by Cassia Leo
Oh, Lord. That’s probably the saddest thought I’ve ever had. How long am I supposed to maintain this level of hyper-vigilance before I can relax into my new country lifestyle?
It’s been seven and a half weeks since I left Vegas, and I haven’t run into any trouble so far. Would the criminals I stole the suitcase from actually wait this long to come after me? Or did it take all this time for them to find me?
“I think I can find the driveway next to mine on my own, thanks. Besides, I’d rather you just follow me to my house. Then, you can take your door out of my truck and leave,” I reply, making no attempt to retrieve the phone in my pocket.
“Damn, woman,” he says through his ridiculously seductive laughter. “I’ll try not to let the door hit my ass on the way out.”
I open my driver’s side door. “Sounds like a good idea,” I reply smugly, but the smirk is wiped clean off my face when I feel a solid swat land on my backside. “What was that?” I demand.
“Mosquito,” he replies without an ounce of irony.
I glare at him for a moment, trying to think of a witty reply, before I decide to give him a taste of his own medicine. Stepping toward him, I bite my bottom lip as I flash him a demure smile.
My gaze is locked on his icy eyes as I land a hard knee in his groin. “Squirrel,” I declare, then I spin around and climb into my truck, lowering the window as I pull out of the parking space. “Gotta watch out for those critters. See you at the mattress store, neighbor!”
He waves at me with one hand while his other hand covers his crotch, then he falls onto one knee in the middle of the dirt lot. I’m about to look away when I see his middle finger go up. I throw my head back with laughter as I pull out onto the highway.
The moment I enter my new home, I find the entire kitchen flooded with at least an inch and a half of water. I sure wish “handsome” Johnny Sills had come by to point out the main water shutoff yesterday.
As Colton and our newly enlisted assistant — Edie’s fourteen-year-old grandson, Aaron — carefully slide my new mattress out of Colton’s truck bed, I race outside with a panicked look on my face.
“Do you know where my water shutoff is?” I ask desperately, realizing a moment too late that, in my state of distress, I forgot to use my Carolina accent.
Colton scrunches up his eyebrows. “Why? You got a leak?”
Either he didn’t notice my slip-up, or he doesn’t care to acknowledge it.
“A leak is putting it mildly. I have a geyser in there.”
“Oh, shit,” he remarks, then his eyes widen as he looks at Aaron. “Pardon my language.”
Aaron shrugs. “I don’t mind.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll put a dollar in the swear jar,” I prod Colton. “The water shutoff, please?”
“Oh, right,” he replies, nodding at Aaron. “Let’s put this back in the truck.”
They quickly slide the mattress into the truck bed again, and Colton immediately heads toward the side of the house, his eyes scanning the ground all around us.
“What are you looking for?” I ask, hoping to glean some useful information from this catastrophe.
“Sometimes, the water shutoff is located inside a concrete bank in the ground,” he explains. “I’ll check around the sides and back of the house first, but I don’t want to miss it if it’s somewhere in the ground.”
“Why would there be a leak if I wasn’t even living here yet?” I ask, as if he’d know what the hell is going on in this eighty-year-old house.
“It’s probably just a worn out gasket or an old galvanized pipe that’s rusted,” he says, kneeling next to a red shutoff valve jutting out of the dirt a few feet from the crawl space vent. “Or, if your home inspector fiddled with the water pressure when they were testing it, they might have set it too high. Could be any number of things,” he says, tightening the valve and standing up straight. “Either way, we’ll get it fixed, but you’ll probably need to call a mitigation company to come out and dry the place out. Then, you’ll want to keep an eye on the wood floors — if you have those — and the subfloor for a few days, for signs of water damage. Your home insurance company will help with all of that.”
“We’ll get it fixed? Are you a plumber?” I ask, my voice a bit too high as all this new information is giving me anxiety.
He chuckles. “Nope, but I used to work construction aft—before my time in the military.”
