“Earth to Alice!”
Somebody snapped their red polished fingertips mere inches from her face; Alice jolted back to reality to find Cassie staring at her expectantly.
“Oh, sorry!” She slipped down from her stool and greeted her with a hug. “Hi! How are you?”
“I’ll be better with some vodka inside of me.” Rolling her black-rimmed eyes, Cassie shrugged off her leather jacket, revealing a wisp of a white silk that was almost entirely transparent under the spotlights of the cramped, tiny club. “God, it was mayhem on set today. It’s like they’ve never seen Brad in the flesh before.” She paused a moment, letting her gaze drift over Alice’s figure-skimming black jersey dress, draped low to show more than a hint of cleavage. A knowing smile spread over her face. “So, come on, what’s his name?”
“Hmm?” Alice blinked.
“The man you’re fucking.” Cassie gave her a mischievous grin. “’Cause it’s obvious you’re getting something.”
Alice laughed. “I’m not! Well, yet,” she added, with a meaningful look. “And his name is Nathan.”
“Thank God!” Cassie exclaimed, summoning the bartender with a dramatic hair-toss. “I was beginning to think you’d taken vows. I was going to offer Vitolio’s services, for the good cause.”
“Cassie! I can’t believe you.” Alice laughed. “What are you, his pimp?”
Cassie relaxed against the bar. “There’s no need to act so scandalized, darling. We’re in an open relationship, all totally above board.”
“Really? That works for you?”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“But don’t you get jealous—when he’s out with other women?”
Cassie shook her head. “Oh, he doesn’t actually see anyone else. It’s just a technicality—so if I meet somebody…Well, I won’t have to choose.” She gave a nonchalant shrug, as if the prospect of fidelity was simply passé.
“How very foresighted of you,” Alice remarked drily.
Cassie grinned. “Be prepared—wasn’t that what they were always telling us in Brownies?”
She passed Alice her drink. “So, is that the big news? You said we were celebrating.”
“We are.” Alice beamed. “I booked my first job—for Kieran. It’s some twisted child molester in a big TV drama. They start shooting next week, and their original guy dropped out, because he didn’t want to be associated with such a horrific role. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Congratulations!” Cassie toasted her. “God, I wish I’d seen Vivienne’s face, she must have hated it.”
“She did look rather…put out,” Alice agreed, remembering the tight-lipped congratulations. “But she can’t do anything, not as long as she’s getting a cut of the commission.”
“Of course,” Cassie agreed. “If there’s one thing that woman loves, it’s money. Just watch out she doesn’t go taking credit for everything.”
“Oh, no,” Alice vowed, enjoying the slow burn of alcohol as it slid down her throat. “I’m not going to sit quietly up in my attic anymore. This is only the beginning.”
***
One drink turned into three, and soon Alice was flushed with excitement. She was usually bored at clubs like this, finding them too loud and hectic, but tonight, the brash style suited her mood. She even danced, alone and unself-conscious in the midst of the hipster throng while Cassie held court with a group of sharp-haired women dripping dark eyeliner and expensive ripped jeans, Alice’s weeks of dance class giving her the confidence and rhythm she’d always lacked before.
Pausing for breath, she made her way back to the bar for water. Almost immediately, a man swooped in to make his approach. His introduction was lost under the thud of music, but Alice didn’t mind; it wasn’t as if she would need it.
But instead of politely turning away, something made her stop, a wicked thought taking shape. With a tattoo twisting up from under the vintage T-shirt and at least two days of sleepless stubble on his face, he certainly wasn’t Alice’s usual type; a different woman, however, might just have a thing for bad boys.
“I’m Juliet,” she told him, feeling a now-familiar thrill as the untruth left her lips. Alice smiled at him invitingly. She didn’t feel quite as careless as in Rome but that same impulse had returned: to be bold, to be somebody different, even just for a little while. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, her voice dropping a little.
