The Progeny

by Tosca Lee

  By now the sun has dropped low enough across the water that the cabin is getting dark. I retrieve the notepad from the counter, tear off my latest grocery list, find the roll of tape in the drawer. Spreading the tiny scroll on the top page, I carefully affix it to the pad.

  I glance at the clock: 7:43. The library is long closed by now on a Saturday. The Center in Indiana, my only access to Clare, is closed now as well.

  A thought itches the back of my mind.

  I bolt up and throw a jacket over my smiley-face Nirvana T-shirt, pull on my sneakers. Hurry to the bathroom to brush my teeth and smooth my hair. Three minutes later I’m in the boat with the flashlight, headed toward shore.

  I find the Bronco just as I left it—minus Clare’s cross—and drive toward Lily Bay Road just slow enough not to die on the off chance I actually encounter a moose.

  4

  * * *

  It’s a quarter after eight by the time I pass the Fly Shop and turn onto the town’s main drag. Pritham Avenue is lined with sandwich, sweet, and ice cream shops interspersed with tourist traps and a handful of restaurants, all centered on the public dock on the south side of the lake. I drive two blocks to the Dropfly, across from the small high school.

  Before I even cut the engine I can hear muffled music and people talking outside—a town turned out for the last gasp of Indian summer at the end of tourist season.

  The entrance, on the opposite side of the building from where I parked, is crowded with smokers. I duck my way through a carcinogenic cloud to the steps, show my ID to the bouncer on the landing, pay the cover, and shoulder my way inside.

  The bodies inside the small pub are packed against the hewn-log bar. Those fortunate enough to have snagged a stool are penned in place by people standing in groups behind them. A band is wedged into the corner of the adjacent dining room, the singer barely two feet from the nearest table. The entire place smells like hot wings, beer, and body odor.

  I search the tables and then worm my way toward the middle of the bar, craning to see around a really tall woman in boots and a denim skirt—probably the most dressed up I’ve seen anybody around here. A few people glance over their shoulders at me, and I check to make sure the stubby patch behind my ear is covered, wondering for the second time this week if there’s a stamp on my forehead marked NOT FROM HERE. If I had something in my hand I’d at least feel less awkward.

  “You want to order something?” a guy in front of me with a better view of the bar offers.

  “Guinness,” I say, loud enough for him to hear me. He leans between two stools and calls down to the bartender.

  All this time I haven’t seen one head of dark honey hair resembling Luka’s. Did he take off when I wasn’t here right at eight?

  A minute later the guy is handing me a beer. I try to give him six bucks, but he waves it off.

  “Thanks,” I say, glancing around as I take a long pull off the top, wrecking the clover in the foam.

  I scan the group near the door. Not a single familiar face. Not that many faces around here are familiar to me. But even though it’s packed and some chick to my right is wearing a perfume that knocks the smell of fried food right out of my nostrils and a part of me feels lame for being here by myself, new energy is jittering up from my stomach, making me wonder why I haven’t wandered into town—even alone—at night before.

  Because you’ve spent the last month moping around like a depressed, sleepwalking convalescent. And then you learned your life was in danger and faceless others were depending on you.

  And maybe I shouldn’t be here. As good as it feels to have waded into the human current for a brief swim, maybe sticking out—alone—in a crowd doesn’t qualify as the quiet life.

  But I also came here for something.

  The girl with the perfume is telling some story to a guy, and when she laughs she falls away and almost crashes into me. She grabs my arm to steady herself. Beer sloshes over my hand. “Sorry!” she says, but then she smiles and I think she’s more sober than I gave her credit for.

  “I’m Keri,” she says, leaning toward me so I can hear her, and offers me her hand. I shake it as the guy she was talking to takes me in over the rim of his beer.

  “This is Nate, that’s Joel,” she says, and I spend the next ten minutes making small talk. Which basically amounts to lying when they ask where I’m from and what brought me to town. I say something about taking a semester off from U Mass to write a novel.