He began to say “after” then quickly corrected himself and said “before.”
Normally, I wouldn’t notice this kind of thing. But this is the same kind of mistake I keep making since I went on the run. Maybe this guy is on the run, too.
I should steer clear of him, but my ovaries seem to have already sized him up and deemed him father material.
Aren’t I supposed to blend in? Being friendly with my neighbors is part of that, isn’t it?
He chuckles again. “That sure was a long pause. We should probably go check on the kitchen.”
“Oh, fuck!” I blurt out, quickly clapping my hand over my mouth as I glance back to see if Aaron heard my outburst. I let out a sigh of relief when I see he’s still waiting in the truck bed, engrossed in his iPhone screen. I lead the way back toward the front of the house. “Actually, I don’t think I mentioned where the leak was. How do you know it’s in the kitchen?”
Colton appears flummoxed by my question. “You didn’t mention it? Hmm… I guess I just assumed. That’s where most leaks happen.”
“Aaron!” I call out. “You can head home to your grandma’s for now. I have some cleaning up to do. I’ll drop by if I need you later. Thanks for your help!”
“No prob, Jo. You need some help cleaning up that water?” he says as he hops out of the truck bed onto my gravel driveway.
I nearly smack my forehead. “Duh. I guess I could use some dry towels.”
“Don’t bother, Aaron,” Colton calls out. “I’m closer than you are. I’ll go grab some towels from my cabin.” He turns to me and glances at the pocket where I keep my phone. “You should call your insurance company before they close for the day. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”
I cock an eyebrow at Colton as he jogs toward my backyard, which backs up to Rhodhiss Lake just like his cabin does. My lake neighbor sure looks sexy when he runs.
I want to question his altruism, but thinking about how generous Edie was with me today, I can’t help but wonder if it’s just the people in this area.
Or maybe I have a big “SAVE ME” sign taped to my ass.
I suddenly recall Colton smacking my butt earlier. Twisting my body to get a better look at the back of my shorts, I find nothing there, of course.
I shake my head as I climb the porch steps to go inside and wait for my new neighbor, whom I’ve already kicked in the nuts and basically accused of sabotaging my plumbing when all he’s done is try to help me.
I should probably tape a sign to my forehead with a single word in huge block letters: PARANOID.
6. King
Present Day
Special Agent Jake Stanley wants me to tell him how I know Izzy. He’s trying to figure out whether Izzy knew me as King or Colton.
He’s probably already spoken with Edie. And from the vague questions I posed to Izzy, I got the impression she spoke to Edie about me on at least one occasion. But does Edie remember the name I gave when I purchased the old door from her shop? Did Izzy refer to me by name when they spoke, or did she refer to me as her helpful neighbor?
“I met Izzy at her place of employment,” I begin, but Stanley clears his throat to interrupt me.
“You mean to tell me you both moved here from Vegas within a few weeks of each other, bought houses right next to each other, and both were using aliases, but you didn’t know each other until you met at The Junk Drawer?” he replies, continuing to shake his head in disbelief. “I don’t buy that for one second. Come on, King. I don’t take you for someone who’d come up with a lame story like that. You seem like a smart g
uy. So how about you do the smart thing and start being honest with me now, before you land yourself in some real hot water.”
Real hot water? Is that how we’re referring to federal prison these days?
I take another slow breath to prevent myself from rolling my eyes. “If you want to talk about my life in Vegas, we’ll have to do that through my lawyer. But I’m happy to discuss Izzy if you’d like to continue doing that.”
He considers my words for a moment before his shoulders seem to relax. “Okay. We’ll do this your way. Vegas is off limits…for now.”
Nothing like threatening to bring in a lawyer to buy yourself a little breathing room in a police interrogation.
“How about you tell me what it was like growing up in Tennessee?” Stanley continues. “You said you liked to hunt? Who taught you to hunt? Your father?”
