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Dedication
For Josephine:
You can be anything.
You can do everything.
Acknowledgments
This book flowed downhill after I finished the first draft, but making that first draft was a tremendous effort of will made possible by the support of those around me. I would like to thank my parents who give me never-ending support and have always stoked my creative fires. My sisters who were the very first ones to read the story and gush over it.
To my oldest friend and first writing partner Jane, you started this train. Nic for listening to crazy ideas and always giving me the time and space to be able to write. My writer friends who found me at a pivotal moment and kept me going— Lisa, Heather, and Mary. Countless friends who read early drafts and supported me no matter what. If this story has any richness and emotion, it is because of Linda, who taught me to recognize and appreciate the full spectrum of the human experience. I could not have articulated any of it on paper without her.
Publication of this work happened because Gwen Gades was willing to take a chance on me, and for that, I am eternally grateful. JoAnne, my editor, suffered through my terrible comma usage—or lack thereof—thank you. And for giving me the final push, my best friend and biggest supporter Stephen for telling me to jump in and experience everything, because you have to take chances to do anything in this life.
PART
ONE
1
They found me.
New place, new name, new life.
A routine began, born out of five previous relocations. I scanned over beloved objects: my favorite shirt, the coffee mug from Claire, a book of matches from Trattoria. Everything that could be linked back to this life or used to identify me must remain. Complacency would kill me.
I hustled to the bedroom and pulled a screwdriver from the dresser.
Facts: Name, Christina Marie Chapman.
I unscrewed the large intake air vent beside my bedroom door and crawled inside.
Birth date, March 3rd, 1984.
Not my exact age, but close.
Inside the first branch of the air vents I grabbed my bug-out bag and hauled it out.
Social security number, 276-18-4432.
Outside the vent, I knelt in the hall to check the contents. Five hundred dollars. A change of clothes. Protein bars. Two forged driver’s licenses, one for Christina Chapman and another for Karen Walters.
Parents’ names, Theresa and Ed Chapman. Street I grew up on, Rocky Ridge. Name of first pet, Maggie.
I closed the largest compartment on the backpack and unzipped the smaller front pocket. Inside, a stack of Polaroid pictures was held together by a decrepit rubber band. Each picture was something valuable. All compiled by my mother and grandmother, my real mother and grandmother. Hurt stabbed at my chest and I swallowed the pointless pain. With the pack slung over my shoulder, I replaced the vent cover and headed for the front door.
In another life, my escape plan brought me a sense of calm. It served as a verbal touchstone. If a stranger watched me too intently, or followed me too closely, I would recite a new life and strategy to disappear, and the panic would recede. Until now, the paranoia always turned out to be nothing more than a momentary mind fuck.
My traitorous hand trembled so hard I couldn’t open the door. I shook my fingers out hard and glared at the knob. It was time to disappear.
The phone rang at the exact moment my hand touched the cold metal, jolting me into the stratosphere. Bye bye breath. Infantile whimpers trickled out of my mouth. My brain screamed at me to get it together and go. My body wasn’t having it.
I should have ignored it, opened the door, kept walking, and never looked back. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. It could’ve been anyone calling…work, or one of my new friends.
But I knew it wasn’t. It was Them.
Voices from my past rushed into my head. Watch out for Them. Run from Them. They will use you. They will kill you. They killed my mother. They killed my grandmother. They killed my father, my aunts, my uncles, cousins…everyone was dead. I was the last. They were to blame for my lonely, nomadic existence, for the births and deaths of all my identities.
The phone reached my ear before my brain registered walking across the room. My hands choked the receiver.
Evangeline.
The male voice slithered into my ear, all cold confidence, telling me he held the strings and I’d be dancing at any moment.
I wanted to speak, I really did, but the confirmation that one word gave me my birth name. They knew me. They knew everything I spent a lifetime concealing.
One million dollars.
Each syllable of the voice squeezed my lungs. That is what we will pay you to locate a single object for us.
No my mind screamed, but I was still mute.
One million dollars buys security. You could finally be free. No one would be able to touch you.
No one except you. Bastards. Anger loosened the hold on my lungs and air seeped into my chest.
You could work for us. We could protect you and guarantee your safety in exchange for your continued services. You could have the life you have always dreamt of.
The voice leaned on me, saturated with certainty that I would comply.
