Oklahoma City
Catherine unlocked her boss’ desk drawer with the pilfered
key and removed the bank envelope stuffed with hundred
dollar bills. With the envelope in her purse, she relocked
the drawer. The click of the bolt sliding home sounded loud
in the empty office, but she didn’t flinch.
Beyond the smudgy windows of the portable building that
served as the offices for Beau John’s Auto Dealership and
Classic Car Showroom, a cheerful May sun shone down. Moving
to the desk she’d occupied for the last year as Carey
Thomas, Catherine went through every drawer, removing all
remotely personal items. A small pocket-size package of
Kleenex tissues was tossed into a paper grocery sack, as
were a bottle of aspirin and a nail file.
She didn’t worry about wiping away her finger prints. The
police had no record of her and she planned on keeping it
that way. Besides, while Carey Thomas might disappear the
same day as Beau John’s slush fund, that didn’t necessarily
convict her of taking the money.
Catherine smiled, not planning on allowing the issue to
arise. If they couldn’t find Carey Thomas, they couldn’t
accuse her of a crime.
The last desk drawer closed with a thud that echoed its
emptiness.
Getting up, she put her purse under her arm and picked up
the grocery bag. She walked to the door without a backward
look, turning off the lights and slipping out of the
building as if she’d never been there.
It was always a relief, this process, like shedding an old,
constricting skin. She was glad to be leaving Carey Thomas
beyond, even more glad to be rid of Beau John’s leering eyes
and suggestive sexual comments.
Within minutes, she was in her nondescript Toyota, its trunk
already packed with every telltale vestige of her year long
existence in this town. Driving across the city to the Quail
Springs Mall, Catherine parked near the Sears store and went
inside. Walking through the warm, bright store, she spent
only a few minutes selecting three, complete new outfits,
from underwear out, and a duffel bag. Two of the outfits
were casual enough for the lake and the third perfect for
job hunting.
Paying for her purchases with cash, she was soon back in the
Toyota, headed east. Several miles from downtown, she fished
Beau John’s desk key out of her purse and threw it out the
car window. Continuing along the interstate until she found
a motel, Catherine pulled in at the Travel Happy Lodge.
Giving the bored desk clerk an Oregon address from a
driver’s license she’d never used before, she registered,
paying with a virgin credit card, and went immediately to
her room.
This was the part of the metamorphosis that always felt the
best. Locking the motel room behind her, Catherine stripped
naked, stuffing the clothes she took off into a garbage bag
she’d brought in with her. A bag from a drugstore supplied
the hair coloring product she took into the shower with her.
Fifteen minutes later, she emerged from the blistering spray
of water with her dripping hair a natural light shade of brown.
Catherine smiled in the bathroom mirror, an ironic twist to
her lips. Blondes didn’t have more fun.
In half an hour, she was back on the road, dressed in one of
her new purchases, every trace of the old life bundled into
three bulging black trash bags in the back. Whipping off the
interstate long enough to toss these and the grocery bag
into a dumpster, Catherine drove again to the furnished
apartment leased in Carey Thomas’ name.
With a baseball cap crammed over her newly-colored hair, she
pulled up in front of the apartment complex. Parking under
an oak tree, she opened the passenger car door to retrieve a
can opener and a can of tuna from the paper bag on the seat.
The stench of tuna filled the car, spilling into the spring
air. Catherine reached into the back seat, opening the pet
carrier and placing the gleaming, oily-topped can of fish
inside it.
Having baited the trap, she went to sit on the curb several
feet from the car, her back to the oak tree. Around her were
the peaceful sounds of a suburban Sunday in spring time.
From somewhere on the block, a lawn mower coughed and sprang
to life. Catherine sat unmoving as three boys rode past on
bicycles, their voices calling to each other in jeering tones.
After fifteen or twenty minutes, a dark gray shadow appeared
under a bush across the apartment parking lot. Catherine
didn’t move, not even turning her head. Instead, she watched
the floating progress of a small yellow butterfly as it
danced along the Toyota’s roof.
The gray shadow separated itself from the shadows under the
shrub, swaggering across the pavement. The cat’s ragged ear
and general moth-eaten appearance gave authority to the
attitude in his untamed golden eyes. He’d lived a rough
life, always on his own terms.
Coming up to the car, the cat stopped beside the open car
door, glaring at her.
Still Catherine didn’t look toward him, her gaze seeming to
be transfixed by the sunlight streaming through the oak’s
new bright green leaves.
With a sinuous bound, he jumped into the car. Bob loved
cars. Even without the tuna, he’d have jumped in, but she
needed him secured in the cat carrier, for a while.
