You Can't Catch Me

by Catherine McKenzie

  “Nope.”

  “Did you ask the airport to check its records?”

  “Where? In Minneapolis?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I did. They said I was the only one with that name through the airport that day.”

  “So, she has other ID.”

  “I guess.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “Why?”

  “The more we know, they closer we are to getting to her.”

  “If you say so.”

  She eats her sandwich delicately, taking small bites. I’ve already finished my sandwich and the large pickle it came with.

  “I can drive, if you want,” I say.

  “What’s that?”

  “After lunch. To give you a break.”

  She smiles. “Thanks, I’d like that.”

  After lunch, I take the wheel and lead us onto the highway. The Prius handles well, and it’s easy to get going over the speed limit. Too easy.

  We pass a patrol car tucked into one of those turnarounds that are hard to see until it’s too late. I glance down at the speedometer; we’re going seventy-five.

  “Shit,” I say as the cop pulls out of his hiding place.

  “What?”

  The flash of lights answers for me.

  “Dammit,” Jessie says. “This was a mistake.”

  “It’s just a ticket,” I say as I slow down and start to pull off to the side of the road. “I’ll pay it.”

  “No.” She looks over at me in frustration. “You and me. You’re going to have to show them my car registration and your license, so they’ll know we’re two Jessica Williamses traveling together. Police don’t like coincidences. I should’ve thought of it before.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine. I mean, you don’t have a criminal record or anything, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. So, why would the cops care about us? If they do, we’ll explain.”

  “I never switched my registration to New York.”

  “I don’t think that’s a huge deal.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  I stop the car and roll down my window as the cop approaches.

  “How are you folks today?” he asks. He’s about forty years old with close-cropped blond hair and a beefy neck.

  “We’re good,” I say.

  “Where you headed?”

  “Philly.”

  “You in a hurry to get there?”

  “No, I’m so sorry, Officer. It’s my friend’s car, and I’m not used to the gas pedal. I didn’t realize how fast I was going.”

  “Uh-huh. What you going to Philly for?”

  “A reunion,” I say, smiling.

  “Sounds fun,” he says. “Please hand over your driver’s license and registration.”

  “I need to go into the glove box,” Jessie says.

  “Go ahead.”

  She opens it and reaches in as I take out my wallet and give him my driver’s license.

  “You, too, little lady.”

  I can see Jessie grit her teeth as she takes out her wallet and hands him her driver’s license with the registration. As she leans over me to do so, I can smell her sweat.

  The police officer starts to enter the information into his computer, then stops. He puts the two licenses one on top of each other; then he frowns. He tips his head down into the car.

  “You ladies have something to tell me?”

  After he calls it in, the police officer tells us to follow him to the station.

  “See,” Jessie says. “I told you.”

  “It’s not illegal to be driving with someone who has the same name as you.”

  “Tell that to Mr. Little Lady.”

  “He’s a jerk,” I say. “But if we tell the truth, it’ll be okay.”

  “Which is?”

  “The story I told you, why we’re going to Philly.”

  “I don’t know why we’re going to Philly.”

  “Sure you do. We’re going to meet another Jessica so we can compare notes.”

  “If I had her name and address, it might be more believable.”

  “You know her name. I don’t have her address.”

  Jessie turns toward me. “What? How are we going to find her?”

  “We arranged to meet at a Starbucks.”

  “That doesn’t sound suspicious at all.”

  “She’s cautious. I don’t blame her.”

  Jessie gives me a withering look as the cop car pulls off the highway. The cop station doesn’t take long to get to. It’s a low, nondescript building with a wall of windows looking out over a parking lot. If I had to come to work here every day, I might kill myself.

  We follow the officer into the building. He directs us to sit and wait.

  “Together?” I ask.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, of course not.”

  There’s a family of Middle Eastern origin sitting in the waiting area and four police officers standing behind a set of glass enclosures, raised up higher so they have a vantage point over us. They seem to be in the middle of a coffee break, clustered together and chatting.

  Jessie sits in one of the chairs and I sit next to her.

  “I guess we have some time,” I say. “We could discuss our strategy for Philly.”

  She shakes her head. “Not here.”

  “Right, good idea.”

  “No, bad idea.”

  “That too.”

  Thirty minutes later, we’re still sitting there, as is the family. No one has been called up to a window. Three more people have come in, including one guy who looks homeless and seems to be missing a shoe. I’m beginning to think that the waiting is a tactic.

  Jessie seems better equipped than I am to deal with it. She takes a book out of her purse and opens it.

  “Any good?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s called The Marriage Lie. What do you think?”

  “Would you like me to stop talking?”

  The answer is clearly yes, but instead, Jessie closes the book with a sigh and folds it onto her lap.

  “Wonder how long they’ll keep us waiting,” she says.

  “Until we crack, obviously.”

  “We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “True. It’s the name thing, right? Making sure we’re both legit.”

  “I’m assuming so. Systems don’t like coincidences.”

  “Why are you so worried?”

