Watcher: Book I of The Chosen

by Roh Morgon

  But today, I curse them.

  Her car is nearly at the stop sign when I pull out. Andrea retraces her route to the freeway, getting off at the second downtown exit. She might be headed to her old job, the one she had before the baby. My suspicions are confirmed when she turns into the driveway. I cruise past and get all the way to the intersection, only to find that U-turns aren’t allowed and I have to go around the block. By the time I get back, she’s inside.

  Damn it. I just wanted to see her one more time.

  I park and slouch against the door, frustrated. I could go to the motel and my laptop to look for a new place to live, but I need to know what time she gets off work. If it’s late enough, I might be able to make a run to Los Angeles tomorrow afternoon and get back before she heads home.

  Watching Andrea means waiting—a lot. Resigned to a long afternoon, I grab the new Yarbro book from the bookstore bag and settle in.

  About four-thirty, people start to trickle out the doors. The stream increases, and a few minutes after five, they pour out of the building. Her red hat and coat catch my eye as she hurries to her car and gets in. I hang back a moment—at least I know where she’s going this time.

  Just as I thought, I only get glimpses of chubby cheeks and hands as my daughter hustles the baby into the car and takes off. I follow, hoping she has errands to run, that I might have a chance to get closer. But she heads straight home and pulls into the garage and the door closes.

  It takes everything in me to keep from slamming my fist into the dash of my car.

  After allowing the young buck to lead me on a merry chase halfway around the lake, I decide I’m being overly cruel and bring him tumbling down. His tangy hot blood pumps out furiously from the running, and, too soon, there is no more. There never seems to be enough. I’m not really that hungry, having fed the past two nights. But the onslaught of emotions keeps provoking the beast. Blood is the only thing that pacifies it.

  I got over the Bambi complex long ago. It’s not that I don’t regret killing. I do. I feel remorse every time I take a life. But I need to feed in order to survive, like every other living thing. Only my food doesn’t come wrapped in cellophane and marked Grade A.

  It starts to sprinkle as I run along the shoreline of Lake Cachuma. I don’t care. Being wet doesn’t bother me and neither does the cold. I feel it, but it doesn’t cause me discomfort and can even be invigorating. Warmth, on the other hand, is quite pleasurable, especially on the inside after a hot meal. Warm days are great, too, if I can protect my skin from the direct sun, which isn’t easy. People look at you funny when you’re wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck and gloves and it’s ninety degrees outside.

  The weather forecast predicted rain until tomorrow evening. That means I’ll probably see even less of my daughter and the baby tomorrow. Instead of dealing with my inevitable frustration, I think I’ll head directly to Los Angeles in the morning to take care of my banking.

  Jogging back to the BMW, I catch the scent of wild pig and veer off to follow it. Pigs are tough to kill because they are so low to the ground and their barrel-shaped bodies are difficult to grip. Their necks are short and stout—breaking them is not very feasible. And they have tusks, right near my target area. I did kill one once, though—a young adult—and I greatly enjoyed his buttery-sweet blood.

  Scent trails are easier to follow when the weather’s damp. Detecting several, I slow as the scents become stronger. I weave through the bushes and freeze. Three adult female pigs and six babies are foraging along a marshy area. I watch for a moment, then melt back into the brush.

  That is one thing I will not do. I will not kill mothers or babies.

  Retracing my steps, I pick up my trail again and continue on to the car. Between the deer and my twenty-mile run, I’m finally relaxed, and I smile from the sheer joy of being in the woods. The sprinkles have become rain, and I stop and lift my face to the sky. I rejoice as the cool drops hit and trail down my cheeks, and open my mouth to see if I can feel them on the inside as well. A few tap dance on my tongue and I laugh.

  Rain leaps across the leaves and rocks in a liquid ballet, and each drop makes its own music, creating a soft woodland symphony. Laughing again, I shake my head, flinging water off my hair to add to the performance, and take off running once more.

  WEDNESDAY

  CHAPTER 6

  Ugh. I hate driving in L.A. just as much as I do the Bay Area. Too many cars driven by too many people who don’t really know how to drive. Especially in the rain.

  I leave the BMW in an underground garage off Hollywood Boulevard and walk several blocks. The bar I’m headed to is tucked away on a side street and I locate it by the faint numbers painted on its door. It has no name or sign.