I shake my head. “My dad left when I was eight. My mom taught me how to hunt and fish. She took us camping a lot in the Great Smoky Mountains. I know the Andrews Bald and Clingman’s Dome area like the back of my hand.” Inside, I smile at the thought of sending this guy on a wild goose chase through the mountains. But my conscience gets the better of me. “But I haven’t been to Tennessee since I got back from Afghanistan almost six years ago. Not a whole lot of good memories there anymore.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
I shrug. “Didn’t really get along with my sister too well growing up. She kinda blamed me for my dad taking off. Then, my mom passed away while I was overseas, and she refused to wait the nine days I needed before I could fly back for the funeral. So I missed the service.”
“You missed your mother’s funeral? That’s rough,” he says, a note of sympathy in his voice. “Especially since it sounds like she taught you just about everything you know. You mind me asking how she died?”
“Drunk driver.”
I don’t mention the drunk driver was my mom. I’m sure he’ll find that out soon enough.
Stanley’s left eyebrow shoots up. “Ooh, I bet that pissed you off.”
I tilt my head back a bit and look him in the eye. “No, sir. No one knows when their time will come. I didn’t know my mom would be taken from me so soon, but it does me no good to be angry about something I can’t change.”
He holds my glare for a moment before he blinks. “You learn that philosophy in AA or are you a church-going man?”
I shake my head. “Neither.”
Stanley eyes me for a bit, glancing at the witness information form in front of him occasionally. “I suppose we should talk about your friend. What’s his name? Edwin Santos?”
“He goes by Santos,” I correct him.
He smiles. “Right. He was in the military with you, wasn’t he?”
“Nope,” I reply simply. “He served in a different unit and was discharged years before I was. Never met him until I moved to Vegas.”
Stanley perks up. “You ready to talk about Vegas now?”
I look him dead in the eye as I shake my head slowly.
He chuckles. “All right. Maybe we can come back to that later. So tell me about Santos. Why’d he come here with you?”
I continue to look him in the eye for a bit longer before I allow one side of my mouth to curve into an easy smile. “I think you should ask him that.”
7. Izzy
July 27th
It’s a beautiful Saturday morning in the Carolina countryside, and my first day off as the proud new owner of a rusty ranch-style house on the lake.
I want to spend the day obsessing over the latest news about my disappearance, but there’s been nothing reported in more than two weeks. The Las Vegas Police Department doesn’t exactly pull out all the stops for a missing prostitute. I guess almost-prostitute is probably more accurate.
Besides, there’s only one thing I should be doing today: making a trip to Home Depot.
As I stepped outside my front door, I hear the rhythmic crack of nails being hammered into wood. The sound is coming from Colton’s property. He seems to be replacing some wooden floorboards on his back porch.
He doesn’t appear to notice me, but I have to force myself to look away from his body and the way his skin glistens with sweat in the morning sunshine. I sure wouldn’t mind him nailing me with his hammer.
Oh, God. Did I really just think that?
I drive through the sun-soaked dirt roads and down the shimmering hot highways into the neighboring town of Hickory with the intent of doing some house shopping.
In town, I park my truck in the Home Depot parking lot, since I’ll definitely need to make a stop there before I head home. Then, I set off into the sticky summer heat to get an ice cream cone, which I plan to enjoy as I do some window shopping.
I’m only halfway through my cone, and a couple blocks from Home Depot, when I spot a quaint musical instrument shop in a strip mall with a gorgeous collection of guitars in the window. Without hesitation, I toss my ice cream cone into a nearby bin and head inside.
The baby-blue acoustic-electric guitar in the window display shimmers in the sunshine, like a shining glass of water in a vast desert. I haven’t bought myself a new guitar in more than four years.
I’ve repaired the tuning pegs and bridge pins on my guitar more times than I can count. The built-in electronic tuner on the side of the guitar has been broken for 2 1/2 years. There’s a crack on the waist that effects the resonance, and I’ve had to replace the output jack once already. I can’t really justify replacing the jack again now that it’s having the same issue with spotty sound quality.
