looked around the room, taking a break from the yearbook, still purposely avoiding the closet. She spotted a pair of photos on the window ledge and couldn’t help but smile. One was from their trip to Hawaii several summers ago, the summer before her senior year. They’d gone to the luau show at their hotel and Noah had been pulled up on stage by one of the dancers. He’d hammed it up, donning a lei and asking if he could wear a grass skirt, too. The long-haired Hawaiian woman had disappeared momentarily and then returned with a grass skirt to tie around his waist. The photo in the frame captured the moment perfectly.

  The other picture was angled away from Alaina and harder to see. She stepped toward it and then noticed two more frames, both on their sides. She frowned. Had Noah knocked them over?

  She went to straighten them but her hand froze in midair. Her eyes zeroed in on the window. It wasn’t open, but there was something that sent shivers down her spine.

  There was a lock on Noah’s window.

  She’d never noticed it before.

  But there was also something that made the hairs on her arm stand at attention.

  The lock was broken.

  12

  Wednesday, March 21st

  1:30pm

  Lucas sipped the coffee in his hands.

  He was at Lulu’s with a cup of freshly brewed coffee, waiting on Blaine. A blueberry muffin sat parked in front of him, a monstrosity sprinkled with what looked like an entire cup of crystallized sugar. But Lucas wasn’t complaining. No one made better muffins in town than Lulu’s.

  He tore off a hunk of the muffin and popped it in his mouth. The taste of fresh blueberries and cinnamon was like nirvana, and he had to remind himself to slow down and ignore the temptation to devour the whole thing.

  He looked around the coffee shop, soaking in the ambience and the sunshine streaming in through the windows. Music played softly in the background—a Beatles song, he thought—and the smell of roasting coffee beans permeated the entire space. Lulu’s felt like a home away from home, and often served as a makeshift office for him, especially when the mess of his real office had been too much to bear. On more than one occasion, he’d contemplated giving up his lease and just working from a table here in the shop. Of course, he’d then have to find a new home for all of his work shit, and that alone was enough to throw cold water on the fantasy. Besides, he needed an office, a work address that made his business official. He knew it was old-school thinking—so many people worked from home or from any place they could access Wi-Fi—but he’d spent his entire career with as legitimate of an employer as one might have: the police force. Having an office made him feel like he was operating a legitimate business…even on the days when it was too messy to walk into.

  “Hey, stranger.”

  Lucas looked up.

  Blaine pulled out the chair across from him, the squeak of the chair legs across the floor like nails on a chalkboard.

  “Hey, yourself,” Lucas said.

  Blaine slid into the chair with his own cup of coffee and muffin, a chocolate chip one. “How you been?” he asked as he slipped out of his coat. He was dressed in jeans and a thermal, not in his police uniform, and Lucas was grateful for that. He didn’t like that it sometimes still got to him, seeing his buddies in uniform when he’d had to hang his up over a year ago.

  His gut tightened just like it always did when he let his thoughts drift to his time on the force and the incident that had killed his career as a police officer.

  Injured in the line of duty. It sounded honorable, like he’d been a hero or something. His lips twisted into a scowl at the memory. There was nothing heroic about his injury or his exit from the force.

  A baseball game.

  A stupid fucking baseball game.

  It had been a charity event, the Aspen Falls police force battling it out on the field against the firefighters. It had been a tradition for nearly a decade, a fundraiser to help raise money for new equipment. Lucas had never loved baseball—his sport had always been hockey—but he was athletic enough to be decent at any sport he participated in. A bad slide into second base during that game and Wyatt Gentry’s 250-pound frame landing full-force on his twisted knee had been enough to tear his ACL and shatter his kneecap. Despite surgery and immediate therapy, it became clear that he’d never be in the same physical shape he’d been in prior to the injury. He’d never be able to pass the physical required for any responsibilities out in the field.

  Sure, he’d been offered a desk job, but he knew immediately that the last thing he was going to do was push papers around for the rest of his life. Hell, knowing his organizational skills, he’d probably lose half of whatever ended up on his desk.

  It had been the most brutal decision he’d ever had to make, but walking away from his career in law enforcement was the only thing he could do.

  He’d sulked for the better part of a month, pissed off at the world. And then, when his bank account began to dwindle and he realized current life expectancies projected him to live at least another forty years, he figured he’d better get his shit together and come up with a plan.

  He liked investigating. He liked solving mysteries. He liked getting the bad guys.

  And getting his private investigator’s license would allow him to do all of those things. There’d be no physical to pass, no superior to report to. He’d be his own boss.

  It wasn’t ideal—if he was being honest with himself, he’d admit being a cop was still better—but it was all he had.

  So he had to be alright with it. Because it was his only option.

  “That good, huh?” Blaine asked with a chuckle.

&n
bsp; Lucas blinked, coming back to the present. “Huh?”

  “I asked how you’ve been.” Blaine smirked. “Too complicated of a question? Need me to simplify things?”

  “Shut up,” Lucas said with a good-natured smile. “To answer your question, I’ve been alright.” He sipped his coffee. “Ready for winter to be over.”

  Blaine snorted. “You know we’ve got another month of this, right?”

  “Nah, it’s gonna be an early spring. Farmer’s Almanac said so.”

  “You don’t believe that crap, do you?”

  Lucas shrugged. “Only if they’re telling me something I wanna hear.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Blaine said with a grin. He kicked his legs out straight and leaned back in his seat, his gaze drifting to the front counter.

  Lucas followed with his eyes. Rosie was at the register, chatting with a customer. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, her cheeks rosy, her sweet smile visible even from a distance. She looked up, her gaze drifting across the café, settling on Blaine. Her smile deepened, her cheeks turning almost crimson.

  “You and Rosie doing good?”

  Blaine didn’t respond.

  Lucas kicked his friend’s shoe. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “What?” Blaine asked, finally turning his attention back to his friend.

  “Now who’s not paying attention?” Lucas rolled his eyes. “I asked how things are going with you and Rosie. She fully recovered and everything?”

  Blaine smiled. “Yeah, thank God. She’s bounced back fast and doesn’t seem to be having nightmares or anything.” He winced. “Considering she was shot, I was worried it might be worse, but things are really looking up for her.”

  “Yeah?”

  He nodded. “She’s working pretty much full-time right now for Louanne—not just counter help but also with the baking.”

  Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? She make this muffin?” He gestured at the half-eaten one in front of him.

  Blaine chuckled. “I think she’s doing mostly cookies and cupcakes right now. You know, the really good stuff.”