Through the jumble of a million thoughts and questions one rose and fired out of my mouth like a slingshot fueled by a lifetime of pain.
Who! Are! You?
The voice was undaunted by my obvious distress, his words trampling what little courage I scraped together. You have one hour to meet us at the address pinned on your refrigerator.
The kitchen blurred while I scanned for the invading piece of paper. A few blinks and I was clear again.
If you fail to show, we will take that as a refusal and it will result in…
A slow chuckle barely registered over the deafening ring in my ears.
Well, the rest of your family can speak to the consequences of refusing us.
He laughed, full and loud. Or I guess I should say they can’t speak of it any longer.
A eulogy of images flashed in my mind, synced to my heartbeat, each one faster and harder than the one before. I wanted a chance to confront the people who slaughtered my family. I wanted vengeance and retribution. But how could I defeat the people who were responsible for the systematic destruction of an entire family? I was one person. They could be hundreds. Common sense and the power of my emotions threatened to tear me in half.
I let the phone slide from my ear, dimly aware of the voice saying one hour.
The receiver clanged onto the table as I walked away.
Outside the cool night air prickled against my flushed skin. I could breathe again and forced a deep breath every few steps. This time of year the weather had a split personality, the days like June, the nights like January. The moisture in the air during the day condensed and draped the night in a thick blanket of fog. Any other time I would’ve been thankful for the fog, helping to hide me during my escape, but tonight the moon was full. Each suspended water droplet reflected and amplified the moon’s light, making the evening air luminesce like a thousand tiny flashlights…all pointed at me.
I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt from beneath my jacket and covered my head. Scanning the area for any sign of Them, I headed down the alley that ran between the back of my apartment building and a row of houses. It was still early enough that the noises of cars on the streets, dogs barking, and people coming in and out of their homes filled the air.
All of my senses screamed for quiet. I wanted to be able to hear if someone lurked behind me or smell for a stranger’s cologne. Though the urge to look behind me was overwhelming, it would only give me away, so I faced forward and focused on the plan. This escape route accounted for several scenarios. I could handle this.
Four blocks from my apartment, it was all post-war tract housing. Every house looked the same. I navigated the sprawling suburban nightmare until I found my way to a busier section of town where there would be crowds of people to get lost in.
I tugged the straps on the pack, trying and failing not to think about the voice on the phone. Nothing like what I would have expected a murderer to sound like. No hoarse whispers or harsh guttural rasp, no passionate outrage or anger. Even now the calm, cold, confidence made goosebumps break out on my skin.
How many people in my family talked to that man before they were killed? I would never, under any circumstances, let myself be used to help anyone gain more money or power. Thinking of the consequences of that decision made me speed up.
My grandmother’s voice schooled and scolded me while I jogged.
Don’t stay in one place too long, you can’t afford roots no matter how small. Don’t make friends; they will want to know about your past, they could be used against you. Find employment where no one will notice you and they will pay in cash. Be the bar back, not the bartender, be the janitor not the secretary, be the cook not the waitress.
My latest incarnation had been as a kennel worker in a veterinarian’s office. No one paid me any attention except the animals. I loved their furry little faces. One day the tech Claire needed help. I should have gotten someone else.
She was the domino that caused everyone to be a little nicer to me, and eventually they all fell. They smiled at me, said hello, and turned small talk into medium talk. It made me belong, and I looked forward to going into the clinic every single day because of it.
My selfish behavior endangered them all. If They found out about any of my relationships with my co-workers…a sudden wave of nausea cut that thought off from its conclusion.
I slowed to a walk when downtown came into view. The cars managed to burn off the fog on the main street. Even though it was a weeknight, people were still out in force, eating or shopping. Doing all the mundane things I had never and would never be able to do. I pulled my hood closer to my face and merged onto the busy sidewalk. I meandered in and out of stores, up one side of the street and down the other, scanning the crowd for any potential tails.
Satisfied I wasn’t being followed, I ducked inside a convenience store, found the restroom and changed out my jacket and shirt for ones in my pack. Finished, I tucked my hair into a ball cap and exited out the rear door.
I doubled back through the residential neighborhood. Six blocks over and four blocks up from my apartment building was a small, white house with a detached garage. An older man let me rent his garage space for fifty dollars a month. I paid two years upfront in cash. He gave me a key and didn’t ask any questions.
