Rogue Touch

by Woodward, Christine

  Turned out we didn’t need the key at all—just as I’d suspected, the front door swung right open. “We don’t have much time,” I said to Touch. No matter how low-crime the area, if you were closing up a house for the season, you’d lock it. Whoever’d left the house, they planned on coming back sometime today. My heart set straight to reminding me I wasn’t a natural criminal.

  Luckily my stomach had some noise to make, too, reminding me how hungry I was, while Wendy Lee’s memories kept chattering on about how he’d left her high and dry. I guess if we had to steal anything from anybody, it might as well be from someone I knew to be a scoundrel.

  “You go in there and work on the computer,” I said to Touch. “I’ll get food and supplies.”

  “It’s probably best if I don’t use the same bank again,” Touch said. “Any others you have a grudge against?”

  “Sure. And it’s not my grudge, Touch, it’s the whole damn country’s.”

  That made me think of something. I followed Touch into the little office, and as he was logging on to the computer I said, “Hey. If I give you the name of a bank, can you get into their system?”

  Sure enough Touch could. I stood watching while he hacked into the system, bringing up Aunt Carrie’s mortgage account. He asked a lot of questions while he worked. Apparently they didn’t have mortgages in Arcadia.

  “Look,” I said. “All you really need to know about this world? The rich people own everything. Which leaves pretty much nothing for the rest of us.”

  Touch stopped typing for a minute and looked at me long and hard. “That’s why we got attacked by those men at the barbeque place,” he said quietly. “And that’s why all those people were living in Smith Park.”

  “Yeah,” I said, and patted him on the shoulder, not wanting him to get too wrought up over life here on planet Earth. The important thing was that in about two minutes’ time, Aunt Carrie’s mortgage was in their system as “PAID IN FULL.” When I headed out of the office, I was humming a happy little tune under my breath. It’s nice to throw in a good deed in the midst of criminal activity. I pictured Aunt Carrie and the look on her face when she found out. Maybe part of her would know, somehow, that I was the one who did it.

  In the hall closet I found two bags, a framed backpack for hiking and a green army duffel like the one I used to have, only bigger. I ducked into the bedroom Joe used to use, but clearly it now belonged to a little kid, with stuffed animals and little plastic toys all about. Joe must have moved on over to the master bedroom, and in there I found, sitting on top of the dresser, a bunch of framed photos. He had lost a bunch of hair, but he hadn’t grown much of a belly. Handsomer, I had to admit, than the sort of man Wendy Lee tended to date now. In fact it hurt my heart a little, how handsome he still looked to me. The pictures also showed his wife, who I thought looked a whole lot like Wendy Lee, maybe not quite as bleached and plucked and made up. I bet she couldn’t cook as well, though. I wondered if she called him Jo Jo.

  Luckily old Joe was nice and tall, so I threw a bunch of his blue jeans and long johns into the green duffel bag. Bunch of flannel shirts, too, and sweaters, and a nice puffy parka hanging in the closet. Not much that belonged to his wife would fit me—she was shorter and wider—but I did grab a denim jacket that would make me look less noticeable, plus a couple wool hats to pull over my freaky hair, plus a long flowery skirt with an elastic waist that looked pretty one-size-fits-all.

  By the time I got back to Touch in the computer room, I’d filled the green duffel to brimming with stuff for him, but put only a garment or two in the frame pack. I figured we could use the rest of the space for groceries. When he saw me, he got up from the chair, looking like he was pretty well finished.

  “You do what you need with the bank account?”

  “Should be all set,” he said, but he didn’t sound that confident. Clearly the failure of the blue ball had shaken him up good.

  “You head on back to the truck while I tie up some loose ends here.”

  He hesitated. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to split up,” he said.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” I promised. “Just a couple minutes, I swear.”

  Touch glanced over at the computer like he knew I had business on it that I didn’t want him to know about. Then he looked back at me, directly into my face, real searching. I stared back at him hard, in a way that I hoped let him know that he seemed to be hiding plenty from me, too.

