“What is this?” Kevia asked.
“It’s a matchmaking service for young women who are tired of dating and looking for a compatible spouse,” Coraline said.
“How much does this cost?”
Coraline cocked her head as she observed the guarded sister. A smile at this point just wouldn’t put the woman at ease, so she took a different tactic. “Women who use the service pay nothing. The men seeking a wife pay the fee. I in turn, take you through a battery of tests, get hair samples, blood work, even poop samples to ensure you’re compatible, healthy, and capable of bearing children,” Coraline said.
“That’s a lot of information to give to someone we don’t know,” Kevia said.
“Cloning you would be impossible at this point and the poo sample is just to make sure everything is working properly. You know, no worms, polyps, or potential life-threatening diseases,” Coraline said, still staring.
“Stop staring at me like that. You’re weirding me out,” Kevia said.
Dionne, wandering around the offices, began to notice the photos on the wall of wagon trains, steam engine trains, old Fords, and women. She couldn’t help but admire the resemblance of all the women in the photos to Coraline.
“Wow, you look like a clone yourself of all these women,” Dionne said into the air. “Oh, Ms. Newair, don’t let my big sis rattle you. She has a permanent case of I smell shit face. At heart, she is an old softie.”
“Shall we get started?” Coraline asked.
“Get started doing what?” Kevia questioned, “I came here with my sister to make sure you didn’t put her silly ass on a slow boat to China.”
“While you’re here, you might as well take the exams, it won’t hurt at all, and who knows? I may have the perfect match for you waiting in my database,” Coraline said, this time preparing a smile.
“Uhm, no thanks,” Kevia said.
“Oh, come on Kevia, you’re here, it’s free, and it will be fun. Just think, in her database is a man with an equally large stick jammed up his booty, and he is waiting on you to come and yank that sucker out,” Dionne said. “I can almost hear the plop from here as well as the sound of his sphincter oozing out a sigh of relief.”
“That is funny,” Coraline said, pressing her dainty hands to her lips. The woman moved quickly and yanked a hair from Kevia’s head by the root and before Dionne had a chance to protest, Coraline did the same to her. “I only have one main computer since clients are by appointment only.”
“Did you just yank a hair out of my head? Lady, we aren’t getting off to a good start here,” Kevia said. “You didn’t ask my permission to take that DNA sample from my head. I haven’t signed any paper work giving you the rights to this, and quite frankly, you’re still creeping me the hell out!”
“Dang, Kevia. Stop spoiling this for me. I know you’re all guarded and stuff, but really. This isn’t about you,” Dionne said, taking a seat, “I’ll go first!”
“Dee, aren’t you the least bit curious as to what she is going to do with the hairs she just pulled from the scalps of our heads?”
“Maybe she is going to mix it with a bit of eye of newt and blend it in a tea so she can read our auras,” Dionne said, waving her fingers in the air like she was spraying pixie dust.
“I will make us some tea, and Dionne, please, go first,” Coraline said. “The system is self-guided. Answer the questions truthfully and let me know when you are done.”
“And what am I supposed to do in the meantime, go shit in a box?”
“No, not yet,” Coraline said, giving her another genuine smile. “I’m going to make tea, then you and I will chat.”
Kevia didn’t want to chat. The woman was weird, collected shit samples, and had just pulled a single strand of hair from her head by the damned root. Now she wanted to chat and have tea as if they were old friends. Kevia didn’t want her tea.
“That tea is going to give me a messed-up stomach so you can make me poop on demand, isn’t it?” Kevia wanted to know.
“Darling, not all people are bad,” Coraline said, laying the two hairs side by side on her desk. In the background, a kettle whistled as well as the green-eyed woman as she vanished, returning moments later with a cheese board loaded with cookies, three teacups and pot of piping hot tea.
“You fascinate me, Kevia Caplan,” Coraline told the lady. “Tell me his name that broke your trust.”
“Pardon me?”