A shock of white hair in the window turned my eyes toward the house. The pint-sized man nodded at me, and I let myself into the garage. The light from the moon illuminated the cramped garage enough for me to see the tattered brown tarp draped over my small motorcycle. The bastard offspring of a motocross and a street bike, I’d gotten it from a pawn shop when I first moved to town. A mechanic tuned it up, showed me how to coax it into starting and then I left it here. Two years was flirting with the end of the fuel stabilizer’s reliability. I uncovered the bike and hooked the battery to a charger on the wall.
I hated motorcycles, but a motorcycle fit my purpose tonight threefold. One: Motorcycles could go places cars couldn’t. Two: No one knew I owned, or could even drive a motorcycle. Three: The helmet would hide my face and the leathers would obscure my body.
The more indeterminate the better. I already had a headstart. When my mother’s and father’s DNA combined, neither would make a decision. My hair wasn’t really black or brown. It wasn’t curly or straight. It settled in the middle somewhere around dark mess. Freckles spattered my face, but too few to be known for having freckles, and too many to say I had a flawless complexion. My angular jaw conflicted with the softness of my cheeks.
The one thing about me that could give me away? My eyes. Nothing pretty about them, they were blue. Very, very, electric blue. I had never met anyone else with eyes as freakishly blue as my own. When I could wear contact lenses, I did. Most people would report my eyes to be brown or at least dark.
I slipped into a leather jacket and helmet then readjusted my backpack. I unhooked the charger, needing the short time to be enough to revive the battery. The dead weight of the bike rolled easily out into the foggy night. At the end of the road, I straddled the seat. Ignition on, I stood up on the pedals then jumped down with all my weight to start the engine. Nothing.
Damn you.
Just as I was resetting my weight for another attempt, headlights whipped around the corner heading straight for me. I jumped down again. Nothing. And again, and again. The car sped up. Faster and faster. The bike sputtered again.
Why couldn’t I be descended from the Patron Saint of Motorcycles?
Finally the engine caught and roared to life. The noise sent a sweet rush of victory and adrenaline through my body, super-charging my arms and legs. A turn of my ankle put the bike in gear, and I sped off. In my side view mirror, the car turned into a driveway and pulled up to a garage. I exhaled a huge breath I didn’t even know I was holding and accelerated into the night, letting the fog swallow up yet another life.
2
Around midnight, the outskirts of Memphis appeared. Certain I wasn’t followed, I found a fairly active truck stop. Topping off the gas tank and reserve, I was careful not to remove my helmet and get caught on any surveillance cameras. A prepaid Visa card saved the little cash I had.
I drove my bike around to the back where all the truckers stopped to sleep for the night and parked between two eighteen-wheelers that would conceal me from any passers-by. The first deep breath I’d taken in hours burned with diesel fumes but I commanded my diaphragm to keep going in and out. I dug in my backpack and looked through the stack of Polaroids. All were objects I could locate and pawn for money, except for one. Written in large black letters across the top of one picture was In case of extreme emergency
with the word extreme underlined twice. It was a necklace, nothing fancy, just a silver chain with a pendant of a Christian cross, but instead of two straight, intersecting lines, one vertical line intersected a chevron. It looked like an arrow with the long line extending past the point of the arrowhead.
What constitutes an extreme emergency? Having my apartment broken into and proof of my identity and family thrown in my face was a definite emergency, but was it extreme? I needed to start over again, and I could handle that on my own. This necklace wasn’t going to net me starting over money, so I shoved the picture in the back pocket of my jeans.
I flipped through the others and settled on a picture of a plain diamond ring on a gold band. No one would ask questions of a young woman pawning an engagement ring. I would use my powers to locate the ring tomorrow, pawn it, and add to my cash reserve. I didn’t own the ring so I could find it. Generations of my family had exploited the loophole in our power. You can’t find something you own, so have someone else buy it and hide it.
Once pawned, with cash in hand, I’d start research on a new town to call home. The Pacific Northwest sounded about right. After finishing my protein bar, I replaced the pictures, zipped the backpack closed, and rolled out from between the trucks. Keep moving, keep going, forward only, never back.