  She flips her book over and then over again. “I haven’t had the best luck with authority.”

  “You mean when you reported the theft?”

  “That, and other things. My parents died when I was young, and I was put in the foster system. This one family I was with, their son . . . wasn’t very nice.”

  “He was abusive?”

  “Not like you’re thinking, but he . . . did things. Disturbing things with the family cat and hiding my stuff, and I guess now you might call him a sociopath in the making. Then, he was just this bad seed. Anyway, I told on him to my social worker, and I got punished.”

  “How?”

  “They pulled me out of the family, then put me in the orphanage for a while. I was hard to place after that.”

  “But you hadn’t done anything wrong.”

  “That’s my point. Just because you haven’t done anything doesn’t mean you get treated as if you’re innocent. I would’ve thought you knew that.”

  I stare straight ahead. I do know that, but it’s not something I like to talk about.

  “You’re right.” I stare at the police officers behind the counter. They’ve gone back to their stations now, but that doesn’t seem to have changed the pace of service. “I was raised with a bad guy too.”

  I rub at the spot on my wrist where my scar is. As usual, it’s covered by a long-sleeve T-shirt. It’s a stylized version of Todd’s initials, Todd Blakemore. A T and a B woven together in
an intricate pattern. Only, he never told us that’s what it was. Until Liam told me, I thought it was a symbol of togetherness. It was on lots of things in the Land of Todd—our uniforms, over the entrance to the Gathering Place. I’d always been told it meant “us.” What a joke.

  “What did he do?”

  “Lots of terrible stuff. He was definitely a sociopath.”

  I got the scar—the brand—when I was twelve. There was this ceremony Todd did for all the kids at that age, a kind of initiation because that was the age of reason, according to him. When you could choose to join the group formally. And we did. We all did, because what other choice did we have?

  “I don’t like to talk about it,” I say.

  “I get it.”

  “It’s—”

  “Jessica Williams!”

  We look at one another. Here we go.

  “Yes,” we say together, and stand.

  Chapter 13

  Not a Lucky Number

  In the end, the police let us go without anything more than a speeding ticket. Us being together caused a glitch in their system, the policeman behind the counter says, but our documents checked out, so we’re free to go. Jessie should update her car registration; she has two weeks to do so. We thank him and leave.

  By that time, though, it’s starting to get dark out. Jessie suggests we stop at a roadside motel, get some dinner, and rest. I agree. We drive through a McDonald’s, then find a place a few miles away, the twin of where Liam and I stayed in Wilmington. I offer to share a room to cut down on expenses, but Jessie says that she “values” her “privacy.” So, I eat my burger alone, take a shower, change into my pajamas, and climb into bed. It’s early, but I’m exhausted. I fall easily to sleep.

  I wake up in a cold sweat with my arm throbbing.

  I was having the dream. The Dream.

  It’s always the same.

  Black-cloaked figures in the Gathering Place in the middle of the night. The other children all lined up in their uniforms. The lights down low. I’m wearing a white robe that’s scratchy against my skin and smells like mold. My mother and father are standing on either side of me, holding an arm apiece. Todd appears, his skin burnished, his robe white as snow. He talks about the importance of family, the sins of the world, the reason we chose to leave it. Then he asks me if I’m joining the group willingly, which makes my twelve-year-old self want to laugh. You’re holding me down, I want to shout. Who would do this willingly? But instead, I nod and say, “Yes, Todd.” This is the only acceptable response.

  Then that glowing light. The heat as it approaches my skin. The pain.

  It stops as suddenly as it starts, though the echo is almost as bad. The burned-flesh smell makes me want to vomit, and then I’m in Todd’s arms and he’s telling me that I’m welcome, that I’m beautiful, that I’m amazing, and that together we will do fantastic things.

  “You’re through the worst of it,” he says.

  I wake up with the word No caught in my throat.

  I lie on my back trying to slow my heart. Headlights arc into the room from the highway and light up the ceiling through the slatted blinds. It almost makes me miss the tailgate party from the night before, which leads to thoughts of Liam. I check the time. It’s only eleven. Not that late. I send him a text.

  Checking in.

  He answers a few minutes later.

  Where are you?

  Some small town on the way to Philly.

  Jessie agreed to go with you?

  Yes.

  Why are you stopped?

  I got pulled over by the cops for speeding. Apparently, they care about the speed limit on this side of the Hudson.

  You have a lead foot.

  ☺ Miller says that too.

  ?

  You don’t know who Miller is?

  Ha, ha. I meant when.

  I drove him to the Hamptons last summer. I think I scared him.

  Ah. I did not know that.

  We went to a party. No biggie.

  Hmm.

  Jessie’s in another room, I write. She didn’t want to share. Do you think that’s weird?

  No.

  Not even a little?

  No.

  *We* shared a room.

  That’s different. And not the first time.

  True. Liam didn’t take me to New York right away after I leaped into his car and told him to “drive, drive, drive” me away from the LOT. Instead, we hid out in a hotel room in the Catskills for three days. It was in one of those resorts that was popular in the 1950s, like the one they go to in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which Daisy and I watch together.