  “I knew you seemed wicked cool!” she shouts. She pokes Joel in the chest. “Did you hear that? She’s a famous writer!”

  I was wrong. She’s drunk.

  Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure I’ve been bona fide stood up. I tell myself I shouldn’t be surprised; if Luka comes on that strong to everyone with his intense gaze and stormy eyes, he’s probably back at his place with some girl he met before I got here. Nor do I care, even if my ego is bruised. But it does throw a wrench in things . . . until my gaze drops to the wristlet dangling from Keri’s hand.

  “We’re going to the Limit after this drink,” she announces over the music, looping her arm through mine. “You should come with us.”

  “I would,” I half-yell into her hair, “but my friend was going to meet me here, and I don’t have my phone.”

  Keri hands her beer to Nate, unzips the wristlet, and presents her phone with a flourish. I flash her a grin and signal that I’ll be back.

  I glance toward the door, but I’m no longer in the mood to run into Luka if he shows. Instead, I weave my way toward the back, where I assume I’ll find a bathroom. I find the line first—leading midway down a short hallway toward the kitchen. I slide past the line and the men’s room just beyond it, stop outside the kitchen door, and peer through the window. A man in his forties is delivering plates to the pass-through in the bar as a cook mans the grill. There, to the right, is the side door.

  I pocket the phone and then lunge into the kitchen, hand over my mouth.

  “Hey!” the older man says, pointing. “Get outta here!”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I feel really sick.” My fourth lie in the space of thirty minutes. I am so going to hell at this rate. The man yells at me again, and I shove through the door as though I might spew any instant. Never mind that I’ve still got a beer in my hand, sloshing over my fingers.

  Even with the waft of stale cigarette smoke clinging to the bricks outside the kitchen, the air feels crisp and clean. I kneel behind some trash bins, wait to see if the man comes after me. He doesn’t. Apparently I’m not the first person to drunkenly wander through the kitchen.

  With my back to the building, I set down the beer and take out the phone. Dim the brightness. Pull up a private browser. Enter the numbers. 3 . . . 8591 . . . 157 . . . 1269. I can picture each one as I tap it, written in tiny script taped to the pad in the cabin.

  Not a single result comes up.

  I stare at the screen, wondering how that’s even possible. I check the numbers, but they’re correct. I try searching tracking numbers—UPS, FedEx, the post office—and then bar codes. Bank routing numbers. Latitude, longitude.

  Nothing.

  I wipe the history and close the browser, mind churning. But I’ve been gone too long already.

  I grab my beer and head toward the back of the building, from where I can circle around to the entrance on the other side unseen from the sidewalk—or the apartments across the street. I have no intention of staying here or migrating to the Limit. As soon as I give Keri back her phone, I’m out of here.

  Just as I round the corner I stop short. Two men stand in hunched conversation less than fifteen feet in front of me, barely illuminated by the lone light on the back of the building. Great. I’m inadvertently within range of a drug deal.

  The one facing away from me is talking too low for me to hear. But his gestures are quick and emphatic, the dark jacket stretching with each movement across broad shoulders.

  The other is Luka.

  So he’s not at his
place with some chick but scoring weed instead—from a guy he owes money to, by the look of it. I’m tempted to walk right past them, let him know I see what’s going on. But the last thing I need is trouble.

  Just then Luka’s eyes meet mine. What am I supposed to do now? I have no desire to talk to him. But if I stalk off, I’ll look like I actually give a crap.

  Rather than register surprise, however, his gaze returns to the guy as though he never saw me. A few seconds later he says something and gestures over his shoulder, then loops an arm around the guy like they’re old drinking buddies and walks the other way.

  I watch them disappear around the corner.

  Meanwhile, I’m standing with a beer in one hand and Keri’s phone in the other, trying to figure out how I’m going to get it back to her so I can leave.

