Keeping Secrets in Seattle

chapter Thirteen


September 30, 2003

My nightmares are starting to get out of control. I’m still hoping that journaling about it will help…

My throat was raw from screaming, and the sound of bass right above the bedroom was buzzing in my ears. After Cameron left his room, I crawled off his bed and made my way to the door, passing a couple making out on the couch in the rec room. When I stumbled past them, the girl called me a slut. I decided to go home. Get myself cleaned up. Wash my face and put on clean clothes. Then call Gabe’s cell phone to tell him where I was. I just wanted to get away before he came back…

When I came home from Gabe’s apartment later that night, I burst through the door and faced Kim and Betsy with wide, crazy eyes. I’d had the entire bus ride home to analyze every moment of my afternoon with Gabe, and I’d come to the conclusion that it was officially time to investigate Alicia further.

There was something off with her. To the naked eye, she seemed as sweet as chocolate cake. Well, sugar-free, fat-free vanilla yogurt, maybe. But I’d heard otherwise at the dress fitting. She was keeping secrets from him, and Shawn suggested to me that she was only marrying Gabe for the status. It was time to get to the bottom of it. It was time for me to protect Gabe.

Kim and Betsy’s eyes rolled off the screen and onto me. “Hey, Violet. What’s up?” Kim chirped.

“How was the dress fitting?” Betsy added.

“It was interesting,” I said, dropping my purse on the table. “I’ve never seen four women go from thinking they’re the bomb to wanting to do a colonic all in the course of one dress fitting.”

Betsy snorted. “Awesome.”

“It really was.” I opened the box and held up the dress. “What do you think?”

Both girls glanced at the dress and oohed in unison.

“I know. She picked out a great dress.” I laid it across the back of a chair. “You guys should have seen Alicia in action. She’s like a drill sergeant.”

“And you made it out unscathed?” Betsy asked.

“It was touch and go for a while.” I pulled a chair out from the table, setting it between them and their view of the television. “Guess what Shawn told me today at the dress boutique?”

Kim cocked her head to the side. “Who’s Shawn?”

“One of the bridesmaids.” I plopped down on the chair and faced them. “Seriously. You are not going to believe what she said.”

They exchanged a glance.

“If she told you to lose weight, I am going to find her and kick her ass. I mean it this time,” Betsy said.

“No, nothing like that.” I shook my head. “Think bigger.”

Kim played with her eyebrow ring. “Did she confess to murder?”

I rubbed my eyes. “Smaller than that.”

“Did she tell you she was gay?” Betsy smiled proudly and elbowed Kim. “I’ll bet that’s it.”

“What? No. Sorry to disappoint you.” I laughed. “She’s got a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, but when he catches her making out with her best friend, the cat’ll be out of the bag.” Betsy nodded knowingly.

“That’s how my high school boyfriend found out I was gay,” Kim added.

Betsy turned to her. “No kidding?”

Kim put a hand up. “I swear. It was hilarious. He walks in, and—”

“Hey.” I snapped my fingers in front of their faces. “This is about me. Me. Focus.”

They both looked at me.

I took a deep breath. “Back to the subject at hand. Shawn is on my side. Well, maybe not my side, per se, but she certainly isn’t on Alicia’s side anymore. She said some interesting things about Miss Von Longorial. And I have an idea.”

“Violet has an idea?” Kim mused. “Dangerous territory if I remember correctly.”

“Mmm-hmmm, remember when she had the idea that we should go foam dancing, and I dislocated my knee?” Betsy reached down and rubbed her knee.

“No, nothing like that. Nothing dangerous.” I waved my arms dismissively.

“You’re not going to try to convince us to move downtown again?” Betsy looked around. “I like our little place.”

Kim snapped her fingers. “Oh, that reminds me. Chloe called for you today.”

“No kidding?” I got up and walked over to the phone, where a message had been scrawled out on the back of a cereal box. I read it, my eyes widening. “Chloe wants to meet with me?”

“Please tell me that you’re not still thinking about moving to Portland,” Betsy said, frowning.

“Yeah, why would you want to leave us?” Kim scowled at me. “For Portland, no less? Look what kind of people Portland breeds. Alicia is from Portland.”

Betsy snapped her fingers. “That’s proof that this is a bad idea.”

“You guys.” I sat back down across from them. “Listen, I need a change of scenery. Or, I will, come May.”

Both of them looked at me like I was nuts.

“You mean to tell us that you’re moving to Portland to get away from Gabe and Alicia?” Betsy grunted.

