by Jordan Burke
I knew there was no way I’d been set up. They wouldn’t have done it like that, and Catherine wouldn’t have revealed the fact that she worked for the FBI, which she had freely done.
There was no existing threat of that nature. The only hazard at this point was whether the U.S. government discovered who I was and what I doing, and in turn implicated Catherine in all of it. There was no evidence that she was involved, of course, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be put through the interrogation wringer.
I had to make a decision, and fast. The way I saw it, I had three options: One, break things off with her; two, tell her everything and make her aware of who she had become involved with; three, go on like we had been and not tell her anything.
I knew the right choice, but I wasn’t ready to do it.
Just as I was entering the city of Baltimore, forty minutes later, my phone rang.
“She’s clean,” Justin said. “All she does is work in the department that scans incoming parcels. Sounds boring as shit, if you ask me.”
“No other jobs with the Bureau?”
“None. And no previous law enforcement or military activity. But there is something odd.”
I pulled up to a red light. “What’s that?”
“Catherine Marie Kolb didn’t exist until eight years ago.”
I was processing what he had just told me, when I heard a horn blow behind me. I looked up and saw that the light had turned green. I swung the car off the road, into the empty parking lot of a bank. “What do you mean didn’t exist?”
“I was able to get her Social Security number. It was issued eight years ago. And there’s no record of any Catherine Marie Kolb with her birthdate anywhere in the United States.”
My mind was working at top speed. “Anywhere in Europe? Asia? She could have been born overseas and didn’t come to the U.S. until she was eighteen.”
My stomach turned as I thought about that possibility. If that were indeed the case, who the hell was she and why was she here?”
“That’s all I got, dude. Sorry. There’s eight years of history on her, but before that…nada.”
I told him to call me if he found anything else. He said he would definitely do some more searching because he was bored and he loved a mystery.
I usually did, too, but I didn’t like this one.
. . . . .
Catherine sent me a text when she woke up: I finally have your number.
Me: And now I have yours.
Catherine: I wish you hadn’t left but thanks for the note. It was sweet. What are you doing?
Me: Pricing some books that I need to send out this week. Speaking of that, do you have plans tomorrow night?
Catherine: No.
Me: Well, you do now. I’ll be at your place at 6 sharp.
Catherine: If you’re expecting me to cook you’re out of luck.
Me: I’ll take care of dinner. Back to work.
. . . . .
I got to the basketball court just in time to join in a pick-up game. It was the perfect way to get my mind off of the mystery of Catherine, and to relieve some of that stress before doing what I had to do that night.
At 8 o’clock I was in a pub a few miles from my house, sipping beer from a tall, frosty glass. It wasn’t crowded. Just a few tables were occupied. It was quiet, except for the television, which was tuned to ESPN for the Sunday night baseball game. The pool tables were all unoccupied. Slow night.
“Goddamit, I’m so bored. Why is it so slow in here?” That was the voice of Isabelle, bartender at the pub, standing on the other side of the bar from me. “If I sound desperate for customers, that’s because I am.” She’d grown up in Ecuador but had been in the Unites States since she was ten years old, and still had a lingering accent.
I shrugged, lifting the beer mug. “Well, it’s Sunday and it’s raining. And I’d be careful about using the word ‘desperate’ around here. You never know who will hear it and get the wrong idea.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like you? Same old Andrew,” she said, using the alias I had given her a while back when I had reached the status of a “regular” at the bar. That’s the name everyone in the place called me—the other waitresses, and the guys I shot pool with on occasion.
“Hey,” I said, “it’s just innocent flirting.”
“There’s nothing innocent about you,” she said, smiling.
I laughed and said, “Right about that.”
. . . . .
I got home and tried to do some work. It wasn’t pricing books, as I’d told Catherine. I had been waiting on an email all day, and it finally arrived. It contained translated transcripts of phone calls that had been placed by the five guys who were in the information I’d received on Friday before meeting Catherine.
The transcripts were fairly benign, which didn’t surprise me. These guys had arrived in the United States only a month ago. The last one, though, contained some red flags—namely a discussion about fireworks, followed by some talk about the dates they were planning to go to baseball games. It appeared that they were merely plug-ins for a well-planned operation that was already underway.
I checked the Orioles schedule and found that the dates, two weeks away, matched. And with that, I had my next assignment.
I spent the next hour or so sitting on my back porch, enjoying a pint of Leffe Blond lager, relaxing in the post-rain coolness in the air. It was then that I made up my mind what I would do to resolve The Catherine Dilemma.
But first, I was going to enjoy myself with her. A good meal, great sex, a perfect evening. The tension would be heavy, as I knew I would be looking at her a little differently this time, wondering just who the hell she had been for the first eighteen years of her life.
Chapter Five – Catherine
I missed him all day Sunday. It was the first time I could remember being thankful that I had to get up early on a Monday morning for work. Going to bed early meant less time to sit around wishing he were with me.