  I stride around the building to the entrance, past the clot of smokers sociably bumming cigarettes off one another. Just as I reach the short steps to the door, I spot Luka near the sidewalk. He’s jerking his thumb toward the street, hand still on the other guy’s back. It’s like he’s trying to steer him out of here, and can’t do it fast enough.

  Fine with me.

  I’m just nudging my way up the steps to show my stamp to the bouncer when I see, from the corner of my eye, a stationary figure watching me. What is it with people staring in this town? Fed up, I turn and glare—and then falter.

  It’s Luka’s companion, standing at the curb. And when I see his face, I know it’s the same man I saw in front of the ice cream shop yesterday. He’s a few years older and a little taller than Luka himself, who is starting to strong-arm him toward the street. A jealous lover, perhaps? My gaydar is usually better than that. But I can’t think of any other reason for the look he’s giving me now or Luka’s hauling him away.

  After a moment the guy relents, but not without a backward glance at me.

  I am so ready to get out of here.

  It takes me five minutes to work my way to Keri, where she is draped around Nate’s shoulders.

  “There she is!” Keri beams, opening an arm toward me.

  “Big line for the bathroom,” I say, handing her the phone. And then I give her lie number five: My friend is sick and I need to go check on her. Joel looks a little crestfallen, and Keri insists we swap numbers. I give her the digits to the Fly Shop. And then she’s hugging me good-bye and I’m trying to find a place to put the stupid beer that’s been glued to my hand this whole time.

  By the time I finally push my way out of there, I cannot get to my truck fast enough.

  As I’m speeding up Lily Bay Road, my mind returns to the numbers in Clare’s cross, and whether I should call the Center, my only contact for her, on Monday.

  What had she said when she gave it to me? In case you find yourself in trouble. What could possibly help me if I’m in trouble? I don’t even know what I’m running from. What propels a person to leave her life, fake her death, and start over in tiny-town Maine? And if it’s that bad, why didn’t I relocate to Greenland or, better yet, Fiji? The packet with my driver’s license and letter to myself contained nearly eighteen thousand dollars in cash. A person can do a lot of disappearing with money like that.

  That number’s got to be a bank account.

  Then why didn’t I put something about it in my letter? How am I supposed to find it if I don’t even know where to look?

  Or maybe that’s not it at all and Clare never knew it was there, and all she meant about trouble was something concerning prayer and God.

  I’m so busy cycling through these thoughts that I nearly miss my turn. Luckily the closest car is a quarter mile back when I brake so fast my flashlight flies onto the floor.

  I drive a mile past three mailboxes belonging to houses deep enough in the trees that I can barely make out their lights. Within a few weeks only one of them may be occupied as the other residents leave for warmer climates. I don’t look forward to winter, when it gets so cold that Madge says logging rigs drive right across the frozen lake. When I’ll be forced to drive to the Dorito or, much more likely, hole up until a thaw.

  Maybe that’s what I had in mind all along.

  The moon’s full, sending a streak of serrated light across the lake when I park near the end of the point. I unhook the seat belt and fish for the flashlight on the passenger side floor, the edge of the console digging into my ribs.

  I hear the vehicle before I see it, the crunch of tires on gravel road driving far too fast. When I straighten, my rearview mirror nearly blinds me as headlights barrel down the drive.

  There is only one person I know aggressive or desperate enough to have followed me here—presumably to explain himself under the misguided assumption that I care.

  A familiar vehicle skids to a stop, barely missing my back fender. And now I am pissed.

  I shove out of my truck before he can even cut the engine, and storm to the driver’s side door as it opens.

  “You have ten seconds to leave before I call the cops!” I yell. I don’t own a cell phone, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  That’s when I realize—too late—that the SUV I mistook in the darkness for a Cherokee is actually a Pathfinder. And when I shine my flashlight right in his face, it isn’t Luka who emerges from the vehicle. It’s the man I saw with him.

  Two thoughts slice through my mind at once: That there was indeed a drug deal and he now knows I saw it. Or that he really is Luka’s jealous boyfriend and has followed me home to accuse me.

  Either way, this isn’t going to be good.