“Juliet, huh…” Taking her outstretched hand, the man turned it over and bent his head to kiss her palm. “With a name like that, I don’t think this is going to end well.”
“Probably not,” Alice pretended to muse, already assembling the cocktail of personal history that would make up this other woman. “But as long as we don’t go trying to fake our own deaths, we’ll be fine. You can go off and write heartbroken poetry, and I’ll put you in a novel one day.”
“You’re a writer?” His lips curved; more at the prospect of being immortalized in prose than with admiration for her feigned profession, Alice was sure.
“Hmm? Oh, yes.” She gave a self-deprecating shrug. “Erotica, mainly. It’s a growing market, and I really like to push the boundaries…” Alice trailed off, watching as his eyes widened. This was almost too easy. “So what brings you here tonight?”
“Just some drinks with friends.” He moved closer, ostensibly in order to speak louder in her ear, but mainly, Alice noted with amusement, to glance down the front of her dress. She could hardly blame him. The pink lace balconette bra that, months ago, had been her first sure fact in Ella’s tangled trail, peeped out from beneath the slashed neckline in a flash of color.
“So, these books of yours…” he murmured, leaning even closer. “How much research do you do?”
Alice laughed. “Enough. I need them to be authentic, after all. It’s the…little details that make something arousing, don’t you think?” She raised an eyebrow, teasing. He grinned back.
“Fuck yeah.”
Alice didn’t ask him about himself, she wasn’t going to share more than this drink and a few lies with him. Still, she relished the bright flicker as she spun Juliet’s self-deprecating story, the direct glances and careful shifts in body language that left her breathless, and this stranger hanging from her every word. This was what her clients must feel like as they recited lines from somebody else’s script: the curious self-awareness that came from inhabiting another persona, yet still watching, as if from outside herself.
“So I wrote a few short pieces for the Erotic Review, starting out, and—oh, there’s my friend.” Alice looked past him to where Cassie was lounging in the shadows, her pale skin lit up by a flash of light. “I should go.”
The man followed her gaze, raking over Cassie’s revealing outfit. “My boys are just in the back, we could all hang out,” he offered eagerly.
Alice gave him a polite smile, already done. “No, thanks. She just went through a wretched breakup,” she lied, as if confiding. “She’s not really in the party mood.”
He looked back, in time to see Cassie throw her head back and laugh, posing for the snaps of a roving party photographer. “You sure? Because we were going to head to a private party at—”
“I’d rather not.” She neatly sidestepped him. “I’m engaged, you see. But thanks for the drink.” Alice raised her glass to him, and then just walked away, slipping into the thick crowd as Juliet, and all her erotic adventures, simply evaporated, leaving only adrenaline kicking in her veins from the stories she’d spun.
“Come on.” Making a breathless detour back to the table, Alice tried to coax Cassie onto the narrow dance floor. “This song is incredible.”
Cassie looked up, half hidden in the shadows. “Just a sec, Aly. I’m in the middle of something.” There was a guilty edge to her expression, and as she leaned forward for her drink, the reason became clear: sprawling beside her in too-tight jeans and another ridiculous cravat, one arm draped around her bare shoulders.
“Dakota.” Alice gree
ted him coolly, her elation suddenly fading. “I didn’t know you were in town.”
“Yeah, just scoping for some shoots.” He was playing with an unlit cigarette, tapping it nervously between thumb and index finger as if he could feel the force of her displeasure. Or, more likely, he was wired. “How’ve you been?”
“Oh, just peachy,” Alice replied. She reached for Cassie’s bony wrist. “We’ll be right back.”
Cassie’s protest was lost under the music as Alice dragged her determinedly toward the front exit.
“What the hell are you playing at?”
Outside, it was dark and muggy, the dirty backstreet empty save the clusters of casual smokers who looked up at the sound of Alice’s fierce demand.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Cassie looked away. “Will you let go of me?”