Tara was waiting for me in the parking lot when I drove up. She walked over to my car and started telling me about the concert the moment I stepped out onto the pavement.
“Anyway, we had an amazing time. I’m sorry you couldn’t make it.”
“Me, too,” I said, thinking nothing could be further from the truth.
“So, what did you end up doing?”
I’d been dreading that question all the way to work. I couldn’t downplay whatever it was I ended up saying. That would make it sound like something boring was better than hanging out with her. She already knew about Watts, but I wasn’t going to share all the details, of course.
“I saw that guy I was telling you about.” We were walking toward the building and I kept my eyes forward.
“No way. Seriously? So did you finally…?”
I shook my head, casting my eyes down at the pavement. “No, it was just a nice weekend.”
“A weekend! You spent the whole weekend with him?”
“Not exactly. We had dinner Friday, met for lunch on Saturday…” My voice trailed off after the lie. I didn’t want to reveal that he had spent Friday night at my place.
We got to the security checkpoint at the door. I had my ID ready. Tara didn’t. She was always looking for it, and no matter how hard she tried to keep it handy, it was always at the bottom of her purse.
When she finally made it through, we continued to our work area. We went into the room where we donned the protective gear that was required in the sorting area.
As we dressed, she said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask, but I hope he made up for bailing on you.”
I waved a hand dismissively. “That’s all in the past. But…”
“But what?”
I let out a deep sigh as I placed some stuff in the locker. “What would you do if a guy wouldn’t show you his house?”
“Like, wouldn’t let me inside or something?”
“No,” I said. “I mean if he wouldn’t even tell you where
he lived.”
We walked out into the sorting area. I looked up at the big clock on the wall, wondering how slowly those hands were going to move all day with me anticipating Watts coming to my house that night.
Tara said, “Hmm,” thinking about her answer as she placed the first bin next to the conveyer belt. “I guess I’d wonder what he was trying to hide. That’s the only reason he wouldn’t tell me, so it’s not a matter of if he’s hiding something, but what he’s hiding.”
That much I already knew, but that wasn’t what I had asked her, so I tried again. “Yeah, but what would you do? Ask him why? Demand to see his place? What?”
“You think he’s married?”
The thought hadn’t crossed my mind at all. Chalk it up to naiveté, I guess. Guilty as charged. Watts had never given me a reason to think he was married. Then again, it would be a perfect explanation for his strict privacy code.
But he’d broken that code with me. He had seen me more than once and had spent two nights sleeping in my bed. I hadn’t let on to Tara that any such thing had happened, but it was a crucial piece of information.
“He can’t be married,” I said. “Look, I didn’t tell you this before, but he spent the night Friday and Saturday.”
Her eyes grew large and she cocked her head to the side. “Well, well. Nice weekend, indeed. Good for you, girl.” She extended her hand across the conveyer belt, palm facing me. Apparently a high-five was in order, and I obliged her.
“So if he’s married,” I said, “I don’t think he could have gotten away with spending two nights in a row with me, especially on a weekend.”
Tara’s immediate response was like a splash of cold water in the face. “Maybe the wife and kids—if there are kids—went out of town or something. Visited the grandparents, maybe? That could be it.”
“You’re really making me feel great. Thanks.”
She laughed. “Aw, crap. I’m sorry. Sometimes stupid shit just flies right out of my mouth. You know that.”
I fixed my eyes on the packages before me. “No, it wasn’t stupid. It actually makes perfect sense.”
“When do you see him again?”
“Tonight,” I said. “He’s coming over and bringing dinner.”
She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Just confront him. I mean, first you weren’t going to meet. Then you did and then you thought you’d never see him again. Now you’ve spent two nights with him, so maybe he’ll open up to you. Slowly. Like a dying clam or something. I have to tell you, a guy this secretive is hiding something big. Sorry, but it’s true.”
I didn’t say anything, knowing she was right, hoping like hell it was anything but the fact that he had a wife. And kids. My God.
“One more thing,” Tara said. “Don’t bring up all of this until after you eat whatever it is he’s bringing over. Never pass up free food.”
. . . . .
Work was hectic as hell all morning. They kept bringing bin after bin into the sorting facility. Some kind of backlog at the post office. There was little time for talking, so it kept me free from that, but it also gave me time to get way too far into my own head.
Watts…married?
When it was time for our lunch break, we went to take off our protective gear. I was opening my locker when I heard Tara say, “Oh, hey Tony.”
I looked around my locker door and saw Tony standing in the doorway.
“Hey, Tara. Hi, Catherine.”
I said hello back and returned to what I was doing.
“Hey,” Tara said to him. “How was your weekend?”
“It was good. I went up to Brooklyn for a few days. Saw some old buddies of mine.”
“Sounds good,” Tara said. “I haven’t been to New York in years.”
I was fumbling around with a few things in my locker, doing it only so that I could keep the door open and block my view of him.
“How about you, Catherine?” Tony asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said into the locker, “how about me what?”
