Fresh Start Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1:

  Chapter 2:

  Chapter 3:

  Chapter 4:

  Chapter 5:

  Chapter 6:

  Chapter 7:

  Chapter 8:

  Chapter 9:

  Chapter 10:

  Chapter 11:

  Chapter 12:

  Chapter 13:

  Chapter 14:

  Chapter 15:

  Chapter 16:

  Chapter 17:

  Chapter 18:

  Chapter 19:

  Chapter 20:

  Chapter 21:

  Chapter 22:

  Chapter 23:

  Chapter 24:

  Chapter 25:

  Chapter 26:

  Chapter 27:

  Chapter 28:

  Chapter 29:

  Chapter 30:

  Chapter 31:

  Chapter 32:

  Chapter 33:

  Chapter 34:

  Chapter 35:

  Chapter 36:

  Chapter 37:

  Chapter 38:

  Chapter 39:

  Chapter 40:

  Chapter 41:

  Chapter 42:

  Chapter 43:

  Chapter 44:

  Chapter 45:

  Chapter 46:

  Chapter 47:

  Chapter 48:

  Chapter 49:

  Chapter 50:

  Chapter 51:

  Chapter 52:

  Chapter 53:

  Epilogue:

  Prologue:

  Two Years Ago

  When she woke, she was groggier than she’d been after her worst hangover and it took her several moments to remember how to move her arms and legs. She’d finally rolled over to face Ty, but he wasn’t in bed. Figuring he’d left to go to work, she’d sat up and decided to try to take a shower to get the pain in her head to go away. She’d grabbed her robe and took it into the hallway. She’d felt nauseous and wished she could find a way to move her body faster toward the toilet when she leaned down and vomited on the hardwood floor. It was then that she’d noticed it. Her vomit was on top of something red; a deep red liquid that had dried. She’d raised her head slightly to see Ty’s body on the floor. There was a knife in his chest and the dried blood seemed to have come from under his body. She’d pushed her dropped robe aside and knelt over him. She’d pressed her hands to his chest to see where he was bleeding from in an attempt to stop it, but he was cold. That part didn’t register at first though due to the shock. She’d yelled his name over and over enticing him to wake up, but he didn’t. She’d grasped at the knife, tossed it to the floor and placed her hands over the wound as if she would be able to stop blood that had left his body long ago.

  It took her several more moments to realize that there was something else wrong. She lifted her head and saw the tiny body of a three-year-old girl just inside her bedroom door. Alyssa hadn’t even remembered Lizzy being in the house that last night so it couldn’t have been her. She’d stood up slowly, delaying the inevitable and made her way toward the girl on the floor. There was no blood, which was reassuring, but as she drew closer, she saw the face she recognized.

  Lizzy was cold too. She pressed her hands to the small chest of the girl to try to get her to wake, but she was already gone. Alyssa looked for a wound, but could find none. She’d noticed an iPad charger on the floor and in her haze, could only think that the girl’s iPad mini, which she played games on wasn’t attached to it.

  When she could gather herself enough, she’d dialed 911 from her cell phone. The police came along with medics who knew there was nothing to be done. They were both gone. Her apartment she shared with them was a crime scene and just over a week later, she was handcuffed standing in front of Ty’s family, her mother and her brother and roughly pushed into a police car and thrust into an entirely new world.

  Chapter 1:

  She could hear the commotion from inside the processing room, which was at least twenty yards away. She was finally free, but it didn’t feel like freedom when she considered what awaited her.

  “You got a ride?” The woman standing in front of her in her white, pressed guard uniform asked her from behind the counter that designated them by default as guard and prisoner. “Did you get yourself a ride? The bus won’t be by for another hour so if you didn’t, you’ll be waiting. You get bus fare. One way into the city. Then, it’s up to you.”

  “I have a ride.” She blurted out defensively as she pulled her personal contents out of the gray plastic tub on the counter and walked them over to drop them on the chair next to her. “She’s on her way now.” She stated mostly to herself as the guard behind the counter had moved on to her next task. She pulled her wallet, now out of date cell phone, causally wondered what version the iPhone was up to now and sorted through the other random items. She’d already changed into the clothes she’d arrived in all that time ago.

  She could hear them outside; gathering like locusts to admonish her and try to get a scoop or just to film her walking without saying a single word. It had been her life for the two years prior to being in this place and it would likely be her life now until they moved onto the next story or she could figure out how to disappear.

  She knew she was delaying the inevitable. She’d waited two years to leave this place and now she was sitting in a beige room with terrible plastic chairs from the 1970s and a fake plant on the table that had likely been there just as long. The whole room smelled of dust and slight mildew, but oddly enough, she felt at home in that smell now since the whole place smelled like that with the exception of the cafeteria, which always smelled like powdered eggs and potatoes.

  “Masters, you’re up.” The guard yelled at her from behind the counter as she hung up the phone. “You’ve got an escort out to your car. Step outside.” She nodded with an overly exaggerated eye roll in the direction of the glass door where she watched two male guards open and enter.

