Chapter Four - Taking her place

POV- Alexa

The motel room smelt like bleach and regret, old cigarettes, and the faint, sweet ghost of someone else’s perfume. A single lamp, its shade bruised and listing, casted a jaundiced glow across a room that had forgotten how to be a home. The bedspread was a masterpiece of institutional beige, its surface pilled and scarred with tiny burns, like a map of small, forgotten disasters.

On the nightstand, a ring of water had dried into a ghost, and the clock radio blinked an unanswered accusation: 12:00, 12:00, 12:00.

In the corner, the thin curtains, the color of a bad cough, failed to fully meet, leaving a sliver of neon light from the parking lot to slice across the floor like a blade.

The air itself felt borrowed, heavy with the silence of a hundred whispered arguments. The room was dark with a lonely click of a television left on for company.

I sat on the edge of the bed, a mattress so thin I could feel the springs through the synthetic sheets. Staring at Alice’s phone.

The screen glowed in the dark. It’s been almost 3 hours since I have been staring at the phone, trying to find what the detectives couldn’t.

I*******m. F******k. T*****r. Snapchat.

 I was looking for patterns. For messages that don't make sense. For people who appear too often or not often enough.

My eyes burnt. My head ached. The pain in my side that I had been ignoring for months,throbbed like a second heartbeat.

“Not this again.” I held my head and paused for a moment trying to calm it down, then reached for my bag and took some pain relievers.

“Focus, Alexa.”

There's a boy who comments on every single one of Alice's posts. Myles Clay. Heart emojis. Fire emojis. "Missing you already" on a photo of Alice studying in the library.

I clicked on his profile.

There were photos of him with friends. Photos of him at parties. Photos of him with his arm around Alice, both of them laughing, both of them looking at each other like the rest of the world didn't exist.

He's handsome. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. Brown eyes that seem kind, even in photographs. But kindness can be a mask.

“Myles clay.” I read his name outloud. Alice always told me about him but this was my first time seeing him because I didn’t have a phone for that.

I saved his photos to her phone. Noting his schedule.....he posts stories at consistent times. Morning coffee. Afternoon classes. Evening runs.

He's predictable.

Predictable people are easy to follow.

I put down the phone and lay back on the bed. The ceiling has a water stain shaped like a lung. I stared at it until my vision became blurry.

“Alice, who should I trust?” The room doesn't answer.

But somewhere in the distance, a siren wails. And I closed my eyes, falling asleep.

 —————

The sounds of the busy streets woke me up.

Not the gentle kind of waking, the kind with birds and soft light and the luxury of slow breathing. This was the Westbrook kind. Sirens in the distance. A truck backfiring.

Someone shouting into a phone on the sidewalk below my window. The radiator clanking like it was trying to escape the wall.

I opened my eyes to a ceiling I didn't recognize. Then I remembered. I was in Westbrook.

I sat up too fast. The pain in my side flared, white-hot and insistent. I pressed my palm against it, waiting for the wave to pass.

It didn't pass. It just settled into a dull throb, the way it always did.

“You need to see a doctor”, a voice in my head said. It sounded like Alice.

“Not yet,” I answered back.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold,old hardwood. I grabbed Alice’s phone from the small lamp stand beside the bed.

This time I went through her email looking for messages, anything. Then my eyes caught something.

“Dear Alice,

Congratulations! It is our greatest pleasure to inform you that you have been selected as a recipient of the Westbrook College Scholarship, for the 2020- 2025 academic year.”

I remember how happy we were that night. Her screams that woke me up from my sleep and the dancing from one side of the room to another. I stared at the email for up to three minutes then a thought hit me.

I searched my bag for the detective’s card and called her line. “Alexa?” The other line said quickly.

“I want to meet.”

A pause. Papers shuffling in the background.

"Where are you?"

"At the motel."

"I can be there in twenty minutes."

"No, I saw a coffee shop down the road, I can meet you there."

“Okay.”

I hung up before she could ask questions.

————-

The coffee shop was called Grounds for Suspicion.

Ironic, given everything.

I ordered a black coffee I had no intention of drinking and took a table in the back corner, facing the door. Old habit. Always know your exits. Always watch who walks in.

Detective Cross arrived ten minutes later. She was out of uniform, jeans, a sweater, her hair loose. She looked younger. More human.

She slid into the seat across from me.

"What was so important that you couldn't wait to tell me? You found a clue?"

"Not exactly." I reached into my bag. Pulled out the phone and pointed at the screen.

Detective Cross took the phone.Her eyes scanning  the email.

"Okay?"

I leaned forward.

"She still has a year to complete the scholarship."

The detective looked up. Confusion creased her forehead.

"I don't follow."

"The scholarship was for a four-year program. Alice was in her third year when she died. She had one year left." I paused, letting the weight of it settle.

“So what you are saying is?” She said looking more confused.

“I read about the school, since they have an unfinished scholarship they need to replace the student before two weeks. Which means I can replace Alice.” 

"Alexa this is....."

"...What I need to." I cut her off mid- sentence. "It was Alice's dream to go to college. Please detective."

 Marlene sighed a very deep one "But the killer is still in the school and you showing up as a transfer student only puts you in more danger."

"That's why I need your help" I leaned closer my elbows on the table, my voice barely a whisper "I won't go as Alexa Lean. Just another transfer student, that way I can fulfill her wish of going to college and also experience how it feels myself."

Detective Cross stared at me for a long moment. The coffee shop hummed around us; the hiss of the espresso machine, the clatter of cups, the low murmur of strangers with nothing to hide.

Her jaw tightened. 

"Fine," she said, tucking her hands into her jacket pocket. "I'll make some calls. Get you set up as a candidate for the replacement scholarship. But you check in with me every day. You see something…anything,you call. Not text. Call."

I nodded.

"And Alexa?" She leaned across the table. "Be careful."

I let that settle in my chest like a stone.

"I will detective.” I replied, a little smile on my face

Detective Cross nodded before standing up to leave.

"I really hope you know what you're doing Alexa."

She walked out before I could respond.

I watched her from behind as she headed to her car and drove off leaving only me in my thoughts.

I sat alone in the coffee shop, my coffee growing cold, and stared at Alice's scholarship letter.

One year left.

One year of research. One year of asking questions. One year of getting my Revenge.