“Have you ever been to New York?”
“No.”
“You should,” he said. “It’s the best place in the world. I’m going back in September if you ladies would like to ride with me.”
God, the thought of that was just awful.
“Maybe,” Tara answered him. “I’ll think about it.”
I removed the hood of my plastic coveralls, then unzipped the front, lowering it over my shoulders. As I did this, I peeked around the locker door and saw Tony watching. No, staring.
Yes, I had my regular clothes on under the coveralls, but this was as if he were watching me undress, his eyes scanning from my feet up my legs…
The room was for both male and female employees, so it wasn’t as though Tony was somewhere he shouldn’t be, doing something he shouldn’t be doing. At least, according to policy he wasn’t.
It wasn’t until I had completely removed the coveralls that he finally said, “Well, have a good lunch. I’m going to clock in.”
Tara said goodbye to him. I mumbled something incoherent, just glad he was leaving.
Creep.
. . . . .
Watts knocked on my door at 5:59 p.m.
I opened it. “You weren’t kidding about sharp.”
He held a paper grocery bag in one hand. The other was behind his back. His timing wasn’t the only thing that was sharp. He wore dark gray slacks, a white button-down shirt, shiny wingtip-style shoes. His face had some stubble on it, and his hair was, as always, that purposely-messy style.
I wanted to strip him as soon as he crossed the threshold of my apartment.
He stepped in, bent to kiss me, and said, “Dinner first, then we’re going to play a game.”
It turned out he didn’t bring take-out from somewhere. Instead, he was cooking dinner for me in my kitchen. I sat on a stool on the other side of the counter, sipping some wine that he brought, while I watched him whip up our meal.
“Some of this is already prepared,” he said. “I didn’t want it to take too long once I got here.”
He was making spaghetti Bolognese, his favorite Italian dish.
We talked while he cooked, some chitchat, but quite a bit about his culinary skills and his favorite dishes he liked to cook. He lamented the fact that he didn’t have more free time to dedicate to it.
I was getting hungrier with every passing minute as my apartment filled with the aroma of a home-cooked Italian meal—the ground beef with garlic, the pancetta, and the bread he had placed in the oven.
All the while, I kept thinking about the possibility that he was married. Maybe even had kids. I hated how that thought made me feel. Not just because there was at least some evidence that it could be the case, but more so because I knew how I would feel if it were true. I would blame myself for letting my walls down. There would be all kinds of misplaced anger and disdain, but in the end I’d blame myself, and who knew how long it would take to work myself out of that emotional vortex?
When the meal was ready, he said, “Let’s sit at your table.”
“It’s not much of a dinner table,” I said, sliding off the stool and walking over to it.
“It’s small, yes, but perfect for two,” he said, placing a dish in front of me. It had smelled wonderful while he was cooking, but even better now that I had some right in front of me.
Watts brought his plate to the table, stepped into the kitchen, then returned to the table with silverware. It was such a minor thing to make note of, but I loved how he knew which drawer to look in and how he was making himself at home.
“Here,” he said, reaching across the table.
I must have given him a strange look.
“You do eat spaghetti with a spoon, right?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Here, let me show you.” He demonstrated how to use the spoon to make the pasta conform tightly around the fork. I’d seen it a few times, but only in movies and on TV. I’d never personally wit
nessed anyone doing it.
I’m not sure why this connection occurred, but it made me wonder about his upbringing. Did he come from a rich family? Did his mother and father teach him about proper etiquette, maybe because they hosted fancy dinner parties?
Or maybe I was overthinking it. Maybe this was just how he was. In any case, the last thing I had any interest in talking about was our upbringing and our families.
“Have you always lived in this area?” Watts asked, as if he had read my mind and was circling me like prey.
“No.”
“Where are you from?”
I finished the mouthful of pasta. “All over.”
“The world or just the U.S.?”
“Just here in the U.S.,” I said, feeling a bit cornered. He was digging into my past, or trying to, anyway, in his own gentle way. Still, it made me a little uneasy, but not as much as I had been when other people had tried.
“Ah, damn,” Watts said, getting up from his chair. “I forgot to set the timer.”
He went into the kitchen, where I heard him mumble something. He came back with a tray.
“Crostini.” He held the tray out for me. “They’re a little well-done, but probably still good.”
I took a piece of the bread and put it on my plate. “Everything’s delicious. I’m sure this is great, too.”
When he sat back down, I expected the questions to continue, but they didn’t. Instead, he told me about a rare book that he had sold last week. I was relieved he had moved on to something else.
That is, until he asked me if I’d gone to college.
“No,” I said, holding my wine glass in front of my lips. “You?” I figured I would turn it back on him.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Didn’t want to, or….?”
“Or what?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just…anything, I guess.”
“What about you? Why didn’t you go? You’re smart, well-read, ambitious—”
My laugh stopped him from saying any more. “I don’t know about the ambitious part.”