“Not entirely.” My eyes dropped to the floor. “I would be lead stylist, guys. My income would double. That’s huge.”

“Ask Lizzie for a raise, then,” Kim said. “Hell, if money’s tight, talk to us. We can divide the bills differently.”

Betsy nodded. “I don’t want you to move.”

Kim pointed her finger at me. “Besides, you’ve got a boyfriend now. What does Landon think about this?”

Shaking my head, I sighed. “He thinks he’s going to convince me to stay.”

“Well, more power to him.” Betsy folded her arms across her chest. “Maybe he can convince you that this is a dumb idea. Portland is, like two, and a half hours from here, Violet. You don’t really want to have a long-distance relationship, do you?”

I shrugged. “It takes two hours to get from one end of Seattle to the other. What’s the difference?”

“When does Chloe want to meet you, anyway?” Kim asked, her mouth pulled into a line.

I looked down at the cereal box I was holding, and an idea sprouted in my mind. “Wednesday. Getting back to what Shawn said about Alicia, want to help me do some research while I’m in Portland?”

Betsy cringed. “If I dislocate my knee again…”

“No. No dislocated joints, I promise. Just a road trip to Portland. I’ll go talk to Chloe for a while, and then we can scope out Alicia’s folks’ house or something.” My pulse sped up as the idea grew. “What are you guys doing on Wednesday?”

Betsy pointed across the living room to a stack of file folders. “I was going to work from home this week.”

Kim grimaced. “I’m supposed to give Lizzy a bikini wax.”

Betsy and I shuddered in unison.

“Can’t you get out of it? For the sake of a covert operation?” I reached over and squeezed Kim’s hand.

“Okay, fine. But you…” She grinned right at me. “Have to be my assistant when I reschedule Lizzy’s wax.”

“Ugh. Fine. Do you have gas in your car?” I asked Betsy.

“Um, yes, a little.”

“I’ll pay to fill it up. We’ll need to leave early—Chloe said she’s in her salon by ten. I should be done within an hour. I want enough time to do some serious stalking. Time to catch Alicia in her lies.”

Kim’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly are you going to do if you dig up something major?”

“I don’t know.” I gulped. “If it’s major, I’ll tell Gabe. If it’s not, I’ll have to find a way to make nice with Miss Von Longorial.”

Kim yawned, then pulled her girlfriend toward their bedroom. “This had better be worth it.”

…

Driving with Betsy behind the wheel was always an experience. After having been raised on an eastern Washington farm for the bulk of her formative years, she drove all motor vehicles like lumbering combines, weaving in and out of traffic like she was herding charging cattle. Her faded Chevelle cut through the other cars on the interstate like a scene reminiscent of NASCAR, and her radio blasted rock music so loudly that our morning coffees vibrated in our hands. The bulk of the ride was spent listening to Kim and Betsy debate whether or not to paint their bedroom orange, so I decided to sit back and watch the buildings of the city slowly give way to the green western Washington landscape outside my window. Miles and miles of lush green fern and thick, mossy cedar trees stretched out ahead of us.

When we arrived in Portland, Betsy and Kim parked the car in front of Chloe’s salon. I stood on the sidewalk outside the historic brick building, adjusting my bright yellow pencil pants and black tuxedo shirt.

“We’re going out to breakfast. There’s a doughnut shop around here that puts bacon on their maple bars,” Kim announced with wide eyes.

“Bacon!” Betsy called from the driver’s seat.

I laughed as I backed away. “Okay, meet me back here in an hour, and bring one for me.”

Kim cast a scowl at the building. “Say hi for me.”

The meeting with Chloe went well. I was impressed by her salon layout, and even more impressed with the amount of responsibility I would have working there. At The Funky Fox, I was just a stylist. No real responsibility beyond cutting and coloring hair for Lizzie’s bevy of drag queen beauties, and a scattered female client here and there. In Portland I would manage the entire style floor and the aestheticians, as well as ordering products for the salon.

The idea of moving away from my beloved Seattle made my heart heavy, but the idea of getting out of Gabeville, and all of the painful memories that resided there, made my stomach dance with excitement. The idea of starting fresh in a new city made me feel empowered.

As soon as Kim and Betsy pulled up, bacon maple bar in tow, we headed into the suburbs. The thick downtown vibe of Portland gave way, allowing more space between houses and larger, damper green yards.

We sought out South Summit High School, then scoured the surrounding neighborhoods. Every time we came across a row of houses that appeared to be upper middle class or nicer, we cruised down the street, scanning mailboxes and front stoops for the names “Von Longorial” and “Long,” but found nothing.

