Girls of Brackenhill(81)
“You followed her.”
“I confronted her.” Alice’s voice boomed now. She was yelling, angry, her hair slipping from the tidy ponytail. “I heard her tell that vegetable of a husband how sorry she was for what they did. How she ruined his life and their lives. What about my life? She killed Ellie just as I was getting sober. I was ready to form a relationship with my daughter. Do you know where Ellie was going the night she ran away? The night she came here first?”
Hannah felt the answer flow through her like water.
“To meet me. She was taking the bus to Tempe from Rockwell. Then we were both going to New York City. Figured we’d both waitress, get a studio apartment, start over in a place no one knew us. I didn’t have a car. We’d been talking on the phone. Writing letters. Warren had no idea, but he was an abusive, alcoholic drunk. I was trying to finally make things right for my daughter.” Alice dropped her head to her chest, caught her breath. “When she didn’t show up, I took a cab to Warren’s house. He drove up here to find her because I told him to. He was drunk, I wouldn’t get in the car with him, but it was the only chance I had. He came back with nothing. All he told me was he saw her run into the woods, and he saw that bitch Fae chase her.” Alice sliced the air with the knife, the serrated edge glinting in the dim light. “She never loved Ellie.”
“How did you get this job?” Hannah felt breathless, almost paralyzed with fear, her legs shaking.
“God, it was so stupidly easy. I just showed up. Warren told me Stuart was sick. It was his idea. He said you can pretend to be a nurse. Years ago, I was an orderly in a hospital. I knew enough to get by. You can research anything on the internet. I didn’t need to actually help him; I just had to be believable. I had Fae order his medicine through his doctor. I said I was from the hospice agency. She never bothered to check. I didn’t collect a paycheck, so it’s near impossible to get caught. If I had tried to collect money, it would be a different story. He did have other home help: therapists mainly. But the hospice system is such a mess it was easy to lose me. Every time I came close to getting found out, I’d invent a paperwork glitch.”
“Why? Why now? Eighteen years later? What were you trying to do?” Hannah asked, her voice quiet, hands still.
Alice sighed, the knife making a zigzag in the air. “I spent a long time after Ellie disappeared on drugs. Anything I could get my hands on. Pills and coke. Whatever was cheapest. Booze and weed. When I sobered up, I wanted the truth. Warren heard that Fae was looking for in-home help, and he called me. Nobody in Rockwell knew who I was. If Warren tried to even set one foot on Brackenhill, McCarran would be called up here so fast. But me? I never lived a day in my life in this dump of a town. Nobody knew who I was.”
“What was your plan?” Hannah was appalled but fascinated. Alice had dropped all the pretense of an educated woman. Her mountain accent was getting thicker by the second. While Alice talked, Hannah tried to corral her thoughts. Why was Alice telling her all this? It must be a relief, to finally be free. She’d been carrying the burden of hate around for eighteen years.
“I thought if I got close to Fae, I could get her to confess. I stupidly thought she’d confess to me. She never did, no matter how I prodded her.” Alice kept sagging, her voice quieting, and then straightening up, squaring her shoulders, staring at Hannah defiantly. She stabbed the air when she said “never did,” and Hannah backed away quickly. “I started coming back at night. It’s easy to hide in a castle. Fae ignored every little noise anyway. I didn’t even have to be that careful.”
How many of the noises in the night had been Alice? At least since Hannah had been back? Hannah pressed her palm to her forehead.
This was crazy. Alice was crazy. The lantern flickered, the batteries waning. Hannah was starting to not feel so sane herself. Truth be told, she hadn’t felt sane in weeks.
“You confronted Fae, and she fled down Valley Road, and you chased her off into the ravine?”
Alice stopped, studied Hannah’s face. “What would you do, if it were your daughter?”
A tough question to answer. Hannah couldn’t imagine having a daughter. Truthfully, she’d never been able to imagine it.
“I don’t know,” Hannah whispered.
“That’s right. No one knows.” Alice seemed to notice the knife in her hand for the first time. She stepped closer, and Hannah swallowed back a knot of fear in her throat. “I was waiting to make sure the remains were Ellie. Then I was going to leave town. Start over somewhere new. I did what I had to do to get peace for my baby girl.” Her voice lowered, patient and slow. She smiled. “But the thing is . . . you found me out here. Maybe . . . you went a little crazy; you know how you get. Everyone’s worried about you, you know. Detective McCarran—I’m sorry, Wyatt. You’re running all over town, confronting Warren, talking to his neighbors and family. Harassing Jinny, making her cry. See, Warren and I are partners in this thing now, so I know everything.” She grinned wildly. “You found me out here, went a little wild. Tried to hit me . . .” Alice stopped, looked around, grabbed a shovel off the wall. “Maybe with this. I mean, fitting, don’t you think?”
Hannah didn’t have an answer. She couldn’t think a step ahead of Alice, her mind moving underwater. She had to think, but every breath felt shaky. Every racing thought edged out the one before it, and she couldn’t focus on any of it. Alice was going to kill her. Think, think, Hannah!