“I didn’t stutter, my dear. A man from your past broke your trust in humankind, and before we go any further, we need to talk about that bastard and get Mr. Dark Past out of your psyche and into the real world so that we may vanquish this demon and set you free,” Coraline said.
“Demons, oh hell naw. I am out of here,” Kevia said, but as she stood, the soft fingertips of Coraline grazed her arm, taking the fight from her.
A light sensation filled her gullet, easing off the anxiety which followed her like a pantomiming shadow. Suddenly, she wanted to sit and talk. Matters which haunted her like bad dreams of seeing Death pull the souls from bodies and prevented a smile from coming to her face. The weight was heavy and she needed it gone, lifted into the ether like wisps of red delusions.
Sitting back down in the chair, she watched the matchmaker pour her a cup of tea, which she took and sipped at slowly. Kevia remained seated, helping herself to a cookie as Coraline carried a second cup of tea into the other room for Dionne.
“Now, let’s get started,” Coraline said to Kevia. “Tell me his name.”
OLEG MAYAKOVSKY WAS the worst kind of man, a predator who took pride in capturing scared rabbits and training them to do his bidding. He was the worst kind of predator because he was patient. Oleg didn’t like devouring his meal while it was fresh, he wanted it to ripen.
“I was 10, working in my father’s store in Pittsburgh,” Kevia said. “It was kind of a bodega that my father partnered with local growers, hippies, and city farmers to provide fresh produce to local urbanites.”
“The front of the store was all business, but at night, the back of the store was a speakeasy. Most people in the neighborhood didn’t comment on what happened at Mr. Earl’s since a lady, if she was short on cash, could slip in the back door, find a darkened room, and make a few bucks at night. No one told on the women because the men would have to give up the unique life they lived in the back room of Mr. Earl’s place,” Kevia said, sipping slowly at the warming tea.
She paused, looking at the wallpaper, seeing a small tear in the décor. The notch in the fabric covering on the walls appeared to have been placed there when the building was erected. Old, worn, but holding secrets on all that had transpired over the years. It reminded Kevia of herself and her childhood friendship with a quiet girl, looking for a better road to travel away from the crowded village where she currently resided in filth and apathy.
“Cordelia Grem was 13 and a friend from school,” Kevia said. “I got her a job cleaning up the back room, you know wiping down the walls and changing the sheets on the two beds since her Mamma was using dope. The job wasn’t much, but the money helped her eat and kept her away from the house at night and the men Ellie Rose brought home. My Daddy kept her safe.”
“And this Oleg?”
“Russian mobster type,” Kevia said in a dreamlike fog. “He had been casing my Dad’s place for a while, learning the schedules, the customers, and the women who slipped in and out of the back room to make a few bucks.”
“What happened to Cordelia?”
Kevia’s face drew blank as she stared at the small flowers in the wallpaper. “Oleg happened,” she confessed. “He came through one night and shut down my fathers’ speakeasy and took all the customers, women, and even Cordelia. I hated that man so much. But I hated his words more than anything.”
Coraline touched her hand, encouraging her to continue.
“He told my father, who tried to fight to keep him from taking Cordelia, that...,” she paused. “Oleg told my father that a poo
r black girl was nothing more than an untrained whore. Time and hunger, mixed with opportunity, is the only thing needed to make her a moneymaker.”
“Wow, and that stuck with you all these years,” Coraline responded.
“Yes, because he took over the neighborhood and made it true,” Kevia said. “Cordelia went from being prey to being a predator herself, recruiting girls that she knew had nothing. Oleg fed them well, gave them a safe place to live, and turned them out. This was followed by a burst of diseases, broken homes, and a complete change in the way we lived.”
“Tell me how it changed, Kevia,” Coraline encouraged.
“Three years was all it took to turn our lives to shit,” she said. “The same women who came through that back room still came to visit my father. He in turn brought through the front door a mean disease identified with three letters that he gave to my mother.”
“Oh dear,” Coraline said her hand going to her chest.
“She was diagnosed when I was 16, and Dad died the year prior,” Kevia said. “My mom sold the store and held onto his insurance policies for us.”
