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“So what did you do? Go home with the woman?”
“Hell, no,” Alex said. “I trusted no one at that point. I was suspicious of anyone trying to help me. I’d found out the hard way they always had an agenda. Mary wasn’t offended. I think she would have been surprised if I’d said yes. So she told me I could sleep in the back room of her store that night. She had a small cot back there, and I slept better than I had since those two nights in the motel.
“She came back in the morning, and I’d put the bread and bologna and cheese back on the shelves by the time she opened the store. She offered me a job -- stocking the shelves. Cleaning up. Running errands for her. She didn’t pay me much, but she was also feeding me. And I had a safe place to stay.” She glanced down at the floor. Then back up at Gideon. “I would have worked for nothing for food and a safe bed. After about a month, I moved into her house.”
“Were you going to school?” Gideon asked.
Alex shook her head. “Before Mary rescued me, I was too busy surviving to think about school. But I spent time in the library during the day sometimes. It was a safe place, and I could read anything I wanted. After I’d been at Mary’s a few weeks, she asked me if I wanted to go to school. I told her I did, so she sat down next to me. Told me I’d need a birth certificate to enroll in school. I didn’t have one, of course, so I shrugged. Said something typically teen, like ‘school’s overrated’. But Mary squeezed my hand. She hadn’t touched me very often -- I found out later she’d helped other homeless kids and knew what it was like for them on the street.
“She went to her desk and took out a piece of paper. Handed it to me. It was a birth certificate for a girl named Alexandra Conway. She was about a year younger than me. Mary told me it was her daughter’s birth certificate. She’d died when she was three. Leukemia. It had nearly destroyed Mary. Just telling me about it made her cry. But she said I could become Alex Conway. I could use her daughter’s birth certificate to enroll in school.”
“Did Mary ever adopt you?” Gideon asked.
Alex shook her head, blinking away tears. “I wanted her to. But she said that my mother would have to be notified if Mary applied to adopt me. And I didn’t want my mother to find me. So I told her that we’d have a private adoption. I’d be her daughter and she’d be my mother. Mary agreed, and I called her mom until the day she died.
“When I turned eighteen, I changed my name legally to Alexandra Conway. I was able to have my original birth certificate altered to reflect my new name, and I was legal again.”
“I know you went to the University of Washington. Got a degree in accounting. Then you went to law school at Northwestern.” Gideon studied her for a long moment. “You were a good student.”
“I’d been given a second chance,” Alex said. “I took advantage of it.” She smiled. “I wanted to make Mary proud of me. I think she was.” She swallowed the lump that swelled in her throat. “She died right before the end of my second year in law school. Breast cancer. She wanted to see me graduate, but she died a year too soon.” She bit her lip and stared at the floor, remembering those awful days.
“And Sierra?” Gideon asked. “When did you meet her?”
“Sierra was one of my classmates. We bonded in our first year, first semester classes and were best buds all during law school.” She bit her lip, remembering meeting Sierra the first day of law school. “Looking back, I think maybe we bonded because Sierra had secrets, too. We both sensed the… the darkness, for lack of a better word, in each other.
“We opened our practice after we passed the bar exam. We were lucky enough to land a high-profile client that first year -- only because he was such a pain in the ass that no one else would represent him. Sierra and I weren’t sure if he was guilty or not, but it didn’t matter. Everyone deserves a defense. We won the case, and we got a lot of press about it. Found out later he was guilty as sin. He was connected to the mob, and someone shot him a year later. Which brought up the trial again, and got us more business.”
“And where did Jerry fit into this story?”
Alex clenched her teeth. Looked at the darkening sky out the window. “I met him during the summer after Mary died, before my third year of law school. I was a clerk at a law firm, and he was the son of one of the partners. We started dating.” Alex stared at her feet. “I was never in love with him, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t in love with me. But he was fun. Undemanding. And he was safe. He wasn’t looking for any deep emotion, which was exactly what I wanted, because I didn’t have any to give.
“I’d only had one boyfriend in college. No one in law school before Jerry. I was shockingly naïve for a twenty-six year-old woman. And after Mary died, I was drifting. Untethered. I clung to Jerry, because there was no one else besides Sierra. She tried to dissuade me from marrying him, but I figured it was a win -- win. I’d get security. He’d get a companion. We’d both get regular sex.” She smiled. “It was the only area where we were compatible.
Her smile vanished. “I found out when I overheard you talking to him that he only married me because he thought I’d make a lot of money.”
Gideon had clenched his teeth during her description of her relationship with Jerry. “And four years later, he hired me to kill you,” he growled.
Alex sighed. “Jerry always wanted the short cut. The easy way. He never wanted to put in the work. I didn’t see that while we were dating, and it took a while after we were married for me to realize who he really was -- a spoiled child who’d never had to work for what he wanted because his wealthy father gave him whatever he asked for. We had maybe a year and a half, two years before we drifted apart. We’ve been sleeping in separate bedrooms for a year and a half.”
“He didn’t object? Try to change your mind?” Gideon asked.
“At first he did. But I wanted nothing to do with him. I decided to move out and divorce him, but Sierra and I caught a high-profile, big profit case right around that time. Then another, and another. I just kept putting it off. Jerry and I lived completely separate lives, and I was… okay with that. I was putting all my energy and time into the practice, and living with Jerry was like having a roommate I never saw.” She shook her head. “You know what they say about good intentions. I should have divorced his ass a long time ago.”
Gideon studied her for a long moment. “You’re an amazing woman, Alex.”
She shrugged. “Not so amazing. An amazing woman would have divorced Jerry a long time ago.” She swiveled to face Gideon. “I survived. That’s about it. But I learned to rely on myself and no one else.” She smiled. “Mary and Sierra were the exceptions to that rule. And I learned how strong I was. That helped when law school was overwhelming that first year. And when Sierra and I started our practice.”
“You overheard me talking to Jerry and took off. Very successfully. If I hadn’t dropped that tracker in your bag, I wouldn’t have been able to find you.”
She nodded slowly. “Thank God you did. Because if you hadn’t, Jerry would have found me. Or the two Russians who showed up. And I’d probably be dead already.”
* * *
“Jerry isn’t going to kill you,” Gideon vowed, staring into her eyes, hoping she could see his resolve. His determination. “I’ll keep you safe. Make sure you’re protected. And the compound is only four hours away, once the pass is open. I’m hoping we can leave in the morning.”
Alex dropped onto the bed, looking completely drained. It had to be emotionally exhausting for her to relive the trauma she’d gone through as a child. He sat down beside her and curled his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him. He wondered if she even realized she was doing it.
After a long moment, she said, “Why do you think Jerry’s still following me? He doesn’t have the tracker to follow. How can he know where we’re going?”