Two hours north, I spotted a small motel that looked like it took cash and didn’t care who the patrons were. The dingy parking lot held two cars on the far end. I paid for the last room on the opposite end on the back of the motel.
Another advantage of my small motorbike was that I could wheel it into my room, removing all evidence of my stay. With minimal furniture rearrangement, my bike wedged between the foot of the bed and the wall. I backed it in, in case I needed to leave in a hurry. With no room to walk around the bed, I crawled over to reach the bathroom. The alien vegetation in the tub convinced me that taking a shower would make me Stephen King’s next Jordy Verrill. Instead, I wet a hand towel in the sink, and did my best to wipe the grime and sweat from my face and body. I changed into another shirt from my backpack and settled down on top of the bed’s seedy comforter.
I closed my eyes and sent up a prayer that had changed very little since the day of my mother’s death.
Dear God. I am what so many people want—proof of your existence. I don’t need faith, I don’t need this cursed lineage, and I don’t need you. I hate what you have done to my family. What was supposed to be a blessing has killed everyone I love. I pray to you now to take it away. I know you are up there. Amen.
The nature of my life guaranteed light sleep; three hours after I closed my eyes, the noise of a car engine outside my window opened them. The red numbers of the cheap alarm clock declared it to be just after six in the morning. Early dawn light struggled in from behind the curtains I was trying not to touch as I glanced outside. The front end of a silver sedan parked right outside my door had Tennessee plates. Maybe it was a local. The engine was still running. They could have just checked in or they were waiting for someone. Logic was losing to alarm. I swallowed what little moisture was in my mouth and returned to the bed.
Forty-five minutes later, nothing had changed except the intensity of the sinking feeling in my stomach. I moved away from the window and put my backpack and helmet on the bike. Slowly I undid the deadbolt and security chain, but didn’t open the door. Instead, I turned and went into the bathroom. Inside was one small, frosted glass window, not visible from the parking lot.
I needed a test. Were they here for me or for someone or something else? I slipped out the window and forced my feet to walk along the length of the motel, down and around to the opposite end from where I was staying. You can do this, you can do this, stop shaking. I took a deep breath and stepped into plain view of the silver sedan. Walking three doors down, I made a show of attempting to unlock one of the room doors, praying no one would open the door from the other side. My ear twitched when the click of a transmission put the car in reverse. Shit. Another click and the sedan lurched forward picking up speed. I forced myself to be still. Not time to move yet. Just one second longer. Bring them closer. My mind and body synchronized with the need to survive the next five minutes.
How had They found me?
I ran. The carefully constructed dam collapsed and adrenaline flooded my system. The check-in blurred by, and a flash of silver caught my eye. I pushed myself even faster down to the far end.
Rounding the corner on the back of the motel, I heard car doors open and footsteps scrambling. I wasn’t going to waste time or jeopardize my coordination by turning to look. The open bathroom window triggered me to jump and shimmy my way back inside. I grabbed my backpack, knocking my helmet to the floor. No time to pick it up. Straddling the bike I darted over the handlebars and flung the door open, then slammed my weight down on the bike to kick-start the engine. It caught and I stomped the gas.
The bike jumped out the door, but was cut short when the back tire caught on my helmet. I hit the gas harder and the bike fishtailed. The right side of my body slammed into the frame with a loud crack and wood splinters showered me like confetti. The pain in my shoulder and knee howled for a nanosecond before I shut it down so I could get the hell out of there.
Just as I lurched forward again, a set of hands clamped on the handle bars and another set on my shoulders. I couldn’t let go with my hands or feet, so I leaned forward and bit into the huge hands gripping the handlebars. They jerked back and I hit the gas. The hands at my shoulders slipped to my backpack and pulled. I let one arm go, then the other, and slipped out of my backpack, never slowing down. I was free and speeding into the parking lot.
This time I did risk a glance back. There were two men, one holding his hand to his chest and the other sitting on the ground clutching my backpack. I faced forward, and got out of there as fast as possible.
Shit. Shit. Shit. I got on the first major interstate I saw and gunned it. Without my helmet, the wind chapped my face and tangled my hair. My mind was still numb from the escape but I felt hot tears streaking down my cheeks and blowing away. I never cried. Not when I lost my homes, not when I lost my friends, not even when I lost my family. Crying was useless; it didn’t help anything or anyone. I wiped at tears and snot like I was trying to push the nose off my face.