“That’s not much of a childhood for anyone, Kevia.”
“What childhood?” she asked with genuine incredulity. “I was never a child. I worked in that damned store from the time I was 10 until he died when I was 15. My mother took to her bed when I was 16, which left me to run the house and look after Dionne.”
“So, you’ve never had anyone take care of you?”
“No, my life has always been spent taking care of others, Dionne, and for a living, I work for the FBI in the Victim Services Unit, analyzing data to find other Cordelias picked up by modern day Olegs.”
“You’ve made it your life’s work to save the Cordelia’s of the world, Kevia?”
“No,” she said adamantly, narrowing her eyes at Coraline. “My mother’s brother, Willie James, worked for the FBI. When my father died, Oleg slithered his nasty ass around the store, trying to recruit me. I did the same thing to him that he did to us. I bided my time, watching, learning, and understanding where his houses were. Then I set Uncle Willie loose on him.”
A small smile escaped her lips, changing the appearance of her face entirely. Kevia Caplan was a pretty woman, fair of skin, with long hair, meticulously pressed to avoid the kinky coils her sister sported with ease. Everything about her appearance was a careful, calculated choice, giving depth to the brown eyes and thin lips.
“Oleg’s operation got shut down because of you,” Coraline said, looking at the woman who seemed so tired and old for her years.
“It’s my job to shut down the Oleg’s of this world, which is why I came here to make sure you aren’t an Oleg in a dress,” Kevia said. “If you are, no stone will be left unturned as I run your ass into prison for the rest of your life.”
“Whoa, you are intense,” Coraline said, touching Kevia’s hand again with a gentle swipe. “Can you tell me where the ideal place you’d want to go for a honeymoon?”
“Easy, Tahiti,” Kevia said with a forlorn smile.
“What type of men interest you?”
“A man who works with his hands and can build shit,” Kevia said. “I am so turned on by an old school hunter and gatherer. A man who can go out and fish, hunt, build a fire, and feed his woman. That shit is hot.”
In the other room, the clicking of the mouse could be heard as Dionne finished the battery of tests. Coraline tapped the desk four times then ran her fingers across Kevia’s arm. Kevia blinked three times, and looked at the empty teacup in her hand. As her eyes adjusted, she also noticed the two hair strands were no longer on the desk.
“I feel kind of lightheaded,” Kevia said.
“I think you just might be hungry,” Coraline offered. “I will order us lunch as you take the test.”
“Okay,” Kevia said, feeling far more relaxed than she had earlier. For the damnedest reason, she was looking forward to taking the series of tests. As she took a seat at the computer, her mind on Tahiti, she began to answer the questions. “Ha! Me, a mail order bride. That would be rich.”
However, life had taught her to play the hand she was dealt. A natural scrapper and survivor, she figured what harm could it do to see what the computer would spit out. As luck, being the dealer of the hand, she currently held, both she and her sister were matched to the same man. One Brecklin Murphy, a farmer in Arizona at the School of Natural and Holistic Self-Reliance.
“Now that is interesting,” Coraline said.
“Yeah, but who the fuck has a farm in Arizona?” Kevia asked. “It’s a desert!”
“Kevia, evidently this Brecklin guy has found a way to make it work,” Dionne said, “Life isn’t always about the why you can’t but figuring out how you can. He figured out how he could, so the more interesting question would be, don’t you want to see it?”
In truth, she kind of did. However, the Brecklin character, a white male with locs in his hair, had gentle green eyes and a wicked smile. The wicked smile is what made her raise her eyebrows, but he wasn’t her type, no matter what the computer said. She just couldn’t see herself with that kind of a man.
Chapter Three – Lonely Nights and Quiet Days
ALONE.