“Are you sure this is the high school she said she went to?” Betsy squinted through her windshield with a frown, after an hour of searching had passed. “There aren’t very many fancy houses around here.”

The homes surrounding South Summit High were mostly modest houses. Old cars were parked out front. Toys littered the sidewalks. Bikes were parked in front of the porches. Some houses looked clean and well kept, but many of them were in need of a fresh coat of paint, and a few of the houses on each street had fairly neglected yards. The neighborhood didn’t fit the mold Alicia described.

“I think I’m gonna google an address,” I murmured from the backseat as Betsy wove the Chevelle up and down streets slowly.

“Good idea.” Kim pointed into the parking lot of a gas station, where the sign was flickering and someone in a low rider had the bass up way too high. “This is like looking for freaking Waldo.”

Betsy turned off the car while I powered on my BlackBerry and searched for the name “Von Longorial.”

“It’s not here,” I said to the girls, who’d started humming the Mission Impossible theme. “I’ll check for Long.”

“What about a phone number?” Kim asked, checking her eyeliner in the visor mirror.

I scoured the Internet for a few more minutes. “Nothing. They must be unlisted.”

“What? Let me check.” Kim grabbed the phone from me and began pushing buttons. “Well, crap. You’re right.”

Betsy shrugged. “We’ll have to figure out where they live another way.”

“How?” I scanned the neighborhood. There was nothing around us except a warehouse and a few older homes that looked vacant.

“Let’s just ask where the wealthiest neighborhood in the school district is and then drive around there,” Betsy announced wisely.

I scowled. “How am I supposed to recognize Alicia’s parents’ house?”

Kim turned around in her seat and stared at me. “We didn’t drive all the way here just to give up. It’s sunny today. Maybe her mom will be working in the yard. We’ll look for red hair.”

Betsy adjusted her glasses. “Bulimia Betty strikes me as the type who’d have a gardener. Just sayin’.”

“Good idea.” Kim smiled encouragingly. “Then we’ll ask a neighbor.”

“All right…but you do realize people are going to think we’re casing houses to rob?” I blinked at a passerby who was looking at us while clinging to her grocery bag tightly.

“Let ’em stare.” Betsy waved. “Hey, a woman in a minivan just pulled in. Go ask her.”

“Argh…fine.” Grumbling, I got out of the car.

Kim giggled. “The things she’s willing to do in order to stalk someone.”

Betsy covered her mouth. “I know, right?”

I teetered across the parking lot to a woman filling the tank of her minivan, wishing that I’d skipped the spiked zebra-print boots this morning.

“Um, excuse me, ma’am?” I waved at her cheerfully.

She turned to face me. Her nondescript brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, and one knee of her sweats had a tear.

“My friends and I are from out of town, and we were just wondering…um, where is the rich neighborhood?”

She frowned at me. “The what?”

I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m looking for a more affluent neighborhood in the South Summit school boundaries?”

The line between her brows deepened, and I heard a baby wail inside the van. Her eyes flicked between my friends—who were now singing along with Led Zeppelin at the top of their voices in the Honda—and me. “Why?”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry.” I laughed and stepped forward. She immediately backed away from me. “We’re looking for an old friend. She’s, well, her family is wealthy. And so we just have to figure out which part of town she lives in. But we know that she went to the high school here.”

The woman bit her lip. “South Summit?”

I nodded and blushed as Kim and Betsy began to sing the chorus to “Dazed And Confused.”

“Well, there’s Minting Heights. That’s a development a few miles south of here. Those are some pretty nice houses.” She shrugged at me. “You can try that.”

I charged back to the car, and cursed Kim and Betsy out for terrifying the woman. She was probably calling the cops as we drove away to tell them that a bunch of stoners was out casing the rich neighborhoods. We headed due south, and sure enough, we came to a gated community with rows and rows of cookie-cutter houses, all in varying shades of taupe. This was Alicia’s type of neighborhood. Lucky for us, the electronic gate was open, so we cruised right in.

We rolled up and down the streets, eyeballing the houses carefully, watching for any visible sign of “Von Longorial” or “Long” on a mailbox, or red hair. Finally, after twenty minutes of peering into the front windows of house after house, I told Betsy to pull over next to an old man who was mowing his grass while his wife weeded the flower garden nearby.

As soon as he cut the engine to kick a pinecone out of his path, I said, “Excuse me, sir?”

He glanced at me. “Hmm?”