  “Look,” I finally said, when he hadn’t budged. “Your vigilance is becoming a mite oppressive. Do I really need to spend every single second of my life from here on in with you looking over my shoulder?”

  “Yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact, given who’s chasing us, yes. You do.”

  “Chasing us?” I said. “I thought they were chasing you.”

  Now I know for a fact it wasn’t my imagination or Wendy Lee’s paranoia. Touch’s face went just a little bit pink. He recovered quick, though. “Look,” he said. “You want some privacy? That’s fine. I’ll wait for you in the hall.”

  I thought about making a snide comment on how he hadn’t been much of a bodyguard back in Kentucky. Then I remembered the dramatic fashion in which he’d saved us in Napoleon. So I handed him the empty pack. “Here,” I said. “Why don’t you make yourself useful instead of standing guard? Go fill this up with groceries.”

  As I handed him the pack, I noticed a flashlight sitting on the windowsill, so I tossed it in. Never knew when one of those would come in handy.

  After he left, I sat down in front of the computer. The leather seat was still warm from Touch sitting there. I had to be quick. Who knew when Joe Wheeler and his family would be back from their trip to town, or their morning ride, or whatever? But I just had to look and see if there was any news about Wendy Lee. While I waited for the Clarion-Ledger page to load, I opened the desk drawer to see if there was anything I could use. And there sure was. A big silver money clip, holding together a nice-sized wad of bills. Too easy, particularly when I recalled how he’d never given Wendy Lee a single dime. I smiled to myself, taking the money out and throwing the clip back in the drawer in case it was a family heirloom. The clip made a little ping as I returned it, like metal hitting metal, and I pulled the drawer out farther. There, sitting right in front of me, was a .365 Magnum. It wasn’t on account of Cody’s memory, or Wendy Lee’s, that I knew what kind of gun it was. Aunt Carrie kept the exact same one in a tin jar on the kitchen counter marked FLOUR.

  I sat staring at that gun a full minute, thinking on all the various ways it might come in handy. But in the end I just slid that drawer shut. Considering what all my skin could do, lack of weaponry was not exactly my biggest problem. I went ahead and set to typing “Wendy Lee Beauchamp” in the search line.

  And there it was, an article with a big old picture of her sitting up in her hospital bed, smiling at the camera. A woman that must have been her mama—bleached and gussied as she was, but about twenty years older—sat next to her smiling even wider. The caption under the picture read, “Bakery owner defies the odds, wakes up out of coma.”

  I sure would’ve liked to read the rest of that article. Even more than that, Wendy Lee waking up gave me hope for Cody. I wanted to check around for articles about him, too. But just at that moment I heard the front door open, and three or four laughing voices chattering away. The loudest one—my heart, infected by Wendy Lee’s, skipped a beat—belonged to Joe. The voice was older for sure, but I would’ve recognized it anywhere.

  Dang. Not only did I need to get out of there, I needed to get out with everything I’d taken. Touch, I figured, would be smart enough to hightail out of the back door off the kitchen instead of coming through the house to get me.

  I shoved the bills into the pocket of my pants and took the time to exit out of the newspaper (no telling what dots Joe Wheeler would connect with one look at that), wishing I had time to clear the browsing history. I also took the time to pull one of Mrs. Whe
eler’s hats down over my head—might as well do what I could to make myself less recognizable. Then I zipped the bag closed and pulled it up over my shoulders. If I opened the window quiet as I could, maybe I could jump out to the ground and make a break for it without the Wheelers ever knowing I’d been here, and Touch would meet me on the lawn.

  That’s when I heard the dog barking.

  Crap, I damn near said aloud. Forgetting about being quiet, I pulled at the window hard as I could, but it seemed painted shut. Finally I noticed that the little lock was pulled closed, but I’d barely set my fingers on it before that dog came barreling into the room, barking like a hellhound, with Joe Wheeler himself right behind him. I put my hands up in the air. The dog itself wasn’t so threatening—a little mottled creature with pointy ears.

