Runaway

by Anne Laughlin

  When Catherine opened the door suddenly and looked out, Jan dropped the file as if she’d been caught doing something naughty.

  “What are you doing here?” Catherine asked. She didn’t sound very friendly and Jan’s heart sank.

  “Just grabbing a report from the Harrington file. I work most Saturdays. Sorry if I bothered you.”

  Jan picked up the file and turned to leave.

  “You didn’t bother me. I was just startled to see you.”

  “Okay.” She started to walk away.

  “Wait.” Catherine came closer to her, reaching out a hand. “Will you come in for a moment?”

  Jan hesitated and then let herself be led into the conference room. Catherine closed the door.

  “I’m sorry the morning was so rushed,” Catherine said. She stood in front of Jan, shorter by an inch or more despite her high heels. She took Jan’s hands in her own. “The day’s not gotten any better.”

  Jan looked down at their hands. Maybe she’d misunderstood?

  “Are you all right? It sounded like you were arguing with someone in here.”

  “Did it?” Catherine stepped away and picked up a thermos from the table. “Coffee?”

  “Sure.” She watched her pour. Catherine handed her a cup and sat at the head of the table, pointing to the chair next to her for Jan.

  “If you’re worried about last night, you don’t need to be,” Jan said. “I understand it was a one-time thing.”

  Jan said a quick foxhole prayer that it hadn’t been a one-time thing.

  “Is that what you think I’m worried about? Apparently, everyone here thinks I have a cold heart.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ve only been here one day. How many TSI women have you had sex with?”

  Catherine laughed, a sound that produced all kinds of rumblings in Jan. Cello, bow, thrum.

  “Clearly, we’re on a dangerous course of miscommunication. Believe me, I’ve not had sex with any other TSI women. I can’t stop thinking about the sex I had with you.”

  Catherine drank her coffee and studied Jan’s face.

  “I only meant that the managers I met with this morning all seemed to think I was sent here to eviscerate them and their staffs.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Let’s see. Davis from Security Operations.”

  “Paranoid. Forget him.”

  “And Monroe from IT.”

  “He’s a moron. Practically all the troubles we have here are technology related. He’s right to be worried,” Jan said.

  “Zimmerman from Accounting.”

  “He should be worried too. It’s unlikely your central office won’t be handling most of the financial functions, right?”

  Catherine stared at her. “That’s true. But I’d never take lightly the elimination of someone’s job. It’s a horrible thing to have to do.”

  “Is the job situation what you were freaking out about this morning?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry. I was a little rude this morning. I was mad at myself for being late to talk with these gentlemen. They were already against me before we even started, and then I made them cool their heels. But that’s no excuse for being rude to you.”

  Jan sat back in her chair, relieved. “No need to apologize. I thought maybe you were regretting last night.”

  “Regret? I almost wish I did. But I haven’t stopped thinking about it for a moment.”

  “Me neither.”

  They looked at each other. Jan could see the tiredness around Catherine’s eyes, but she seemed much happier than a few minutes earlier. Catherine stood in front of Jan’s chair and leaned down for a kiss. By the time the kiss ended, she was in Jan’s lap. Jan was still in her running clothes and smelled musky, but so did Catherine.

  “How long will you be in Chicago?” Jan asked. She pulled Catherine in for a kiss before she could answer. Somehow the buttons of her blouse opened halfway down.

  “What was the question?” Catherine said when she came up for air.

  “I wondered how long you’re here before we have to say good-bye.”

  Catherine frowned. “I don’t want to think about that.”

  “A few days, a week?”

  “Hmm. I think I can stretch it out to a couple of weeks.”

  Jan kissed her again. They kissed for a long time. They were still kissing when the door to the conference room opened and Vivian stuck her head in.

  “Working overtime?” she said.

  Catherine and Jan flew apart. Catherine grabbed the front of her unbuttoned shirt as she tumbled out of the chair, just getting her feet under her in time to avoid a fall. Vivian laughed and closed the door behind her.

