All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(52)

The crunch of feet in the leaves outside turned her head. From something much bigger than a squirrel. Not a dog . . . or a deer. It was the distinct sound of human feet pushing through the branches, and Alicia drew into herself. She put herself in shadows to keep hidden from some random glimpse from a stranger’s eyes through the old shed’s cracks, because surely whoever it was would keep on hiking by.

When the door, hanging by one hinge, creaked open, her heart pounded so fast and hard that for a moment she saw the red-and-gray throb of a faint coming on in the corners of her vision. She had no weapon but the jagged, broken leg of a wooden chair she found in a corner. She gripped it, white-knuckled, not sure what she meant to do with it, only that she would do whatever she had to.

The man in the doorway wore a slouchy knit cap over rumpled dark hair. An unbuttoned red-and-black flannel shirt over a mismatched green T and a pair of faded jeans with holes in the knees and ragged hems hanging over battered work boots. She was ready to hit him with the broken chair leg but held back at the last second when she recognized him.

“Ilya,” she said on a gasp of relief as she lowered the leg. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” He looked at the impromptu weapon, then at her face. Beyond her to the scattered remains of all the flowers. “I didn’t know you came here.”

“I didn’t know you did.” Shaking, she put down the chair leg and dusted her hands off on the seat of her jeans. She thought about sitting—her knees were knocking enough to make her unsteady—but she didn’t want to with him there. What she did there in the equipment shed was private. She didn’t want to share.

“I was just passing. I don’t always stop in here. But I like to go look out at the water on days like this.” Ilya cleared his throat.

Alicia had always known she was not the only person who’d lost Jennilynn. Her parents didn’t talk about it, but here was someone who might understand at least the smallest part of what she felt. Ilya loved her sister, too.

“I’ll go with you,” she said. “If that’s all right.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Sure. Okay.”

“Haven’t seen you around.” She let him lead so he could bend the branches out of the way to clear a path. “I heard Niko was working in Antarctica.”

She hadn’t heard it from Niko. Galina had told her one day when Alicia came out to get the mail. Waiting for a letter that never came.

Ilya glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, yeah.”

“How’s Galina taking that?”

He laughed. “She’s fine. Babulya is worried he’s going to freeze to death. We all tried to tell her they don’t live in igloos or whatever, but you know her.”

“Right.” They crunched along without talking for a few more minutes until the trees and brush began to thin and they reached the chain-link fence.

“How’s school?” He gave her a sideways glance.

“Fine.” Two years, business degree. She hadn’t had to leave home and, better than that, hadn’t needed to think hard about what she wanted to do or be. She would graduate in a few months, though. Then she’d have to figure out what she wanted to do. “Are you still working at the warehouse?”

“Yeah. Good money. Shitty hours.”

On the other side of the fence, they both headed in the same direction. Not toward the old rope swing and the outcropping of rocks where they’d spent so many summer days swimming. The other way, toward the quarry’s steep drop-off.

Together, they walked toward the place where Jennilynn’s body had been found.

There was no marker or memorial, nothing even like people sometimes put at spots along the highway to show where a fatal accident had occurred. The bushes that had been broken to show the place where Jenni had fallen had long ago grown back. The rocks beneath covered with water after the last few weeks of rain.

“I always think there will be . . . blood.” Ilya looked out, out, across the water to the high stone walls on the other side of the quarry.

Alicia shivered. “There wasn’t any blood, not even when they found her. It had all washed away.”

Ilya scuffed the dirt, kicking pebbles over the edge. Alicia listened but couldn’t hear the splash. She didn’t want to get any closer. Didn’t want to take the risk of slipping over and falling. She’d dreamed, a few times, of jumping. But she didn’t want to fall.

“Hey, look.” Ilya pointed at the broad white sign with red letters set up on the quarry’s other, higher, side. It was the size of a billboard. “It’s for sale.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


Ilya had finally made it in to work.

He’d shown up in ample time to handle the in-water classes at the VA, which was where he would spend his morning and most of the afternoon. He’d also given Alicia all the updates about the trip to Jamaica that was due to leave the following week—a trip she’d been on the verge of canceling, even though it would’ve meant losing all their deposits.

She had not yet spoken to him about the offer from Theresa. The thick packet of papers was on her desk in the plain white envelope. She hadn’t looked at it again since the meeting with Theresa earlier. She didn’t need to. The numbers inside it were burned into her mind enough so that all she had to do was go to her computer files and run some reports on what Go Deep owed and had earned over the past few years, and was likely to earn in the next few.