  “What the hell?” Joe Wheeler yelled. He sounded indignant and very angry. I’d heard him use these very words in Wendy Lee’s memories. But I wasn’t near prepared for the sight of him. Just a regular, middle-aged man with faded red hair and faded freckles, but I stopped breathing for what felt like a full minute. I knew it wasn’t logical, but it got my feelings hurt that his only reaction to seeing me there was being mad. He didn’t even seem a bit scared, just kept on yelling, “What on earth do you think you’re doing, girlie?”

  His wife and a pair of kids—one a teenaged girl, the other a boy of ten or so—crowded into the room behind him. Joe raised his arm, backing the two kids out of the room, and I felt sort of touched by his protectiveness. Then I stopped feeling touched, because I saw his eyes flit on over to the desk drawer that I knew contained that .365 Magnum, and it was awful plain that he’d gladly shoot me over a wad of cash and an Indian skirt. No doubt Colorado was a “Make My Day” state just like Mississippi.

  Before I could stop myself, I said, “Don’t even think about it, Jo Jo. You always were a piss-poor shot.”

  The confused look on his face gave me just the opening I needed to reach on into the drawer and pull out that gun. My eyes flitted down to make sure the safety was fastened. I sure didn’t want to shoot anyone, least of all a couple of kids.

  Joe held his arms out wide while his wife started to back the kids out of the room. I would have let them go if it hadn’t been for Touch. Who knew where he had got himself to by now?

  “Hold on there,” I said, enjoying the fear in Joe’s eyes, not to mention the confusion (I was pretty sure from the look in his eye, nobody’d called him Jo Jo since Wendy Lee). I moved my finger back, trying to make it look like I had released the safety. “I need everybody to just stay put for right now. Nobody needs to get hurt. What’s going to happen is, I’m just going to ease right on out this window and y’all are going to forget you ever saw me.”

  I backed up a couple steps, toward the window. The dog didn’t know not to be scared of guns, and he ran up closer to me, barking his little head off.

  “Call your dog, Jo Jo,” I yelled. I sure didn’t want to shoot anybody’s dog, not even Joe Wheeler’s. I could see his daughter’s face get all teary and panicked, like she was way more scared of me shooting her dog than of me shooting her daddy. At the same time it struck me that there was nothing particularly terrible about Joe Wheeler to the naked eye.

  “Radar,” Joe called. “Come back here, boy.”

  I let out a little snort of a laugh. “God damn, Jo Jo,” I said. “Can’t you think of any other name for a dog?”

  Joe’s face got so red you couldn’t even see them freckles he used to have. His wife gave him a funny look.

  “Have we met?” Joe said, real confused, and I couldn’t help laughing. By now my own damn heart was taking over Wendy Lee’s. Maybe he wasn’t too terribly terrible, but on the other hand I couldn’t see anything particularly special about him. Now that Wendy Lee’d woken up from her coma, I hoped she’d be able to put her heartache behind her and find some unmarried fellow who loved her right back. But I had barely got to finish that thought in my head when…

  Bam! Crackle! Boom!

  Crap. By now I knew that noise, and what it meant—people from Touch’s planet coming after him—and now me—with their scary weapons. I guess it had just been a matter of time before Touch and I encountered our different worlds’ troubles at the very same time.

  “Run,” I yelled, loud as I could, to Joe Wheeler and his family. “Run for your lives!”

  For once in his life old Jo Jo listened when somebody spoke to him. He and his family ran out of that house with their dog at their heels, about as fast as I’d ever seen four people and a dog run. Let me tell you I would have been right behind them if it weren’t for Touch. I couldn’t go anywhere till I knew where he’d gone to.

  From the driveway I heard the sound of a car starting and then peeling away. Sure enough they’d be driving straight to a police station, but that was a problem I’d have to sort out later.

  “Touch!” I yelled.

  The bam-and-crackle sound had come from over in the kitchen, so I headed that way. Sure enough, a light was emanating from that direction, bright but not blinding. And I could hear whistling voices, talking—by now I recognized Touch’s voice when he spoke in his own language. Neither voice sounded so angry or urgent as it had back at the Chevy dealership, but I didn’t get a chance to ponder this at all, because the next thing I knew some kind of snarling beast burst through the kitchen door and headed straight toward me.