  It was a hot July and the resort was full of rustic cabins with no air-conditioning. Mostly, I lay on the bed, watching the ceiling fan rotate while I tried to absorb the information Liam was feeding me. I’d been in a “cult,” only that was a word I’d never heard. What did it mean? I wasn’t “programmed”—that’s what everyone in the outside world was, enslaved to the government. Todd was a bad person. That, I didn’t have any trouble believing.

  I’m not sure I ever thanked you properly for that, I write.

  You thanked me plenty.

  Well, thank you again.

  You’re welcome.

  We are better off because of you.

  Maybe.

  You done saving people?

  ?

  It’s been a while, I meant. No new people.

  Are The Twists feeling like they need new members?

  I smile at the use of the name I know he hates. No, I write, I just realized that we haven’t met anyone in a while.

  There have been a few in the last couple years. They don’t always want to meet the group.

  Oh?

  They’ve been through enough.

  Okay, I get it.

  It’s late. You should get some rest.

  Okay.

  Sleep well.

  You too, I write. Love you.

  The words whoosh away, and I wish I could take them back. I’ve never written this to Liam before. Never said it. Does the fact that I didn’t put “I” in front of it make it less of a confession? Is there a way I can diminish it further?

  Oops, I write, but don’t hit “Send.” Liam’s typing something. Or thinking about it.

  Then: Same.

  I put my phone down with a smile on my face, but before I can settle in, my phone flashes again, that distinctive light pattern getting my attention. Is Liam taking it back? I shouldn’t reach for my phone, but I can’t ignore it.

  It’s not a text from Liam.

  It’s from Jessica Two.

  Stop it, it says. This is your last warning.

  I hold on to the phone tightly. One of the things she doesn’t know about me yet: I don’t respond well to threats.

  PART TWO

  Chapter 14

  The Back Forest

  Two weeks after the branding, I was sitting in our weekly session with Todd when I spoke out.

  Well, first I sat out.

  I never understood what Todd’s obsession with sitting was about. I only knew that ever since I could remember we were told to sit with our backs pressed against our chairs with our feet planted firmly on the ground. Our arms were to be by our sides, and there was to be no crossing of the ankles or, Todd forbid, legs crossed over one another. Even now, I find myself sitting like that when I’m not paying attention.

  My arm was still smarting. That’s why I think I did it, but it wasn’t as if it was planned. I didn’t know how to plan then, only react. My arm hurt. It was Todd’s fault. I couldn’t understand why that had to be. Why my parents hadn’t stopped it, why no one had. I’d spent two weeks nursing it, climbing into Kiki’s bed and resting my bandage against hers. Kiki tried to pretend that she understood why it had happened, but I knew she was only pretending to try to make me feel better because it seemed to affect me more than it did her.

  “We need to be prepared, we need to be ready, we need to have everything set to
go on a moment’s notice,” Todd was saying. He was wearing one of his uniforms—white pants and a top that looked like hospital surgeon scrubs, only it was pressed and starched, so it looked almost military-like. His skin was tanned to a perfect bronze, and his eyes stood out with a blue intensity. I used to try to count how often he blinked, certain it was less than other people.

  “Why?” I asked, the word I’d thought over and over escaping my mouth before I could stop it.

  “Who said that?” Todd asked, spinning on his heel and pointing at us. The twenty kids in the room were sitting four by five, in precise rows, with the smallest kids in the front, the oldest in the back. Kiki and I were in the middle.

  The room was deadly silent. No one spoke out during Todd’s lectures. Silence was even more important than sitting properly.

  “Who. Said. That?” Todd asked again, his voice shaking. Todd wasn’t used to being disobeyed, and he didn’t react well when it happened.

  “It was her,” a quisling named Jaimie said, turning and pointing at me. The small children were always the worst. They didn’t know, yet, that sucking up to Todd didn’t insulate them from punishment.

  Todd was next to me in an instant. His hand reached down and encircled my branded wrist. I cried out.

  “You had a question?” he hissed.

  “No, no.”

  I could feel Kiki shaking next to me.

  “Yes, you did,” he said. “Go on, ask it.”

  “I asked . . . why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do we need to be prepared?” I asked, my voice hiccoughing and rushed. “Why do we need to fear everyone?”

  His fingers tightened. He was so much stronger than I was. “Have you not been listening to a word I’ve said?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Then you know why.”

  “But I—” Kiki stomped on my foot. I stifled the cry, but my knee jerked up in the air.

  “But I what? How are you sitting? What is happening here?”

  He jerked me up by my arm and dragged me to the front of the room. Kiki followed along as if she were tethered to me. Todd was so mad that he didn’t even notice her at first; he just tossed me into his chair like a piece of garbage. We weren’t ever allowed to sit in that chair. One of the grown-ups brought it up for his talks each week, then took it away again. Todd himself never sat in it for more than twenty seconds, the time it took him to wind himself up and begin pacing back and forth.