  *

  Jan drove home from the office, forcing her thoughts once again to how to find Maddy Harrington. Catherine had been mortified by Vivian walking in on them kissing, though Jan tried to reassure her that no one could be less judgmental than Vivian, at least in regard to sex. Vivian was most assuredly pro-sex. But Catherine had become all business by the time she’d straightened her blouse, so Jan took her leave. The important question had been answered for her. Catherine still wanted her. Everything else could be sorted out.

  Jan’s phone rang and she picked up when she saw it was Peet.

  “What’s up?”

  “Shopping with the girls. Thought I’d call while Kevin helps them pick out dresses.”

  Jan laughed. “Good idea. I’ve seen you in a dress you picked out yourself.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m good with a power saw. We all have our strengths.”

  “Are you still worried about your job? Because I really think we’re going to be fine,” Jan said.

  “No, I’m more worried about Maddy Harrington. Too much time is going by. Do you have anything new?”

  Jan immediately felt guilty. If her mind weren’t wrapped around Catherine she would have been putting every bit of time and thought into finding Maddy.

  “Not really. Do you?” She sounded a little peevish.

  Peet sighed. “Calm down there, sister. I only asked because you said you were going to go through those websites last night. I’m not accusing you of being a slacker. What’s going on?”

  Jan debated whether to tell Peet about Catherine, but dismissed the thought. She knew Peet would try to talk her out of seeing any more of her new boss and she didn’t want to make any promises she couldn’t keep. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep well last night. We just don’t have a lot to go on other than Maddy’s fascination with the right-wing groups scattered all over the Internet.”

  “Any particular ones?” Peet asked.

  “I think we need to start in Michigan. It’s close by and she spent quite a bit of time looking over a few of the militia sites up there.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  Jan didn’t have a plan. Just drive to Michigan and start poking around, she supposed, which really didn’t constitute a plan. A wing and a prayer was more like it. And she felt reluctant to leave right away. It was Saturday afternoon. Maybe she could see Catherine later, maybe even spend Sunday showing her around Chicago, a simple thing that made it sound like she and Catherine could be a normal couple, with dinners and outings and all the small things people do to get to know each other. She’d read about this in books and seen it in movies; she didn’t have any relationship experience that included courting and becoming a couple. The fact that she was already thinking of them as a couple was astonishing to her. And the fact that Catherine lived in London didn’t bother her. She could do London.

  “Jan?” Peet said.

  “Right. Well, the plan is that we drive up to Michigan and talk to some of the people running these training camps and militia groups and hope that they’ve seen or heard about Maddy. I don’t know where else to start. When do you want to go?”

  “Crap. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to leave town. Have you talked to the Harringtons?”

  “No, that’s your job. They like you better,” Jan said.


  “You could try a little harder, you know.”

  “Not with the Harringtons I can’t. It’s best I not talk to them at all.”

  Jan pulled into her parking garage. She heard Peet telling Kevin she’d be done in a minute.

  “Okay, I’ll call the Harringtons. If they approve the trip, I suppose we should go tonight. Do you at least have a starting point for us, an actual place for us to drive to?”

  “Yep. Somewhere south of Detroit. But I think we should leave in the morning. Early.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me. I’ll let you know what the Harringtons say.”

  They rang off and Jan went into her apartment. Normally, she’d already be in Detroit no matter what the client said, but the pull of Catherine was strong. She felt guilty, but the desire to see Catherine that night easily trumped her guilt.

  When Jan wasn’t working on a Saturday, which was rare, she spent the time cleaning her apartment. There was very little to do. She didn’t have many things, so not much got strewn about. She usually ate out, so the kitchen never needed real cleaning. She had a person come in once a week to do the bathrooms and floors. But still she always found something to fuss with, some shoes that needed polishing, a drawer that could be reorganized, a window that could be washed. The few women she’d brought home to her place usually teased her about its minimalism and sterile cleanliness, but Jan had never gotten over the satisfaction of having a place she could actually scrub clean. The cabin in the woods she’d been raised in could never have been called clean. Being simply habitable was a stretch.