  She stood up and tucked her items into the pockets of the light gray shinny jeans she’d worn that day before putting the cherry chap stick into the breast pocket of the black button-down shirt she’d worn with it. The sweater she’d had on over it that day was in her left hand as she headed toward the noise and the glass door.

  The two guards walked on either side of her as they ushered her through one wire gate with a loud buzz and a thumbs-up from another guard at the small stall that acted as the final check out station. The group of reporters waited and yelled impatiently on the other side of the final gate as it rolled back slowly allowing them to walk through. She could see the crowd of over one-hundred of them. Men and women dressed in suits with microphones and cameras were yelling her name and questions in blurred, rapid succession. She could make out her name repeatedly, but she couldn’t make out a single question over any of the others because they all blended together. She kept her head down. She allowed the guards to put their hands on the inside of her forearms to help her make her way past the crowd so she didn’t have to look up, letting her dark brown, almost black hair that she’d left down for this very reason, shield her face from view. She’d been proud of the fact that she’d never let them see her cry. Even after everything had happened, she’d never had an emotional outburst in front of the press. This, unfortunately, was spun into a negative though. People thought her cold and unemotional, but had she reacted in any way; cried or screamed out, then she would have been a crazy, over emotional woman who was guilty of what she’d been accused.

  How had she gotten here? She’d had a normal life. She’d lived in a small town most of her life. She’d left for college at UCLA and decided to stick around when she’d gotten that job offer that wasn’t really what she’d hope for, but would help get her foot in the door at least. She’
d had friends during college that stuck around. She’d gone out with them on Friday and Saturday nights, but had been responsible enough to not go on Sundays so she’d be ready for work on Mondays. She had a mom that loved and supported her even when she’d told her she was bi-sexual and brought home her first girlfriend during her junior year of college. Her father had been gone for a long time, but she had an older brother who was a marine and they’d been very close before all this happened.

  She was twenty-six now and had spent the past two years of her life locked away because they couldn’t raise enough to cover the ten-million dollars in bail the judge had set. Her mother would’ve been required to put up ten-percent to the bail bonds place, but they’d never been rich people. Hell, they’d been downright poor for a while. Her father’s illness had put them in the hole financially by the time she was thirteen. They’d sold the house and moved to a small two-bedroom apartment. She and her brother, Dean shared a room until he moved out when she was fourteen and he, eighteen. He joined the military because he didn’t have a choice, but also for the signing bonus that he handed over to their mother to help get them out of debt. They’d tried to raise the money, but no one in the public was on their side. They had no collateral, no support and nothing to sell besides her mother’s old Subaru that wasn’t worth much anyway.

  Instead, she’d been locked up since her arrest, all throughout her trial and until today when she was finally set free and now trying to make her way through an aggressive group of reporters toward where her mother waited in that blue Subaru wagon. She could just make out the car and her mother in the driver’s seat. She sighed as she was tugged back and forth by the helpful guards trying to get her through the mayhem.

  “Alyssa, how do you feel?”

  “Alyssa, do you feel like you got away with it?”

  “What’s it like being a murderer?”

  “You should rot in hell for what you did!”

  The last two, she could tell, didn’t likely come from reporters, but from the onlookers and protesters that were just outside the press ring that surrounded her. She could see the signs on poster boards held high by two-hands saying she was guilty. She could hear more people calling her name and saying she’d go to hell for what she’d done and when she finally looked up and saw her mother attempt to get out of her car to greet her, she motioned with her hand instead for her to stay. She wanted a quick getaway and not the mother-daughter reunion that would undoubtedly be on every nightly news show in a few hours.

  The guards let go of her arms and kept the people around her at bay as microphones continued to thrust toward her mouth in the off chance of catching even one word. She opened the car door and slipped inside as quickly as she could before slamming it shut and covering her face with her sweater. Without a word to her daughter, her mother hit the gas and headed down the main drag away from the prison and past a myriad of news vans. There were more people who hadn’t gotten as close to the prison as the others. They had signs too. She’d taken down the sweater for a moment long enough to read two of them that said she should fry for what she did before closing her eyes and covering her face again.

  ***

  The prison was located halfway between her old apartment in the city and her mother’s place in Baker. The drive was an hour and a half of near silence. Her mother didn’t know what to say to her only daughter and Alyssa didn’t have words for her mother either. They hadn’t seen one another for the past 6 months. Judy had stopped making the trips to the prison at that time due to her work schedule and lack of gas money to get there. She had three jobs as it was and Alyssa told her to stop coming when she realized how exhausted her mother was on their last visit and she’d begged her to take that gas money and use it to pay off the debt that was now tied to her daughter’s legal defense instead of her father’s medical bills. Judy had the radio on initially, but as each station began to relay the news of her release, she gave up and turned it off as Alyssa continued to stare out at the brown and yellow landscape.

  “The drought’s gotten really bad.” Judy offered the awkward silence. “The apartment complex even said they’re closing the pool.” She added.

  “You don’t ever use the pool.” Alyssa finally spoke, but mainly to the window.

