Dawn broke the sky after a second night of fitful sleep for Alexandra. She gave in to the tears at some point in the wee hours. After a long cry, she managed to sleep a bit, dreaming of Gemma, crying furiously and just out of reach.
She woke with a headache and heartache. She should go to town today. Call…someone. Curt Dominick?
He was her best bet. She’d known him for years, long before he was a US attorney, let alone Attorney General of the United States.
Curt was a straight arrow. He would do everything by the book, but he’d also believe her. Help her. She just needed to figure out how she could get his private phone number or a message to him.
Erica was best friends with his wife, Mara. But calling Erica was out.
JT had his number, certainly. But was it safe to call JT?
Her gut said he was safe, but her heart said something different.
She let out a heavy sigh and tossed aside the covers. She would take a shower and then go for another hike. She had miles upon miles of forest to explore. It was her prison, but it was also her salvation.
There’d been a light dusting of snow in the night. It would melt quickly in the morning sun, but a real storm was forecast for this afternoon. If Alexandra wanted to go to the nearest town and find a phone, she would need to do it before noon, as the storm was expected in the midafternoon.
She was terrified of showing her face in public, but also scared of getting snowed in without reaching out. Maybe Curt could stop CPS from taking Gemma away—if that was something the police would try to do for leverage to get her to turn herself in.
But what if she was recognized and arrested? Or, more likely, shot on sight by an angry officer?
She should have left Maryland. Not that cops in other states would like her any more than they did in Maryland, but at least in West Virginia or Pennsylvania, they might be less vigilant?
She set out for her walk. Mindful of her footprints in the snow, she stepped in bare dirt or in patches where the snow was thinnest or most likely to melt in the sun.
She wouldn’t take any chances.
She walked uphill to the top of the ridge, remembering romantic walks with JT in this same forest. The first time she’d had sex against a tree was on this property. The last time too, come to think of it.
They hadn’t visited this property after the time they’d been here and JT’s father had shown up with his mistress. It had been eight days before their planned New Year’s Eve wedding, exactly eleven years ago.
She hadn’t known about the senator’s many affairs and had been more than a little shocked that JT knew and condoned his father’s actions.
It had been a critical time in their relationship, with the wedding so close. JT had made his views on children clear, and she’d been prepared to accept that. After all, she respected his views—she would never force fatherhood on him any more than she believed motherhood should be forced upon a woman. Nor did he need to give a reason he wished to remain childless. People who wanted children were never asked to explain themselves. Everyone’s choices were valid.
So she’d had to make the decision for herself. Would she be content with JT and only JT?
Then she learned the love of her life was complicit in covering up his father’s cheating.
Alexandra had grown close to Lisa ever since the Christmas Eve when they first met. JT had seemed close to her too. If he was fine with his father cheating, it was easy to assume he had a similar moral compass when it came to his own relationships.
But the tipping point came when she discovered—on the very same day—JT’s political plans were not in the distant future. No. He intended to run for Congress in a matter of weeks.
She’d known from the start—she’d been the only person who knew aside from Joseph Talon—that JT intended to follow his father into politics. She’d stared at the big diamond on her finger, the countdown of days until the wedding in single digits, and saw a bleak future for herself. Second to JT’s political ambitions. Probably even, eventually, to a mistress.
It was easy to see herself in the same role as Lisa Talon, childless, loveless, second fiddle to everything that was important to JT.
Still, Alexandra loved JT enough that she might have accepted that fate if he’d agreed to having a child together. But he’d refused. He hadn’t understood how his father’s affairs and his own looming ambition had chilled her to the core. He’d thought she was reneging on their agreement—on the prenup she’d signed without hesitation.
She’d tried to make him understand how his father’s affairs and his decision to run without telling her his plans had changed their agreement. But he’d accused her of using his father’s secrets to turn the screws for more money.
She’d seen a new side to JT, one she’d never imagined existed, and in Lisa Talon, Alexandra saw her future and felt sick.