  But today, instead of cleaning, Jan sat down with her laptop and started Googling. Catherine Engstrom was an unusual enough name that she should be able to see right off whether there was anything on the Internet about her. And in 0.485 seconds she could see there was a lot. Not much of it was concerned with her work at Chartered Global Security. A website called London Arts Beat showed a photo of Catherine and a beautiful woman posing at the entrance to a building. The caption read: Celebrated painter Ellen Sanderson hosted a reception at the opening of her new show at the Grimes-Brimley Gallery in Chelsea last evening. Accompanying her was her partner, Catherine Engstrom.

  Jan saw that the date of the opening was exactly a month ago. She closed the laptop, went to her freezer, and pulled out a bottle of vodka. Almost as soon as she poured some down her throat she had to lean over the sink and throw it back up.

  *

  Packages and paper were strewn throughout David’s house, making it look like the aftermath of a savage Christmas party for camping and gun enthusiasts. Boxes of ammunition were stacked next to rifles and shotguns. Down coats were piled high like snowdrifts on the furniture while winter weight army boots lined one wall as if waiting for a platoon to muster. When Maddy, Kristi, and Tommy came through the door in the middle of the night, they tripped over power tools and landed on cookware. David flipped on the living room light as he came in behind them.

  “Careful there! We can’t afford to break anything.”

  “Well, can you afford to break people?” Kristi asked. “‘Cause I’m about broke, I gotta tell you.”

  David laughed. “You’re unbreakable, Kristi. Strong as an ox. You’re just tired is all.”

  “She’s not the only one,” Tommy said. He made his way into the kitchen and sat at the rickety table. Maddy sat beside him. She was worn out and her head hurt from taking the rifle butt to her helmet. She was still pissed off about it. No one at the training camp seemed to take the incident seriously.

  “I can’t believe we have to go back to that place tomorrow,” Tommy said. He looked as miserable as he had all day. “There’s not one thing I learned there that seems useful to me.”

  Maddy had to agree. Unless they were planning on hunting in the dark in Idaho, the entire six-hour exercise that evening had been a painful waste of time. Learning how to lob hand grenades didn’t seem useful for hunting elk and deer. Knowing counter ambush techniques, fighting positions, and wetlands ambush practice seemed absurd. But everyone involved in the training took it damn seriously.

  “Tommy, you’ve always been big on learning for the sake of learning. Just think of it that way,” David said. “I can’t get these guys to give us a tailor-made weekend of training. Can’t afford to, anyway. We take what we need and don’t worry about the rest.”

  Kristi sat across from Maddy and took her field cap off. Her hair stuck up in a thousand different directions. “I don’t know. It all may come in handy. We don’t know what’s waiting for us out in Idaho. It’s the Wild West, right? Maybe we’ll have to defend our land.”

  Maddy thought about their property’s real estate brochure, which went on for paragraphs about how suited the acreage was for living a survivalist lifestyle. There were “defensible ridges” where you could take the high ground and track the movements of others approaching your land. If nothing else, she thought it possible they’d have to defend themselves against extremist groups in the area.

  “I think I’ll just pass on tomorrow’s training,” Maddy said. “I’ve been wounded in battle today.”

  “That son of a bitch,” Kristi said. “I can’t wait for tomorrow so I can take him down.” She looked fierce. Then she looked back at Maddy and her face softened. “I’ve got some Vicodin. Do you need some?”

  “You’ve got Vicodin?” Maddy said.

  “Sure. Steady source of it.” She said this as if she were talking about school supplies. Tommy groaned.

  “I don’t understand. Are you an addict or something?” Maddy said.

  Kristi laughed. “Oh, hell no. I’m not stupid.”