  “No, but the kids in the complex do. Now, I’m wondering what kind of trouble they’re going to get up to without it.”

  “Right.” Alyssa offered in agreement.

  Judy paused as she exited the highway. In theory, they could see her apartment from the road because the landscape here was all flat, farm land that had really struggled due to the lack of rain in California for the past several months. It took another 5 minutes to go past the row of gas stations and truck stops with the McDonalds and only Starbucks in town on the other side. Then, they were turning into the apartment complex that had seen better days. Her mother’s unit, 2B was on the 2nd floor and they took the short staircase up to it. Alyssa found herself looking around to see if they’d been followed. Not seeing anyone paying attention to them, she looked back as her mother unlocked the door and ushered her inside. It was then that she was engulfed in a hug so tight she could barely breathe.

  “Honey, I’m so glad you’re home.” Judy huffed out and Alyssa could feel the tears hit her shoulder and could feel the shudders in her mother’s body as she held onto her, but couldn’t find the words to describe how she felt herself. “What they did to you-” She stopped when she pulled back to look at her daughter. “It wasn’t justice! It makes me angry!”

  “Mom, I know.” Alyssa looked into her mom’s light blue eyes that matched her own and saw tears continuing to build and eject themselves as they rolled down her cheeks. Alyssa held out her hands and wiped them off her mother’s face.

  “I held it in all this time. I didn’t want them to see me cry.” Her mother admitted as she separated fully from Alyssa and began wiping at her own tears.

  “I know what you mean.”

  “Well, your room is all setup for you.”

  She changed the subject and began to walk out of the small living and dining room combination that had been furnished with many visits to thrift shops and yard sales. The chairs around the table didn’t match the table itself; nor did they match one another and the sofa looked as if one cushion was used regularly while the other not much at all. The coffee table had water rings and the TV was one of the old box TVs, but at least it didn’t have foil antennas on top. The kitchen was closed off from the space and had one small path down the middle. It was hardly enough room for two people to be inside, which had led to many fights between the three of them when Alyssa was younger and she and her brother lived her with their mother. Too many cooks in the kitchen is a saying for a reason. They arrived at the doorway to her old room and Judy walked right in and began anxiously ruffling the pillows she’d so carefully placed on the twin bed just hours earlier.

  “Thanks, mom.” Alyssa told her to try to get her to stop. She tossed her sweater over a chair in front of a small table that had once acted as her desk and crossed her arms over her chest as she entered. She then plopped herself down on the bed and looked out the window where she could see someone pulling a giant blue tarp over the doomed pool and a few kids pointing and wondering what was happening.

  “Well, you probably want some time alone right now. Maybe you don’t. I don’t know. I read a few articles online about this, but they were split in what you’d want. Some said you’d want privacy because you’d had none inside, but others said you’d want to be surrounded by people who love you and I called your brother, but he’s still overseas and doesn’t have leave coming for another couple of months.”

  “Mom, it’s okay.” Alyssa stopped her again and watched as her mom sat down beside her.

  “I don’t know what to do.” She sighed deeply. “This wasn’t supposed to be your life, Alyssa.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” Alyssa agreed with her.

  “Just tell me what you need.” Judy turned a
nd put her hand atop Alyssa’s in the girl’s lap.

  Alyssa matched her sigh.

  “I think I would like some time alone.” She admitted after a moment. “Just for a few minutes maybe. I should sort through some of my stuff at least.” She motioned with her free hand toward the other side of the small bedroom where her mother had been storing what was left of her belongings from before she’d been sent away. “These are the only clothes I have after all.”

  “Oh, of course. I hadn’t even thought of that.” Judy stood. She turned and walked the few steps toward the pile of cardboard boxes. “Well, you know we got rid of all the furniture. That money went for the lawyers. This is what’s left. It’s mostly clothes. I went through some of it when I first got it, but haven’t touched anything sense. Most of them are still taped from when you…” She faded out as she slid her fingers across the top of a box.

  “Moved in with Ty?” She finished for her.

  Judy nodded in response before moving toward the bedroom door.

  “Everything will be fine now, honey. We’ll get things sorted out here and then we’ll get you a new driver’s license and other paperwork you might need. Then, we’ll find you a job and a place to live since I’m sure you don’t want to live with your mom.” She paused. “You can stay as long as you need too.”

  “I know, mom. I’ll find a job as soon as I can though. I want to contribute; pay rent and give you money for utilities.”

  “Alyssa Lynn Masters, stop that right now.”

  “What?” Alyssa’s eyes got big with the use of her full name.

  “You don’t need to worry about any of that. We’re okay. I can afford this place on my own. I have been for quite some time now.”

  “I know, but the fees from the lawyers are a lot, mom and you’ve been paying it all.”

  “Dean’s been sending as much as he can too. We’ve both been getting that debt down and we have a payment plan with Mr. Doherty.” She mentioned the attorney that had taken Alyssa’s case at a substantial discount to try to help the family. He was a good lawyer. He’d done a decent job defending her and Alyssa was convinced that it was because of him that they’d received a hung jury at the end of the trial.