I was so screwed. Still alive, but screwed. The backpack held everything—clothes, money, food, and most important, those pictures. They were my freedom, my new life, and now they were gone. Even if I could remember what the diamond ring looked like, it could be used to bait a trap for me. I needed money. I needed to keep going. I needed to stay hidden.
My mind fixated on the pictures, going through them again and again until one bubbled up from the depths, spotlighted in front of all the others. My tears and my heart stopped. The picture of the necklace was in my back pocket. I reached back with one hand and felt the familiar crinkle of a Polaroid. A smile snuck onto my lips. No doubts this time, I had an extreme emergency.
I pulled off at the first rest area. All my gas and time were now devoted to finding the necklace. To be safe, I pulled my bike behind the small brick building that housed the dumpsters so I wouldn’t be visible from the parking lot.
My feet hit the ground and red-hot searing spikes of pain shot up from my right knee. Not wanting to be forgotten, my right shoulder throbbed in time to my heartbeat. Pain and heat radiated down my entire right side. The endorphins were wearing off. The knee scared me the most. I would need it to ride and possibly walk or run. A tentative flex and extend brought a scream of pain up from my throat. I smothered it to a few drops of spittle and some pathetic mewling. I grabbed the photo distracting me from the pain, and stared at it for a minute, giving myself one more chance to come up with something else, another plan…anything.
Once I tuned into this item, there would be no other way except finding it. No rest or release until I located it. My powers could be a bitch. The necklace was it, I told myself. This had to be done. Gripping the picture, I burned the exact image into my brain and closed my eyes.
St. Anthony, perfect imitator of Jesus, who received from God the special power of restoring lost articles, grant that I may find this necklace which has been lost. To this favor, I pledge to remain your ever-faithful descendant. Amen.
I chanted with fervor for perhaps the first time in my life.
I repeated the prayer several times, tapping into my power, opening the part of myself most people reserve for toxic emotions and wasted memories. The black box where I hoped to hide my powers forever. The image in my mind blurred and swirled around and around and then stopped. The instant the image solidified, a faint buzzing started in my chest, like standing too close to a beehive. My own personal homing beacon. The necklace was west…far west, judging by the strength of the vibration. I wouldn’t know northwest or southwest until I got closer. I did know I was already headed west on the interstate I used to escape the motel, so I saved myself both gas and time. There are no coincidences.
I looked up at the cloudless blue sky, the sun making its morning ascent. Still doesn’t make us even. Not even close.
I pulled the motorcycle back onto the highway.
*
The full moon hung over my right shoulder. I was within spitting distance. My bike quit hours ago. The gas tank and reserve tank carried me into a giant dustbowl somewhere near the border of Oklahoma and Arkansas. The intense humming in my chest made me rub at my ribcage until I thought the skin would come off. I was no longer standing next to the beehive; it was living in between my lungs. The intensity of the signal in my chest guided me into miles and miles of nothingness, toward the necklace. Thirty more minutes max.
The buzzing sensation urged me to hurry up but my body begged me to slow down. My knee looked like a melon on steroids, straining the fabric of my jeans, and my right arm hung limp at my side. Pain spread like a malignant cancer, disabling everything it touched.
Fear and pain battled. Pain moved me toward the necklace. Fear reminded me of the hospital signs I saw back on the main road. I expected to see a house, a building…something, being this close, but all I saw was miles and miles of nothing. I committed to a one-way ticket. My injuries would not allow a return trip. The necklace needed to come with food, and water, and shelter, and a doctor.
I paced in circles staring down at the ground. It had to be right here. From the corner of my eye, a slight shimmer caught my attention. I moved closer, constantly adjusting my eyes like looking at a 3D puzzle. The small shimmer increased in size as I approached it. Mesmerized by the giant shimmer that I could swear took on the vague shape of a house, I tripped and fell face first into….lush, wet grass? Dew soaked through my clothes and dripped down my face. I stilled for a minute. Was I dead? I checked in with my body. Abrasion of wet denim on my legs? Check. My t-shirt sloppily stuck to my stomach? Check. Horrible debilitating pain throughout? Check. I planted my hands and tried pushing myself into a sitting position. Nope, my shoulder had me regretting that decision. Instead, I rolled over onto my back and did my best to look around.
There must be