  “Kristi’s resourceful,” David said. “That’s one of the things she brings to the table for us.”

  “Thanks, man,” Kristi said. She smoothed her hair down. “But like I was saying, if you’re head hurts bad, I can give you something for it. Maybe you’ll feel different about going tomorrow.”

  “She’s going tomorrow,” David said. “We need to be strong here, because we’re going to have to be twice as strong in Idaho. Right, Maddy?”

  They all looked at her. Maddy wasn’t used to doing things she didn’t want to do. Her parents seldom made her do anything. But she didn’t want to look like the weakest link in a chain of weak links.

  “Let me sleep on it. I feel like shit.”

  “Yeah, let’s let her sleep on it,” Kristi said. “Where are we all sleeping, anyway?”

  Tommy looked alert for the first time in hours.

  “Kristi, you sleep downstairs with Maddy. Tommy will bunk with me,” David said. “Diane will meet back up with us tomorrow.”

  “Great,” Kristi said. “Come on, Maddy. Let’s get you to bed.”

  Maddy didn’t know if she liked the sound of that. Kristi suddenly seemed eager.

  “But there’s only the one mattress down there. Where’s Kristi going to sleep?”

  David smiled. “Get used to community living, sweetheart. Kristi and you are going to have to share the mattress tonight.”

  Kristi got up and came around the table. Maddy felt like she was about to be escorted to the honeymoon suite. “Come on, kid. Let’s get you to bed. Your head must be splitting.”

  David kept smiling as they left the room. Maddy’s head was pounding and she was starting to consider the Vicodin. When they got down to the basement, Kristi looked at the shabby corner where Maddy slept.

  “Look how nice you made this,” she said. “It’s not half bad. Which side of the bed do you want?”

  That was a strange question. Maddy had never shared a bed with anyone. Why would it make any difference which side she had?

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You sure? Because I always like the left side. I don’t know why. I was once with a girl who insisted on the left side and I knew I had to get rid of her.”

  There it is, Maddy thought. Kristi’s a lesbian. She felt simultaneously thrilled and terrified. She’d never had sex with anyone, bu
t when she imagined it, boys never came to mind. But neither did someone like Kristi.

  Maddy made quick work of washing up. She asked Kristi to turn around when she used the toilet. Then she put on a T-shirt and shorts and slipped into the bed while Kristi brushed her teeth.

  “I am so psyched about getting out of this town,” Kristi said. She was talking as she sat on the toilet. “I don’t know what your story is yet, but if it’s anything like mine, the idea of a place that isn’t all fucked up is like heaven to me. This town is dead. Dead to me.”

  “Did you ever think of just moving to another town?” Maddy said.

  “I tried it. I went to Kalamazoo and then to Lansing. It’s the same thing everywhere. No one wants to hire me, or if they do it’s for shit jobs. I want to build something for myself.”

  That wasn’t so different from what Maddy wanted. She was going to suggest to Kristi that she could try getting an education and find better work, but then she remembered that she was a high school dropout herself.

  Kristi got into bed with the same T-shirt she’d been wearing all day. She smelled earthy, but not in an entirely unpleasant way. Maddy could feel her warmth. Or was it her own warmth? Suddenly there was warmth, and she wasn’t sure what was happening.

  “So what’s your story?” Kristi asked. “Did you just graduate from high school this year and decide to leave everything? What did your parents say?”

  Kristi was leaning on one elbow, looking down at Maddy.

  “I’m not really close to my parents. I’d say they aren’t in the loop on this decision.”

  “You mean they don’t know?”

  “Well, they know I’m gone, but they don’t know where.”

  “Huh.” Kristi considered this. “Well, as long as you’re eighteen they don’t have a say, do they?”

  “That’s the whole point, really. I don’t want anyone to have a say in what I do.”

  Kristi lay down with her arms behind her head. The tip of her elbow was next to Maddy’s temple. She felt like rubbing her head against it, but she didn’t. They were silent for a few minutes.