Brecklin Murphy sat on the front steps of the School of Natural and Holistic Self-Reliance, two hours outside of Phoenix and approximately eight miles from Roosevelt Lake in Arizona. The 13 acres of verdant land nestled in the Tonto National Forest was reachable by a coarse country road and burrowed in a remote valley sheltered by the mountains on three sides. The sound of the small, fluid perennial stream which ran parallel to the main residence was also the primary water supply to the residents as well as the water supply for irrigation of the crops and fruit trees.
Two additional fresh springs combined with the solar pump he’d installed a few years back provided additional water to the lands. Sweeping green landscapes seemed out of place in a state like Arizona, but in the Tonto National Forest, beauty was everywhere the eye could see.
Breck, as most people called him, rose early to hike among the contiguous wilderness to the ruins left by Native American tribes after an infused cup of morning tea. He loved the land that was free of pollution and outside noises which would interfere with the post-traumatic stress disorder associated with a school shooting 20 years prior in Colorado. He hated guns. The need for so many people to have them as a means of defense seemed trite to him on several levels. A good, level headed discussion could open the door to understanding, versus shoot first and let whatever God people worshipped, sort out the rubbish. All of it was rubbish in his estimation.
A young schoolteacher, fresh out a graduate school, full of hopes and possibilities, he took the assignment with vigor. A year later, scrambling on the floor of his classroom, he used his body as a shield to protect his students. One stray bullet pierced his right leg, shattering the fibula, which still on cold days made him limp. The bullet also set up a fear deep inside of his psyche of closed in places, prompting his move to the ranch to help with a project.
Time, opportunity, and the need to heal kept him in Arizona, but the lifestyle made him stay. The loneliness of the peace and quiet, nearly made him leave. He was ready to get back to the world, to love, have a family and try again.
“Morning, Breck,” Holly Moran, the teacher of Herbal Pharmacology, called out.
“Good day, Holly,” Breck called back, raising his cup of tea in the air. It was his normal morning greeting to the students and handful of residents who resided on the ranch. Today, a fresh crop of interns was due to arrive. He mentally prepared himself to deal with the newbies, teaching them the ways of the ranch, hoping all would understand and assimilate.
He heard the sound of horses traveling up the rough dirt road. This would be a new crew, which equaled two people, never certain of what they’d signed up to do. He didn’t care. An extra pair of bodies, or in this case two, made for light work in the garden. By the time he finished his tea, the bit of toast, and t
he hardboiled egg on the kitchen counter, the horses would arrive, and he could get started.
Getting started was the hardest part for him. Once Breck got moving with the flow, he was a force.
“Hey Breck, anytime you’re ready to marry me and make your own, I’m ready,” Holly called out.
She was a loud woman, even outdoors. Her inside voice was just as loud as her outside voice, and both were entirely too loud for his ears. A funny thought crossed his mind as he envisioned making love to the woman on a quiet night. Holly’s whispers of passions would more than likely be loud enough to make the coyotes howl in the night.
Breck offered her a smile as he bit into the last of the boiled egg. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like people per se, he just didn’t trust them to do the right thing. Everyone was working an angle, even his new interns. A great number of them signed up to get the free room and board while they learned Herbal Pharmacology. It was difficult to hide his amusement when the interns learned the herbs they would work with were best suited for cooking and taking down swelling in the joints. He knew they would think ‘herbs’ meant marijuana.
He looked up from the cup of herbal tea as the first horse arrived. Breck waved at the intern, who had no idea how to manage a horse, let alone ride one. Fortunately for the intern, the horse knew exactly where to go.
“Good morning,” he said as the second horse appeared over the crest. “Grab your things and come on over.”
Breck waited in the early morning sun as it beat down on his tanned skin. He stood at five feet eleven and had green eyes with wild, unruly hair which locked even when it wasn’t planned. Over the years, it became easier to maintain and Breck allowed them to grow longer. Rarely did he leave the ranch, limiting his interactions with the outside world’s judgements, so his hair became his personal journey toward peace. The two people who dismounted the horses were going to destroy all the sanity he had left in his brain. The first intern fell out of the saddle and the second one, managed to turn himself around in the saddle facing the ass end of the horse.
Killers Page 14
