What Has Fallen

27. Jax: Where Do We Go From Here?

November 4

12:45 PM

I sat at the back of the over lit cafeteria waiting for Alice. My phone laid silent on the table, no messages. Alice is late and not responding to texts. My jaw tensed as I leaned back in the chair. I tapped my fingers on the table to the ticks on the clock. Tick.. tap... tick... tap... tick... tap... A man paced back and forth wringing his hands. A lady and a kid stood at a vending machine talking about candies in a whisper. Two cafeteria workers moved dishes around behind the counter preparing lunches. I grabbed my phone from the table and headed into the hallway dialing Alice. The phone rang a few times before going to voicemail again, "This is the voicemail of Alice Westford, leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

The tone went off and I left a message, "Alice, it's Jax. I've been here for almost an hour. Where are you?" I hung up and decided to go see her dad. Maybe he'd know where she disappeared to.

12:50 PM

Alice's buddy, Xavier, sat in a chair outside Mr. Westford's door. He had a black eye and some bruising along his jaw. As he stood, he asked, "Jax, right?" He put his hand out. I took his hand and nodded. "I'm Xavier. Alice calls me X. Good to meet you, finally."

I nodded and said, "Yeah, you too."

"What're you doing here? Alice ask you to watch her dad too? Things that bad?"

My eyebrows raised in confusion, "No. What do you mean?"

He looked me over oddly, "You don't know."

I licked my lips and scratched my jawline, "She's not answering my calls. I was suppose to meet her here. When did you two talk?"

He said, "Before I got here. But I tried calling her about an hour ago. Apparently, Ray and Banks are having the same problem. They thought I'd be able to reach her. "

"So no one's heard from her in hours?"

"Yeah, but that's not unusual for Alice."

I thought for a moment. Maybe something came up, but why wouldn't she answer her phone. "What did Ray and Banks need?"

He looked down the hallway asking, "Feds talk to you yet?"

My confusion continued to grow, "Feds? I thought they left?"

"You don't know?" His eyebrows raised. "They think Alice is the one who poisoned her dad."

"What?!"

"And if it wasn't Alice, they think Charlette was involved. They haven't been able to find Charlette for questioning. And, I heard from Ray that the feds and Alice had a run-in while she was here." That couldn't have gone well. Xavier made the same face I did and nodded, "Yeah, Ray said it didn't go too smooth."

I made clear, "Alice wouldn't poison her dad."

"We know," Xavier said, "none of us think she did this. But Charlette," he shrugged, "Maybe, ya know..." I knew Charlette had problems, but she'd never hurt her father. To me, that didn't make sense. This family works together. No matter how awful Charlette is, I don't think she'd attempt killing her family. Then Xavier said curiously, "I'm guessing you don't know about Hoga, either huh?"

"I know him."

He shook his head, "No, I mean what happened."

I thought about last night's events and Alice's instruction for Ugo to delete some footage. I said, unsurprised, "There's more."

He chuckled, "Man, there's always more."

That's probably why Alice wanted to meet. We have plenty to talk about. I nodded, "Well, I should probably hear it from Alice."