“We’re looking for the Von Longorials.” I tried to sound as polite as possible. “Could you tell us which house is theirs? We’re late for a cocktail party.”

“At noon on a Wednesday?” Betsy whispered.

I kicked the back of her seat and laughed innocently at the man, who was scratching his head.

“Well, I don’t know.” He looked at his wife, whose backside was sticking up in the air as she tenderized her flower garden with a trowel. “Hey, Marian.”

She turned, squinting her eyes. “Yes?”

“Von Longorial? Sound familiar?”

“No. Maybe have them go ask Nancy.”

“Nancy?” I repeated when the man turned back to me.

“Yup. She’s the chairman of the neighborhood association.” The man nodded. “She’s around the corner. In the taupe house. Should be out trimming her roses. I saw her there just a bit ago.”

Of course she’s in the taupe house, I thought. “Thank you, sir.”

We drove around the corner, and sure enough, a silver-haired woman tenderly pruned her rose garden. We pulled up in front of her, and I offered her the same excuse I’d offered the man with the lawn mower. She thought for a moment, tapping a finger on her chin. “Sorry. I don’t know of any Von Long…what was it?”

“Von Longorial.”

“Right. No, I don’t know any Von Longorials here in Minting Heights.” She pushed a pair of half-glasses up on her nose.

I bit my lip. “Is it possible that you just don’t know them?”

She frowned sourly. “I’m the resident association chairperson. I know everyone. That’s my job.”

“Congratulations,” I muttered, rolling my window back up. “Er, sorry. Thank you.”

We drove around in circles again, looking for another neighborhood that fit the description, but came up short.

“It’s okay.” Kim searched the passing houses while I pouted in the backseat. “None of the houses in that place looked big enough to be Alicia’s house, anyway. Didn’t you say that her dad owns all of the waste management facilities around here?”

I stared out the window. With every dead end we hit, it became more and more clear to me that I’d been right about Alicia all along. “Guys, I don’t know if there are any bigger houses in the South Summit boundaries. It’s very average around here. Working class people like us live here.”

“Maybe Alicia’s parents are the miser type?” Kim was pushing it now. “You know, they have all sorts of money, but live in a humble home, because they sit on all their money? Like Silas Marner?”

I snorted. “Silas Marner?”

“I have a hard time believing that Alicia was a product of a Silas Marner lifestyle.” Betsy shook her head, and her pigtails danced. “She wears the most expensive clothes I’ve ever seen.”

“Maybe she’s rebelling against her frugal upbringing?”

I glared out the window. “I was just hoping for confirmation that…” Closing my eyes, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Either Alicia was lying, or Shawn was. Or…I don’t know. That my best friend isn’t marrying a complete phony.”

Kim turned around in her seat. “Or were you looking for confirmation that he is?”

Guilt nagged at me. I hated it when Kim busted me. It was time to give up and buy my friends some food for their trouble. We pulled into a truck stop cafe close to the highway, disheartened. Once we were seated at the tiny counter facing the kitchen and all of our menus were open, Kim bumped me with her shoulder. “So what exactly were you going to do if you’d found Alicia’s house?”

I fidgeted with a pepper shaker. “I don’t really know. I guess I just wanted to know if Shawn was wrong about her.”

“Wrong? Why? You hate Alicia,” Betsy said.

“Yeah, but I love Gabe.” I looked down at the speckled countertop wistfully. “I wanted to know that she isn’t lying to him.”

The waitress, a girl in her mid-twenties, took our orders, eyeballing us. “Bad morning?”

Kim looked up from her menu. “We were trying to stalk someone. Unsuccessfully.”

Betsy elbowed her. “Hey. We’re on a covert operation. You’re gonna blow our cover.”

“It’s okay. The Von Longorials apparently want to live an anonymous life.” I held out my coffee mug for the waitress to fill. “We were trying to find someone’s family. She is marrying my best friend, and I was trying to—”

“Catch her in the act?” The waitress gave me a sly wink.

“Yeah.” I blushed. “It’s sort of crazy.”

“Not really.” She poured coffee in each of our mugs. “I mean, if your best friend is marrying a liar, you’re doing him a favor.”

I slapped my hand down on the countertop. “That’s right.”

Betsy took a sip of coffee. “Regardless, we can’t find any trace of her around here, so we’re not helping anyone out today.”

The waitress wrinkled her nose. “You sure she’s from here?”

“Absolutely sure she is. I mean, she said that she went to South Summit high school.”

“No kidding?” She put the coffeepot back on the burner.