  Now “beast” might not sound like the most specific word to you, but let me tell you that what I found myself running from did not fall into any other category I’d ever seen before. All I saw was a whole lot of hair and teeth attached to a creature that was at least the size of me, headed in my direction making decidedly unfriendly noises. And it was headed in my direction fast. I’d been half the length of the house away when I turned to run from it, and in seconds it was right on my heels. I slammed myself into Joe’s bedroom and headed for the closet. As I struggled with the safety on Joe’s gun, I could hear the thing scratching and tearing at the bedroom door. It took about two minutes for that sound to be followed by the whole thing crashing down. Of course if it could break down the bedroom door, it could break down the closet door, but damn if I couldn’t figure out the safety with the way my hands were trembling.

  Those terrible claws raked the outside of the closet door. I pressed my back against the wall, all Mrs. Wheeler’s dress hems tickling my face. It felt like the whole house shook as that thing tried to claw its way in to get me. As I finally figured out the gun, a giant claw came ripping through a panel in the door. It raked right through my leather pants, the claws and pads of its paws pressing themselves against my suddenly bare skin.

  Here we go, I thought. The gun skittered out of my hand and hit the door, going off with a deafening retort. It may have hit that beast, but at this point that seemed a little redundant, because I’d already heard it flop to the floor. While my body sucked in the greatest surge I’d ever felt, of strength and power.

  I picked up the gun and got to my feet. The creature had fallen against the door, and I thought I would have to give it a mighty heave, but the door swept the body aside as if it weighed no more than a pile of maple leaves. I stood there looking at what I’d just absorbed. A big, furry brown creature that looked like a cross between a grizzly bear and a wolf. Its rib cage rose and fell, so I knew it wasn’t dead. Chances were slim it would ever wake up out of its coma, but I couldn’t risk the Wheelers coming home to face it. I closed my eyes and pointed the gun, my whole body jerking back as it went off. When I opened my eyes, the thing had stopped breathing. Now I could get back down to business.

  “Touch!” I yelled.

  The house had gone eerily quiet. Where the hell could he be? And where the hell were the people or where the hell was the person who’d come after him? I held the gun close to my chest and tiptoed back into the hallway. Nothing. But from down the road, I could hear the sound of distant sirens. I had to get out of this house. I went back through the kitchen, but there was no
sign of anyone or anything, except cupboard and pantry doors left open. The back door also stood wide open, and I headed on through it.

  No sooner had my feet stepped onto the grass than the sounds started echoing all around me, and I don’t mean the sounds of the Ferdinand PD. It was like a great big lightning storm erupting: flashing lights and violent wind—no, not wind exactly, it was more like the grass and trees were bending close as they could toward the ground, like the plants themselves were scared of what was coming. I couldn’t help but duck down, too, worrying that Touch had already been swept back to his home planet, leaving me all alone, never to see him again. I could almost stand the thought of getting killed right here and now by whatever was chasing Touch. What I couldn’t stand would be never seeing him again, and finding myself all alone.

  My eyes fought to stay open against whatever force buzzed all around me. And then, coming toward me, I saw her. Even though Touch had only said a few words about her, I knew right away who she was. She looked like an oversized Tinker Bell floating in my direction, all flaxen blond and wispy limbs, and eyes the pale blue of the most gentle summer day. About ten times more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.

  Alabaster. Touch’s wife. Walking directly toward me, with a look on her face that I didn’t quite buy: serene and well-meaning, like she wanted me to think she was here to help. She opened her mouth to speak, and out came that same kind of whistling sound Touch had made when he’d told me his name. Was this her way of demanding to know where he was? Or did everything in their language sound this way and she wasn’t saying his name at all?

  Alabaster pointed at me as the air kept crackling all around us. She was dressed in some kind of light, lacy clothing that didn’t cover much more than your average bathing suit. She had a cape tied around her neck, also light and lacy, that flew back luxuriously amid all the electric crackling. But I could tell the temperature took her by surprise. These people really needed to start communicating with each other a little better. She was shivering, and her lips had started to turn blue.