But upon closer inspection, the guitar in the window appears to be a mid-level Fender. It’s probably not much more expensive — or sturdy — than the one I’ve been barely holding together for the past four years.
I am about to turn around and head toward the back of the shop, where the more expensive guitars seem to be located, when a salesman approaches me.
He’s tall and thin, a bit like my dad, with the smile that feels more genuine than I would expect from a salesperson.
“Can I help you with something, miss?” he asks politely. “You want to try out that Fender? She’s a real beauty, huh?”
I smile and shake my head. “Actually, I was—”
I stop speaking when I hear the sound of a bell ringing as someone enters the shop. But it’s not the presence of another customer that stops me. It’s the way this customer’s eyes seem locked on mine as he enters the store and heads straight towards the back of the shop.
The guy is huge. At least six-foot-four with dark, chin-length hair tucked behind his ears and tattoos down the sides of his thick neck. The black, short sleeve button-up shirt he’s wearing barely conceals his muscled biceps. It’s also just tight enough around his waist to show the outline of a gun holster on his hip.
He looks like a younger, more clean-cut version as Danny Trejo’s character in the movie Machete.
Concealed carry is not legal in North Carolina without a permit. Open carry is legal. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from having a small .380 stuffed in the waistband of my shorts.
I’m not exactly a law-abiding citizen anymore. And judging by his appearance, I’m assuming Machete isn’t either.
“Actually, what?” the salesman asks.
I chuckle. “Actually, I was just going to look at your songbooks first,” I reply. “I’ll just be over here. I’ll let you know if I need help. Thank you.”
“Sure thing. I’ll just be right over there at the register,” the salesman says pointing at the checkout counter behind him. “We have some nicer guitars at the back of the store. If you’d like to see some of those, I’d be happy to show them to you.”
I smile and nod at him as I head toward the sheet music and songbooks.
Machete is in the guitar section, which means I’ll have to wait him out. And as he glances in my direction then moves on to admiring the next guitar, I let out a frustrated sigh. He doesn’t seem to be in any rush to leave or make a purchase.
After twenty minutes of leafing through guitar tabs for songs I already know, I decide I can’t linger any longer. I head over to the guitar section to admire a black acoustic-electric Gibson Hummingbird guitar with a thin gold stripe along the outer rim.
I’m about to turn around and signal to the salesman for him to get the guitar down for me when Machete takes a step sideways to cozy up next to me.
“Nice guitar. You have good taste,” Machete remarks.
Something about the fact that he’s carrying a concealed firearm and he doesn’t have a Carolina accent makes me nervous. I consider asking him a question about guitars, to expose his possible lack of knowledge, but my heart is pounding so fast I can hardly breathe. Something feels very wrong.
“It’s too expensive,” I reply quickly, then I spin around and leave the store without another word.
I wander around the strip mall for a bit, looking over my shoulder quite often, before I head back toward Home Depot, which happens to be right next to a PetSmart store that’s holding Saturday pet adoptions.
Thinking of the odd encounter with Machete, I reason that picking out the biggest, ugliest dog they have would probably be a good idea. It will help a dog that may not otherwise get adopted, and it may give me a little peace of mind, provided the dog doesn’t turn out to be a complete softie.
As I cross the parking lot and step onto the sidewalk in front of the big-box pet store, I walk right past the wire cages containing the sleeping cats. Perusing the dogs enclosed in the plastic playpens, I observe three Chihuahua’s, one medium-sized dog that appears to be some type of Labrador-mix, and a large dog with a mottled blue coat.
Judging by the pattern in his fur, his ice-blue eyes, and his crooked teeth jutting out at all angles from his underbite, he looks like he might be some type of bulldog mixed with a husky or shepherd.
He’s ugly and a bit dumb looking, but his body is thick and muscled with a large blockhead that looks like it could make mincemeat out of a large man’s leg. He’s perfect.