Betsy’s eyes lit up. “Did you go there?”

The waitress adjusted her blond ponytail. “I did.”

“You did?” Kim grinned at me.

“Sure did.” The waitress moved to grab a plate under the hot light. “I’m Hannah. So what’s her name?”

“The family name is Von Longorial. Er, Long, I guess.” When no sign of recognition crossed her face, I added, “They supposedly own most of the waste management facilities in the area.”

Hannah looked at us with a perplexed expression. “Doesn’t the city own them?”

“Could the city rent or lease the buildings and lots from a private land owner?” Betsy asked.

“I don’t know…possibly. Hey, Hal?” Hannah cut a slice of pie and put it on a plate for an old man at the other end of the counter. The old man reluctantly raised his eyes off his paper. “Who owns the waste facilities?”

“The state owns the main waste management facilities. But the private one? Portland Waste? Well, the city bought those properties a few years ago. Before that, they were leasing them from some Portland bigwig. What was his name?” The old man spoke in a raspy smoker’s voice, and the front of his shirt was streaked with oil. “West. It was Blakely West and his family. That guy who owns stock in some damn computer company, and now his family owns half the city. Damn Republicans.” He went back to his paper, and started in on his pie.

Kim raised her water glass at Hal. “Hear, hear.”

I focused back on Hannah. “So now the city owns all the facilities?”

She shrugged. “If that’s what Hal says, I would trust him. He’s worked on darn near every truck in this city, including the garbage trucks.”

Betsy craned to look at Hal again. “Excuse me? Hal?”

He looked up with a scowl and a speck of pie on his lip. “What?”

“You work on the city’s garbage trucks?”

“Most of them. City’s got a contract with my boss.”

My eyes widened. “Then do you know anybody by the name of Von Longorial. Er, Long?”

“Von…long….go…what?”

“Von Longorial,” I pronounced slowly. “But that’s her stage name.”

“Ain’t nobody driving a garbage truck around here with that crazy ass name.” He went back to his paper with a grunt. “Stage name. Huh.”

I looked back at Hannah, my heart sinking. “I think I’m looking in the wrong place. Maybe I misheard where she went to school.”

Hannah went to check on some tables, and Kim began messing with my hair, murmuring, “I think you should sit in my chair this week and let me lighten your hair a bit more. You’ll look hot if you go to a cool white blond for the wedding.”

“Heaven forbid I mess up Alicia’s wedding photos with my crazy hair.” My voice was lackluster.

“Did you say Alicia?” Hannah came back around the counter.

“Yeah.” I took a sip of my coffee.

Hannah covered her mouth and cracked up. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Alicia Long? I should’ve put two and two together.”

Kim and Betsy both sat up straight. “What? Why?” Kim asked.

Hannah folded her arms across her chest. “Because everyone around here knows her.”

“How?”

Hannah’s smile grew tight. “Alicia Long, or Von Longorial, or whatever she calls herself these days, is a celebrity in her own mind.”

“Give us the dirt on her,” Betsy demanded.

“First off, her name isn’t Ah-lees-ee-uh. It’s Uh-lee-shuh.” Hannah washed the counter as she spoke. “She changed the pronunciation when we were in high school. Started making the teachers call her that during her sophomore year. And her last name isn’t even Von…long…whatever the crap she calls it…”

“Von Longorial,” I said.

“Yeah, what’s up with that stupid name?” Hannah laughed dryly and wiped a napkin dispenser. “That didn’t change that until she graduated and moved away. When she was here, she was plain old Alicia Long. Her parents are Joyce and Roy Long.”

“Roy Long?” Hal grumbled from behind his paper.

“You know him, Hal?” Hannah grabbed a stack of paper napkins and began rolling them around clusters of silverware.

“Yeah. Good guy. Drives truck twelve. Doesn’t talk much, but he’s not bad.”

Kim gasped. “Dude, he’s a garbage man?”

Hal frowned at her. “There somethin’ wrong with that?”

I looked up at him. “No. Not at all. I’m just…surprised.”

Hannah glanced back at us. “See? That’s Alicia Long. She was a year ahead of me in school. She got a few local modeling jobs during our senior year and decided to chase her big modeling dreams right out of town. She’s been doing local stuff in Seattle for the last few years, because nobody in L.A. or New York wanted her.”

My eyes were bugging out of my head. “What? Are you kidding?”