She made her decision on Christmas Eve, after they’d returned to the city because their pre-wedding getaway at the mountain cabin had been spoiled by Joe and his mistress. In the DC hotel where they were supposed to marry a week later, she’d removed the two-carat diamond from her finger and set it on the table. “You think this is all I want from you? Fine. You can have it. Enjoy the honeymoon without me.”
She then turned and walked out the door. That night, she drove to Kendall’s apartment in Bethesda, where she cried on her friend’s shoulders for a month.
Kendall had been the best friend imaginable, holding her while she cried. For a year, Alexandra had stayed strong, seeing JT only long enough to get her belongings back from the townhouse he’d bought for them to share in DC while she was in school.
He lived in New York most of the time anyway, so not much beyond her address had changed. Letting JT back in after the broken engagement had been a slippery slope. Soft and smooth, like the snowflakes that drifted gently down as she walked through the woods.
The problem was—and for years it continued to be—that Alexandra hadn’t called off the wedding because she didn’t love him. It had been so easy to slip back into bed with him. To be broken up but still sleep together.
They had incompatible goals. She had grad school to finish. Then postdoc. Her life would never be in New York, and while he talked about moving his base of operations to the DC area, he never made the change.
Kendall had tolerated her fickle friend. After all, she had her own problematic boyfriend.
They’d been quite a pair.
Now the senator whose infidelities had widened the cracks in their relationship was long dead. JT’s loathing of Alexandra was a known fact in certain social circles, Kendall had committed suicide, and Alexandra was wanted for killing a cop.
She finally had the child she’d always wanted, but her daughter might end up being raised by someone else. If Alexandra was arrested and convicted, she’d give up parental rights and ask Erica and Lee to adopt her.
She took a deep breath of the crisp, cold air. A puff of white vapor released with her breath as she moved uphill. She usually avoided thinking about her breakup with JT, but being here on the very property where their relationship had first shattered, she couldn’t escape the thoughts.
She should focus on her situation, but now she knew she’d yet to process the pain she’d ignored for years. Hell, she’d never found another man to love because she couldn’t get over the pain of loving JT.
She would never forgive him. Never love him again. But she probably also would never get over him.
Thank god for vibrators. She didn’t need him.
There are no vibrators in prison.
She let out a laugh-cry. That was literally the least of her problems.
She reached the top of the ridge and looked down the hillside toward the house, not for the first time wondering what it felt like for JT, or his father before him, to look over this vast wilderness and know that all the land he could see was his.
Alexandra hadn’t wanted to marry JT for his money, but the security of it had certainly been appealing. Until the end, when his wealth was his primary reason for distrusting her.
Just the thought of JT’s words that last night caused her anger to spike.
Wait until he found out what she’d done with his jewels.
Family jewels indeed.
She had something a million times more precious.
She stood for a long moment on the top of the world, breathing deeply, disappointed to discover that answers didn’t await her on this peak.
Movement on the hillside below caught her eye, and she gasped as she stepped behind a tree, instinctively taking cover as she watched an SUV navigate the long, winding driveway to the house.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit!
Someone was here.
Was it JT?
His girlfriend?
Someone else?
She thought about the house. She’d cleaned up after herself in every room. Dishes washed after eating. Bed made. Leftover beans and pork were in the fridge, but that might not be noticed right away.
Only someone paying sharp attention would know she’d been there at first glance. Unless, of course, they spotted her car in the garage bay.
The dark SUV disappeared into the trees. Was it JT’s vehicle? Or had someone figured out where she was? Could it be police here to arrest her?
She debated her options, finally deciding to retreat into the woods and wait. If someone had come for her, they’d find the car and search the woods. She needed to be ready to bolt.
But if it was JT…maybe he would help her? If he didn’t still believe she was a gold-digging bitch. Erica had assured her he no longer believed that, but his complete and utter failure to acknowledge how out of line he’d been in the seven years since their final split spoke volumes.
There wasn’t any vantage point from which she could see the driveway and front of the house, so she had no way of knowing who it was as long as she remained on the ridge.
She had no choice but to hide until after dark. If she waited until JT was asleep, maybe she could steal his phone and slip out without him ever knowing she was there.