“So you can go back inside, to him?” Alice released her, suddenly not so much angry as worn out. Over and over again, she’d watched Cassie do this, as if the outcome would be any different. Her optimism would almost be admirable, if it weren’t so tragic. “God, Cassie, are you really going to do this again?” She couldn’t help the pleading note that crept into her voice. “Seriously?”
“He’s sorry,” Cassie insisted, folding her arms defiantly. “He—he just does this stuff because he’s scared, because we mean so much to each other…” The words were confident, but her eyes began to shine with tears. “He can’t help it, sabotaging everything, but Alice, I know he can get it together.” Cassie looked up, carefully swiping under the lashes to preserve the sanctity of her eyeliner.
Alice exhaled. This was usually her cue to soften, comforting Cassie and encouraging her to move on with her life, to put those painful “almosts” behind her. But this time, Alice couldn’t find it in her, and looking at Cassie—with that powerless expression she always wore whenever Dakota came sauntering back around—Alice knew suddenly what she had to do.
“He’s a selfish, cheating piece of shit,” she said, shortly. Cassie blinked with surprise, but Alice just stared evenly at her, some long-frayed cord in her snapping cleanly apart. “If he loved you, he wouldn’t hurt you. If he loved you, he wouldn’t keep you dangling like this. It’s your fault, Cassie!” She was in full flow now, gathering all the harsh truths she’d bitten back for the sake of their friendship. “Not the old stuff, in the beginning—you trusted him, and he let you down—fine. But everything since then: the past five fucking years of misery, that’s all your doing. You could be happy, with Vitolio, or someone else, but you don’t want it, do you? All that shit you were saying about an open relationship, it’s all just so you can go running back to him!”
“But—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Alice cut her off, still cold. “You keep telling yourself these stories, all his excuses, but at the end of the day, he’s not with you because he chooses not to be! We all have a fucking choice, and you’re choosing to be miserable and wretched.” She took a breath, steeling herself. “So, I’m done.”
“What do you mean?” Cassie’s lip trembled, eyes wide with confusion.
“I’m done—with you, with all of this. Go back to him, get your heart broken again, whatever you want.” Alice shrugged, sharp and final. “But I don’t want to hear a word. Cry to somebody else.” Cassie opened her mouth in protest, but she didn’t pause. “I mean it. Don’t call me, don’t even see me while you’re still doing this. I can’t take it anymore.”
In her whole life, Alice had never fought with a friend or walked away from somebody in tears, but as she turned the corner, she didn’t feel even a pang of regret for her decision. With every step away from Cassie’s forlorn figure, she half expected her resolve to slip, pulled down by guilt and sympathy, but none came. She had truly reached her limit.
***
It was almost midnight, but Alice found herself still restless, walking back toward the main street that was overflowing with late-night revelers. She could catch the last Tube home, if she hurried, but the prospect of a cup of tea and bed seemed weak when she still had so much energy vibrating in her system. Pulling out her phone, she quickly dialed. “Hi—Nathan?”
“Hey, you.” He sounded relaxed, but then concern crept into his tone. “What’s going on? Are you OK?”
She laughed at his panic. “Oh, God, you’re going to think I’m in trouble every time I call, aren’t you?”
“Only when it’s this late.” Nathan chuckled. “So you’re all right? No need for bail and a lawyer?”
“None at all,” Alice reassured him. She paused by the curb, preemptively raising her arm to hail a cab. “I could go for takeout though. Say, at yours…?”
The suggestion lingered between them, its implications clear.
“I’ll order now,” he said immediately. “Chinese? Pizza? Thai?”
“You choose.” Alice felt herself smile, already full of anticipation. The food was hardly the most important thing. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
***
The food was cold by the time they got around to eating it, but Alice nonetheless thought it the most delicious takeout she’d ever tasted—sprawled on his bedroom floor surrounded by hastily discarded clothing. Soon, however, tiredness overtook them, and they returned to bed, collapsing heavy limbed into a satisfied sleep.