Hannah nodded and found our plates, which had been set under the heat lamp behind her. She placed them in front of each of us before moving on to collect the ketchup and mustard bottles. “I guess she got a rich old man to be her boyfriend a couple of years ago, and he paid to fly her to both cities for a few months so she could get signed. But there were no takers. Rumor has it, she cursed out an agent in one of the agencies, and they blacklisted her in a bunch of L.A. agencies. Alicia always was a real bitch.”

“Sounds like our girl.” Kim dug into her grilled cheese sandwich.

“Yeah, and I heard that when she went to New York, she told all of the agents that she wouldn’t work for less than what the big-time models earn.” Hannah laughed. “She said she was the next big face, and that they would regret it if they didn’t represent her. But from what I can tell, her modeling career hasn’t exactly taken off in Seattle, because my friend Tracy saw her in a restaurant there. She’s a waitress.”

“Hostess.” My voice came out hoarse.

“Right,” Hannah quipped. “Anyway, it won’t matter, eventually.”

“Why not?” Betsy dipped one of her fries into some ketchup.

“Because she just has to settle down with the right rich guy, and then her working days are over. That’s always been her plan.” Hannah refilled Hal’s coffee cup. “She’s never been shy about telling everyone around here that she was going to marry up.”

I nearly choked. “Who says shit like that?”

“Alicia Long does.” Hannah gave us a pointed look. “She was always very forthright with her plan. And she had the beauty to make some poor schmuck fall for it.”

“But what about the volunteering, and the soup kitchens, and the reading to the elderly in her grandma’s nursing home?” I put my head in my hands. It was confirmed. I was officially right about Alicia all along.

Hannah gave us a sideways glance. “I was the head of the humanitarian committee in school, and Alicia Long did not lower herself to do charity. And her grandma lives with her parents.”

Kim paused, her sandwich an inch from her mouth. “What made her so rotten?”

“Alicia always resented her folks for being poor. Well, they weren’t exactly poor, by my standards. My parents are poor. My dad hurt his back at work in the paper mill ten years ago, and he’s been unemployed ever since.” Hannah went back to wiping down the countertop. “Alicia’s parents have a house over on Dakota Avenue, and other than needing a new front porch, it’s a decent place. Alicia was always bent out of shape because they didn’t buy her a car when she turned sixteen. She had to borrow their minivan, just like we all had to do when we were kids. But Alicia punished her parents for it.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, she stopped letting them come to school functions. She called them ‘Joyce’ and ‘Roy’ for a while, too, and made them say they were her aunt and uncle. Her dad was injured in the Army way before he got married, so he walks with a limp. She used to make fun of him behind his back when he came to any school function.”

Betsy grimaced. “She was the exact type of girl I hated in high school.”

“I know, right?” Hannah topped off her coffee cup. “Alicia called him ‘gimpy.’ And she hated the fact that her dad was a garbage man. She used to say he stank like trash all the time, even after he showered.”

I felt a pang of sympathy for Roy Long. The poor guy was hauling trash every day, then had to come home to an ungrateful teenage Alicia. I pushed my plate away. “I can’t believe Gabe is marrying someone like this.”

Hannah grimaced. “I would be upset if my best friend were marrying her, too. She’s a gold digger. Big time.”

“That’s just it. Why is she going after Gabe?” I rubbed my eyes. “I mean, I guess his parents make a decent living. And Missy and Darcy and her husband make good money, too.”

Kim looked at me. “Gabe’s bringing in bank for someone our age.”

Hannah refilled our coffee cups. “If it were me, which, of course, it’s not…I would warn him. Anyone who is marrying Alicia Long probably doesn’t have a clue what he’s getting himself into.”

We finished our lunch, thanked Hannah, and set off to find Dakota Avenue. We drove up the street slowly until we’d finally spotted the name “Long” on a mailbox. An older redheaded woman, every bit as beautiful as Alicia, was loading groceries out of a dented sedan parked at the curb of a faded yellow house, which was in desperate need of some masonry work on the front porch.

“That’s enough. Let’s go home,” I told the girls after watching Joyce Long tromping back and forth with bags for a few minutes.

We found the highway again easily and headed north toward home. There was a part of me that wanted to be wrong about Alicia. I couldn’t bear the thought of Gabe taking the vows with someone so vile and self-obsessed that she would make up an entire existence just to impress people.

The brick in my gut melted into a bubbling cauldron of anger. Gabe needed to know the truth about Alicia, and it was my job to tell him. I’d loved him for damn near twenty years; I wasn’t about to let him throw his life away now.

“You okay?” Kim called from the front seat.

I looked at her and shrugged weakly. “I just need to talk to Gabe.”