Catherine felt the smile playing on her lips. This too was
part of the transition ever since she’d found Bob on a
different apartment patio in a different town more than two
years ago. Then he’d been even more battered, his fierce
eyes daring her to touch him even though he was obviously
injured. So, she’d simply offered food and water and over
time, they’d established this careful, tenuous connection.
Regardless of how many lives she slipped in and out of, she
couldn’t leave Bob behind. He was her kindred spirit, the
only one she’d allow.
Getting up suddenly from the curb, Catherine reached inside
the car and shut the pet carrier door, capturing the cat.
Without pausing to respond to his sudden, furious yowls, she
went around and got into the car.
“Only for a few hours, Bob,” she told him. “Just till we get
home.”
A brief fifteen minute drive brought them to a used car lot.
Cramming a baseball hat over her hair, Catherine went inside
and sold the car.
The rest was simple. A cab to the bus station, with the
caged, growling Bob beside her. Another cab to the airport.
And then, a flight home.
Goodbye, Carey Thomas. Hello, Catherine Davis.
* * *
“I don’t know why you come here,” Zona Mae sneered, the
sunlight from the window beside the hospital bed lighting
her harsh, bitter features. “Cain’t do nuthin’ more than
come sit in that chair every six months, might as well not
have nuthin’ to do with me.”
Unmoving in the cold plastic chair beside the old woman’s
bed, Catherine chose not to examine her motivation for this
particular pilgrimage. She’d long ago given up on Zona Mae
loving her, but she couldn’t quite shake a damnable sense
of…responsibility. Eventually, she’d get the better of it.
She’d make sure the old woman wasn’t being misused, but
nothing more. Beyond that no more ties. Never again would
she be trapped into caring for any person so much that her
guts got ripped out when she let them down.
No more letting affection put her in a no-win situation.
That sort of thing brought only dead-end choices.
“Are they taking care of you?” she asked the old woman in
the bed, her voice deliberately cool despite the shaky
sensation in her gut. Why were childhood feelings the
hardest to extinguish? Anger was easier to handle than
longing, but even anger was too much to invest in the bitter
old hag before her.
“What do you care?” Zona’s gnarled hands convulsed on the
blanket covering her knees. “Good for nuthin’. Just like
your mother.”
Catherine leaned fractionally back into the plastic chair,
willing a blankness to seep throughout her, smoothing over
the spiky sharpness in her belly. Saying nothing in response
to the old woman’s hostility, she waited, empty inside the
way she preferred.
“Yeah, they’re taking care of me,” Zona snorted finally, her
shrunken body vibrating with an anger that had always seemed
a physical part of her. “Good as any nursing home. Just a
place for people who got no decent family.”
Catherine couldn’t help the trace of a smile that curved her
lips. “No, I don’t suppose our family is very…decent.”
* * *
Dallas, Eight months later
Catherine sat at her desk in the large clerical offices at
Hollister Ford, fighting the cold shiver of fear that ran
over her. Maybe she should cut her losses and run. Maybe her
luck had just run out.
She wasn’t going to jail, wasn’t surrendering her freedom to
loud-mouthed guards with sadistic power issues.
But Ryan Hollister would be going over the books.
“…so my brother, Ryan, will be examining our entire
operation, from employee decisions to the financial side of
things,” Danny Hollister reiterated, sending a grateful
smile to the big man next to him. “Even though his real job
as news producer for KVDN keeps him busy, as a favor to me,
he’s agreed to be my ‘efficiency expert’. We want Hollister
Ford to be the best it can be.”
Clamping down on the fear racing through her, she fought the
memories of the uniformed police officers who had hauled her
off to juvenile at the tender age of ten when her mother had
disappeared. This wasn’t the time to let old horrors take over.
Her hands unmoving on the clean desk blotter, Catherine’s
gaze rested on Ryan Hollister’s face. He didn’t look like
anyone’s nemesis. His eyes were a cheerful, golden brown in
his strong, square face. At nearly six feet tall, he looked
like the kind of big, handsome blond guy who’d be doing the
sportscast rather than producing the news.
She wasn’t sure how smart he was. There were mixed signals
on that issue. On the one hand, producing a news broadcast
at a big station in a city the size of Dallas had to take
some amount of intelligence. Then again, Ryan had an
out-going, smiling kind of personality Catherine didn’t
associate with unusual mental acuity.
He smiled a lot and she couldn’t help but be aware that his
warm, sherry brown gaze had a tendency to follow her when
she crossed the office.