CHAPTER 3
584 Words
CHAPTER 3
Lacy thanked the Brain Freeze waitress who brought her the sundae. The ice-cream was ho-hum, definitely not worth the six and a half dollars it cost her. She hated worrying so much about money. She wished Drisklay had given her a different witness protection identity. The daycare couldn’t afford to pay her more than minimum wage. The problem was year-round jobs were hard to find in a tourist trap like Glennallen, where weeks straight of negative-thirty temperatures kept all but the hardiest of long-term residents away.
It was the perfect place to hide, really, at least according to the witness protection folks. Four hundred residents, most of whom kept to themselves in typical Alaskan style. She had come in the spring. At least, it was spring in the rest of the world, but here there were still two or more feet of snow on the ground and several weeks of gray mud and gush before it thawed.
It wasn’t just the climate she had to get used to. They gave her a whole new name, a new identity. Jo. So brusque, so unfeminine. Sure, she had sometimes wished her birth mom had come up with something unique, something more memorable than plain old Lacy, but Jo? That took longer to get used to than the continual daylight in the summertime or the depressing bleakness of the drawn-out Glennallen winters.
She stared out the window at the place where the bicyclist had disappeared. She knew in her heart it couldn’t really be Raphael. The police, the detectives, the press, everyone said he died in the crash. She was left alone. Alone to mourn him in silence. Alone to hide until the two murderers who had chased them went to trial. Alone to testify against the people who wanted her dead.
She thought the witness protection program would be temporary. Drisklay said he’d keep her safe until the trial, and after that she’d be as free as a bird. Then it came out that the murderers boasted a web of Mafia connections. Things got increasingly complicated from there.
Still, she had held on to naïve dreams. Maybe the police knew the Mafia would come after Raphael and helped him fake his death for his own protection. She couldn’t get over the impossibly thin thread of hope that he was alive, suffering a trapped, anonymous life in witness protection in some secluded area. She hadn’t gathered up the funds or the courage to travel yet, but if she did, maybe she would run into him one day. Reunite at an airport. Catch his eyes on a crowded subway. She couldn’t count how many nights she had fallen asleep picturing his face when his eyes met hers. She rehearsed the hug, the kiss, the tears that would mingle on both their cheeks. Crying together over the lost years, vowing to never spend life apart again.
But deep in her heart, she knew her hopes were nothing more than foolishness. Wishful thinking. Impossible dreams she clung to because the pain of reality was too hard to accept.
She stared at her miniature sundae and realized it was melting in front of her while she daydreamed of the past. A perfect metaphor for her life these past four years, really. She picked up her spoon just as the bell on the Brain Freeze door jingled and a new customer stepped in.
She sucked in her breath. Her pulse skyrocketed.
The man walked in, caught Lacy’s eye, and gave a shy smile. “Hey, Jo.”
She swallowed her disappointment. “Hi, Kurtis.”
- Writer
