Page 8 of A Fighting Chance

“Where are you going?” she calls after me but I am already down the hall and checking each room as I go.

After a couple of minutes, I am satisfied that the house is indeed empty. What shocks me though is, finding Mercedes standing exactly where I left her. She rarely listens to anyone, much less me.

“What were you doing?” she asks staring up at me.

“Checking there was no one in the house.”

“Shit, I didn’t even think of that,” she mumbles as she stomps to the kitchen. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

“We need to figure out who could have a reason to send you something like that,” I say calmly. Mercedes is rummaging through cupboards and slamming the doors shut when she doesn’t find what she is looking for. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for booze!”

“Try the freezer,” I say and seconds later she is pulling a bottle of ice-cold vodka from the icy depths before finding a glass and pouring a generous helping.

After finishing off two glasses she fixes her gaze on me. “Want some?”

“No thanks. One of us needs to stay sober.”

She glares at me, and I can see her holding back some kind or other smart-mouthed retort before she nods. “Where do we start?”

“Well, we need to work on a list of suspects now that you’ve crossed me off,” I retort with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m sorry, okay? It was a shitty thing to think and even worse that I actually accused you. I know you would never do anything like this.”

“I know we don’t get along and we are constantly at each other’s throats,” I say. “But I have always cared for you, and this is highly fucked up.”

She sighs before taking a seat at the little green Formica table that has been in the breakfast nook for as long as I can remember. Resting her head on her hands she breathes deeply.

“I knew it wasn’t you, but my anger wouldn’t let my rational brain take charge. I just needed someone to blame.”

“I get it,” I say taking a seat beside her. And it’s true. There probably isn’t anyone that understands being angry better than I do. “But now that you and I are on the same page, we need to start looking at other people who may have done this.”

“Where do we start?”

***

Mercedes

Alistair spends hours with me in the kitchen working on a list of suspects, asking questions I don’t necessarily want to answer. It’s embarrassing to admit that I haven’t had a date in over a year. And when he asks about casual hook-ups, I blush beet red even though there has been none of those either.

But by the time the sun starts to set we only have two names on my list. My old high school boyfriend, Kevin, who still lives in town. And another ex, Gavin, who lives in the city. I can’t see either of them doing something like this, but Ali fully believes we can’t cross anyone off without being one hundred percent sure.

“I’m going to order some pizza,” I say as I stand and stretch out my arms above my head. “Meatlovers still good for you?”

But Alistair isn’t listening to a word I am saying. No, his focus is centered on the strip of skin I exposed above my shorts while I was stretching. I know he is seeing what I always try to hide from the world, the scar beneath my ink. His gaze collides with mine, brimming with questions.

“Let me order the food and I will be back,” I sigh, knowing I can’t avoid this conversation. He is too bullheaded to just let something like this go.

When I have the order placed, I find him in the living room looking at old pictures that I put back up when I got to town. Some are family photos, but others are of me and one or more of the Chance brothers as we grew up. My mother loved those boys like they were her own and Mrs. Chance has always treated me like the daughter she never had. We were a little patchwork of broken families, glued back together and raised by two amazing women.

“I remember this,” Alistair smiles pointing at a photo of me in my cheerleading uniform and him in his football kit. “We won that night and went on to the championship game.”

“It was a good night,” I smile.

“Until that idiot, Tommy Smith tried to kiss you,” he frowns.

“Oh my god,” I laugh. “I forgot about that.”