Page 99 of Falling Too Late

Jon had texted and called me so many times that I finally had to turn my phone off before I threw it across the room. I couldn’t talk to him right now. I was hinging on believing he made a mistake when he went down to the morgue to identify Alex’s body at the jail.

I headed downstairs and turned on a small lamp in the kitchen, then started some coffee while I stared out the window. There were no windows to the shop, so I couldn’t even tell if Alex was awake or not.

It was strange, him being alive, and not feeling like I could go to him.

“Quit it.” I stared down at King, who kept pawing at my leg. He was a needy guy and still acted like a puppy at four years old. I sighed and scratched his head. He laid his ears back and had a very pleased look on his face. His girlfriend, Queen, was missing, and I knew she had snuck out and gone back down to Alex. “Traitor,” I mumbled. Neither of them were ever far from me until now.

It was one in the morning. I walked out the back door and sat out back on the deck of the farmhouse.

The crickets chirped; frogs croaked; our resident owl hooted in the night somewhere. King turned his head away from me, looking out into the tree-lined barrier I had around the place.

The farmhouse was my sanctuary. The property had several acres surrounded by trees and was crossed by a creek that fed into the lake. It had a large dock built by the previous owners that was larger at the end. I had a chair out there to sit on. It was one of my favorite places. I was in the middle of nowhere. I had no neighbors, no light pollution from the city.

I loved being here.

I hated being alone.

Alex was alive.

The realization of it all was finally settling in. I hadn’t been going crazy; I had really seen him.

Gloria was still dead.

My heart ached at the thought of her. She’d died too soon.

I wish I would have seen the signs. I wish I would have been able to pay attention to more than myself. Maybe we would have seen the signs sooner. Gotten a diagnosis quicker.

I took a sip of my coffee. It was the dead of summer and even at night the temperature didn’t drop. I sat in a sports bra and shorts, feeling comfortable only because I knew no one was around.

And if someone dared come onto the property, King and Queen would let me know.

There were only a handful of people who knew where I lived now. I had gone to great lengths to stay as anonymous as I could. I opened an LLC and purchased the house under that. I had a PO Box set up in town to keep the mail trucks from coming out here.

I tried quitting Dan’s Construction, but Dan wouldn’t let me. Now, I showed up twice a month to run payroll. Bonnie verified everyone’s time cards were correct and turned in on time.I showed up in the early morning, got everyone’s checks either printed or direct deposited, then got the hell out of there.

Bonnie and I met up for coffee every other week to catch up. She was good about not asking too many questions. She talked a lot about her baby daddy and her kiddo. I loved talking to her. She gave me a perspective on a life I was never going to experience.

I picked my phone up off the deck next to me and turned it back on, flipping the toggle to silence it. Once it was booted up, I dialed.

“What in the hell are you doing up this early?” Mario’s groggy voice filled the line.

“Come on, you know I don’t sleep much.” I sipped my coffee. “Why areyoustill asleep?”

I could hear the shifting of sheets over the line. He groaned. “Some of us actually like to sleep.”

“Oh, suck it up.”

Mario chuckled. “What’s wrong, kid?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Well, that’s obvious.”

I ran my index finger around the rim of my cup. “How likely is it for someone to identify a body wrong?”

“What?” He was awake now.

“Is it possible?”

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