  “You need to leave,” I say, backing several steps.

  He raises his hands as though confronting a wild animal. He’s taller than I thought, with a military build and short hair to match. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Yeah, because that’s exactly what people say when they aren’t thinking about it.

  “You’re trespassing. Get back in your car and go.” My hands are shaking, the beam of my flashlight jagging around his head.

  “You’re in danger. You need to come with me. Now.”

  The instant he moves toward me, I drop the flashlight and bolt for the Bronco. He’s too fast. Before I can yank the door open he grabs me by the arm, spinning me back. My fist connects with his nose.

  He staggers and I run, but I haven’t stopped him. I hear the crunch of his steps behind me, gaining speed. I veer for the trees, toward the lights of the closest house, shouting for help.

  When he tackles me, I go down hard. He rolls, pulling me around to stare at the sky, but even as I claw at him my lungs have turned to iron. My vision prickles over.

  “Breathe,” he says. I can’t. I kick my heels into his shins, slam my head back. I connect, but not nearly hard enough. He’s got at least sixty pounds and half a foot on me, and at this point, I genuinely believe I’m on the verge of getting kidnapped or worse.

  “Listen to me,” he hisses when I’m finally sucking air.

  I can’t fight him, so I go limp. If he’s going to get up and try to get me to the car, he’s going to have 125 pounds of deadweight on his hands until I can find a tree to grab, some leverage—anything—to get away.

  “Luka isn’t who you think he is!”

  “I don’t even know him!”

  “No. But you did.”

  I go completely still, heart banging against my ribs.

  “I know what you’ve done,” he says, urgently, near my ear. He’s got an accent heavier than Luka’s, European, but different. “Your memory’s gone and now you don’t even know who to trust! Don’t you wonder why he’s here? Or why he was in such a hurry to leave before I saw you at the bar?”

  He’s not making sense. Nothing he’s saying makes sense.

  “He knew you were in the area. Why do you think he’s working at the grocery? Because he knew you’d show up there eventually!” He shakes me a little with each statement. “Why do you think he’s trying so hard to draw you out, get you alone?”

  “I don’t know!” I
shout. But his last words strike something inside me. The offer to deliver my groceries. Paying for them, knowing any decent person would come back to reimburse him. The spontaneous lunch and weekend invite, each interaction assuring another. I took them for come-ons—aggressive, sure, a little desperate maybe . . . but only marginally creepy.

  Faintly, from up the road: tires on gravel. The man tenses against me.

  “We have to go. Now.” His hold loosens. I instantly roll, but before I can get my feet under me he grabs me and shouts in my face.

  “He’s going to kill you, Audra!”

  I blink at him in the darkness.

  Audra?

  “You really don’t know who you are, do you?” he says with an incredulous exhale.

  “No!” I lash out, as much from fear as anger. “I don’t know anything you’re talking about!”

  A car is speeding down the gravel drive, skids around the last turn to the point. He grabs my wrists.

  “Your real name isn’t Emily Porter,” he says, inches from my face. “It’s Audra Ellison. You didn’t die in a car crash. But if you stay here, you’ll be dead by morning.”

  5

  * * *

  There’s the shock of hearing my real name—if indeed that’s it. The eerie way his words collide with the letter to myself.

  But the thing that gets me up and running for his car as the Cherokee speeds down the point, gravel flying from its wheels, is this: Even if he’s lying, he also knows the truth.

  Which means he knows more than I do. Even if I manage to skip town now, I won’t know who’s really after me. And I definitely won’t get answers if I end up dead.

  There’s no way this counts as digging. My past, after all, found me.

  I collide with the passenger side door, yank it open, and barely get inside before he throws the Pathfinder into reverse. Without even bothering to turn around—there’s no time and no space, nose-to-nose with the back fender of the Bronco—he slams the gas and backs full speed up the drive, right past Luka. As the Cherokee blasts past us I see his face flash in my window. Staring in a tight-lipped grimace, right at me.