Locust Lane(76)

“You believe me, right?” he asked.

“Of course I do,” Celia said.





ALICE


She texted Celia while waiting for her room. Check-in usually wasn’t until four, but it turned out that she was a preferred customer. Something to do with the credit card. They promised to have a junior suite for her in an hour, tops. She waited in the lobby. Her sudden notoriety had closed off most of her usual venues for killing time. Going to spin or Starbucks might be amusing on some perverse borderline-sociopathic level, but she really didn’t need to be drenched in chai latte or have a kettlebell dropped on her foot. And Michel’s house was totally out of the question. She couldn’t even begin to imagine his fury and shame when he saw the article. He must now see her as some sort of succubus, invoked to deprive him of everything.

She established herself next to a potted tree and wrote to her former best friend, even though Celia would probably delete her text unread. She’d know that it was Alice behind Emerson Depths; that her dear friend was in fact her nemesis. But Alice still had to try to get through to her. Otherwise Christopher was going to wind up locked in a cage for a long, long time.

Until the reporter’s call the previous night, she’d truly believed they were turning this around. It had been a good weekend. The thread had worked better than she’d hoped. The comments proved that she’d tapped into a deep well of antipathy toward Jack. People genuinely didn’t like the kid. He’d humiliated some minimum wagers at the mall. He’d been a dick to multiple classmates. Worst of all, it seemed, he’d cheated at tennis.

It was the Lexi incident that struck the deepest chords. A number of anonymous Waldo girls now claimed they’d steered clear of Jack after detecting hints of his dark side. One wrote that the only reason Lexi dated him was b/c she was Metco and nobody told her. To which another unnamed poster added and the only reason Hannah Holt is with him is because she’s a total wimp.

Not just a wimp, Alice thought. It went deeper than that. Alice got it now. Hannah didn’t just tolerate Jack’s sadism. It was what drew her to him. And him to her. That was their bond, cruelty and pain. Hannah took what he wanted to give. Not just took. Needed.

Alice had thought the self-flagellation was behind them. The cuts and unexplained bruises. The uprooted hair on her sheets. The inexplicable falls, including a tumble down the basement steps that broke her wrist. And most of all, worst of all, that terrible moment when Alice walked into her stepdaughter’s room to find her using a pair of needle-nose pliers to unspool a hangnail. Blood streamed down the back of her hand. She’d made it to the first knuckle by the time Alice intervened. By no means squeamish, she’d swayed to the edge of consciousness while holding the girl’s hand under cold water in the bathroom. Hannah was unbothered by the blood; her only concern was that Alice not tell her father. And she hadn’t. Because she thought she could handle it. Fool that she was.

Alice remembered the bruise she’d seen on Friday and wondered how many more there were, how many more there had been. It was plain as day now. Jack hurt Hannah. And she took it because she thought that was the price of his love. Jack hurt Hannah and Alice should have known but she was too busy chasing her own thrills to notice. Most people worried what kind of secret pleasures their children were pursuing behind closed doors, when all the while Alice should have been wondering about the secret pain.

It wasn’t too late to stop it. Of course, that meant betraying Hannah. But she had no choice. The alternative was unthinkable: Christopher imprisoned, Michel ruined, Hannah condemned to a life of cruelty. Alice had never liked the term tough love, having experienced all the toughness she needed in the name of love. But suddenly she understood that was exactly what was needed.

And it seemed to be working. Jack was being exposed as the sadist he was. Not only that, but Alice had been able to see Michel again on Saturday night in a Route 9 parking lot. At first, he was gloomy. Christopher had been in bad shape when he saw him earlier in the day. He was having trouble understanding what Michel said to him. It was almost as if he were drugged. All he could say was that he didn’t kill Eden.

Alice tried to rally Michel by explaining that she was close to getting Hannah to tell the truth. All she needed was one more conversation.

“But how do we get her to go to the police?” he asked after she told him what the girl had said.

“I’m working on it.”

Michel finally allowed her to comfort him. She stroked his hair and they kissed and then desire took over. She conducted him to the passenger seat and then they were in a hidden place, shrouded by their love and desire.

Sunday felt endless. She expected Hannah to come back from Boston in the afternoon, but Geoff informed her she’d be away until the following morning. And then her phone rang. It was a Boston number. Presuming it was a telemarketer, Alice didn’t pick up. She was surprised to see that they left a message that lasted for over thirty seconds. She listened, and her world fell apart. It was a reporter from some tabloid. Substantial allegations had been made against Alice that needed to be addressed. She needed to call back right away—they’d be running something tomorrow. She took a deep breath and hit redial.

“What is this?”

“Would you care to characterize the nature of your relationship with Michel Mahoun?”

The woman knew everything. Michel, the Twitter thread. They had photographs of them together on Saturday night. They also had a record of Alice’s past. Chapter and verse. Somebody had done a lot more than a Google search. Would she care to comment?