For a few hours, at least. Then, Alice woke with a start. Faking their own deaths.
Her earlier comment in the club flared bright enough to cut through the sleepy afterglow of her late night and Nathan’s arms, warm around her. She sat up, breathing quickly as the possibility became solid: crossing over from a vague dream state to something real and full of potential.
The thought of Ella had woken Alice before, but this time, it wasn’t just a jumbled dream—this time, it was revelation. Nathan had said that there was no recent trace of this Kate Jackson aside from the address he’d found, that it was just another alias. But what if the opposite were actually true—what if Kate Jackson was Ella’s original identity? Alice considered it breathlessly. There had to be a starting point, surely, before the fake identities and lies had begun; there had to be a real person, buried beneath Ella’s casual deception. Perhaps this was it. That would explain why she hadn’t run up vast debts in the name or left the sort of wreckage she’d so casually inflicted on all her other victims. Because she’d wanted to keep it clear and unblemished, a sort of backup, for when the false names ran out.
The theory made sense. More than that, it seemed irresistible.
Nathan mumbled beside her, his arm still draped across her stomach, but Alice was suddenly too energized to sleep. Easing herself from under his embrace, she slipped out of bed and pulled a crumpled blanket around her shoulders. Tiptoeing past discarded clothing and her high-heeled shoe—tossed against the door in what had been a pleasant blur of hands and lips—she crept out of the bedroom, carefully pushing the door closed behind her.
Nathan’s flat was modern and minimal, with a study area set up on the far end of the open-plan living area, complete with gleaming desktop computer system. Alice padded across the room, her feet bare on the cool wooden floor. Settling in front of the computer, she said a silent prayer; after everything Nathan had learned from his career, she was expecting a raft of passwords and security checks, but when she reached for the wireless keyboard and hit the spacebar, the computer woke from sleep mode with a low whir.
Perfect.
The computer display showed four a.m., but Alice was wide awake as she reached for the mouse. She ran searches of the name, “missing,” and any other pertinent phrases she could think of, filtering to the rough time span Nathan had mentioned. If Ella really was Kate Jackson, then this Kate would have disappeared years ago: fading into nothing so other, false names could take her place.
Two dead, one missing—that was what Nathan had said about the original short-list.
Working swiftly, Alice quickly verified the deaths from online articles and local newspaper archives: a slow decline from cance
r, a bloody car wreck. She skimmed over the web pages, already ruling them out. Besides, Ella wouldn’t be so dramatic as to fake her own death, not when it would be simpler just to slip away one day—go out into the world as one person and come back as quite another. No, Alice knew, that just wasn’t her style.
But the missing woman? Now, she had more potential.
Alice wasn’t sure how long she sat there, bathed in the pale glow from the desk light, but the longer she looked, the more the data led back to one specific suspect, the Kate Jackson from Devon, who had turned twenty-nine years old last Thursday—at least, that’s what she would have done, but since she disappeared during a trip to Australasia five years ago, nobody had a clue if she was even alive to celebrate. Alice read through every mention she could find, but sadly, a solo female traveler going astray in that part of the world wasn’t rare; the coverage was depressingly thin: a sidebar in a national paper and a few stories in the local press, showing her anxious parents and older brother urging for more police support—Alice squinted at the small photo that adorned every story, snapped from an earlier, happier stage of her travels. The woman was grinning in a pale blue bikini, brown hair, brown eyes, medium height and weight. Entirely forgettable. Easily disguisable. It could be her.
Gazing at the grainy photo, Alice tried to see Ella in the girl’s features, but no matter how long she stared at it, she couldn’t be completely sure if it was her—or not.
What had she been running from?
There was a sudden noise from the bedroom. Alice leaped out of the chair and quickly switched the screen off, casting the room into dark again. Dashing toward the kitchen area, she flung open the fridge just as Nathan padded in, sleepy in an oversized pair of athletic shorts.
The Liberation of Alice Love Page 28