AnOther Alice: A Novel

Chapter 12

As Sloane entered her apartment, she was beside herself with glee. The pictures that Oliver had sent her of Alice's face, badly smeared with makeup, became the highlight of her night as she walked through her front door.

Dropping her keys onto the countertop and stripping the ankle boots from her feet, she took out a flash drive from her bag and headed for her bedroom.

As she entered the room, she noticed someone sitting on her bed, their back to her. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness but because of the red-bluish light from across the street she was able to make out the bleach-blonde hair and the outline of Oliver Young's signature red jacket. And after realizing it was just her boyfriend, Sloane brought a hand to her chest to calm herself and grew irritated.

"Goddammit, Oliver!" She closed the room door and stepped inside. "Even though you have a key, don't just come in, say something beforehand! You know, text!"

He didn't say anything, and, like a motionless statue, he continued sitting on the edge of her bed, facing away from her, with no indication of having even heard her.

"What?" Sloane said, a little uneasy. "You having second thoughts or something? Well, you shouldn't. She got what she deserved."

A ping came from inside Sloane's bag. She grabbed the phone, tapped on the power button and saw that Oliver had sent her another attachment. She frowned.

"I'm standing right here. You can drop the act."

There was no response. Nor any movement.

Thinking he was in a mood, Sloane cut across the room towards Oliver. Her brow twitched with anger. With a rough nudge she pushed against his shoulder blade with her fingers but instead of staring her down or giving her one of his usual, expected comebacks, Oliver toppled over and plummeted head-first onto her faux fur rug . She backed away quickly, her mouth aghast as an ear-splitting scream erupted from her throat.

Suddenly losing strength in her legs, Sloane's knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor, where she sat. She brought her hands to her face, her gray eyes glued to Oliver's body, his blood leaking from several orifices.

What the hell? Oh my God, he's dead! There's no way he could be, he literally just texted me, how on earth could—

Another ping came to her phone. Sloane looked at the number–still the messages were coming from Oliver's phone.

She opened one. To her disbelief, it was a picture of her sitting on the floor right then. On realizing there was only one angle this photo could have been taken from, Sloane slowly looked to her left where she noticed something that sent a chill through her body. Sticking out of the partially-closed wardrobe, but wide enough for a single limb to slip through, was a woman's hand holding a smartphone up at her.

Sloane crawled on her hands towards Oliver's body and began patting him down until she found his butterfly blade in one of his pockets. Turning back to look at the wardrobe, she saw no sign of the phone or the hand holding it, just the door closing on its own.

Rising to her feet, Sloane neared the wardrobe, armed with the knife and taking wary steps. Hand on the crystal door handle, she yanked the doors open and with one hand violently moved the hanging clothes around.

After a few moments of shuffling through hangers and her collection of clothes, Sloane realized there was no one inside. She looked through the wardrobe until she was sure there was no possibility that anyone could have hidden. As her phone received another ping, Sloane brought it up to her face with a shaky hand.

It was another picture of her, only this time it'd captured Sloane digging through her wardrobe. Swallowing, she raised her head to look at the only direction from which the photo could have been taken. She couldn't bring herself to look away as she again found herself staring into the lens of a smartphone.