  Shaking off my umbrella, I step inside. Besides the bartender and two men sitting at the far end of the bar, the place is empty.

  “Hey, Joe.” I walk up to the bar and slide onto a stool.

  “Sunny! Long time no see! I’ve been wondering how you were doing.” Joe finishes drying a glass, throws the towel on his shoulder, and rests one hand on the top of the bar.

  The other has slipped beneath the countertop. I can visualize the .45 caliber that is stashed within its reach. Joe’s a pretty careful guy, and we haven’t seen one another for a while. Glancing in the direction of his hidden hand, I smile and shake my head. He chuckles and, shrugging, brings his hand out empty and runs it through his non-existent hair.

  “How’ve you been? How’s L.A. working out for you?” I ask, surveying the dimly lit room, and look again at the guys nursing their beers.

  He used to have a bar in Oakland, which was where I met him.

  “Just fine. Same thing, different location. You know how it is.” He laughs, and his belly laughs with him. Reaching back around his broad girth, he unties his wet apron.

  Joe’s bar was the third place I worked when I decided to try and live among people again. I was a lot more tightly wound back then, and my first couple jobs had only lasted a few days. I remember walking in and asking if he needed a bartender, and telling him that I needed to be paid in cash. He was agreeable to that, and turned out to be pretty agreeable to work for, too.

  I suppress a smile as I think about why. He’s some sort of former CIA or black ops or something, and seems to think that I am as well. He’d said my edgy awareness and the way I move had tipped him off. I’m perfectly happy to go along with that. Guess he was never able to dig anything up on my background, at least that I know of.

  “Come on, let’s go in the back and talk. Hey, Mike, watch the bar, will ya?” Joe glances at his customers, and one of them raises his mug and nods. The man’s dark eyes are sharp as he peers at me from beneath his baseball cap, and he wears a tense stillness that I’ve noticed with Joe’s regulars. They’re either spooks or former spooks, which means they’re all still spooks. Kinda like the mob. They never really retire.

  Following Joe, I think again about how well he treated me during our brief association. As he had explained, these guys always take care of their own. Joe had sensed I was in some sort of trouble and wanted to help me get back on my feet.

  And he was right, although he had no idea what kind of trouble I was really in. But after a few months and a couple of tense incidents, he started asking more questions, and I reluctantly told him it was time for me to move on.

  “Have a seat.” Stepping around behind the desk, he indicates the chair across from him and sits in his own.

  “You look well. You look more . . . relaxed. That’s good.” Joe leans back in his chair, his brown eyes thoughtful.

  “Thanks. I’ve been working on it.” I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten the time I leapt over the bar top and slammed a belligerent customer up against the wall. I’d come a little too close that day to revealing my true nature and left shortly afterward.

  “It’s been, what, three years? You managing all right?” He leans forward with genuine concern in his eyes.

  “Yeah, I’
m okay. I’ve got my own place and have been at the same job for a while now.”

  Or did until yesterday, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  “Your own place? Good.” He nods. “Still have the BMW?”

  “Yeah. I love that car. You have no idea how much I’ve appreciated it.”

  “I was short on parking then, and you needed transportation. Glad it’s worked out.”

  I never quite trusted his motives for giving it to me. The ex-spy car was practically brand new. But just to humor him, I left the GPS and tracking devices I found on it—until the day I left.

  Joe purses his lips and I wait for his next question. He’s never been good at hiding his interrogation background, but he also knows not to press me.

  “How much do you need?” He ends our little chitchat and gets straight to the point.

  Fake IDs are expensive. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here talking to him. I take a breath.

  “Fifteen. Just as a loan, though. I’m doing better now and will be able to pay you back.”

  “Bullshit. I told you the day you walked into my bar that we’re family around here. Just because you’re the weird cousin with freaky eyes doesn’t mean you’re not part of us.”

  A stab of fear tightens my gut and I remember why I left. He’s just too damn observant.

  Joe looks down, opens a drawer in his desk, and presses a keypad.

  “So how’s the weather out there? Rain still coming down?” he asks as he looks back up.

  The electronic hum from the desk is beyond human hearing, but not mine. I bite back a smile, wondering which word he’d used to trigger the voice recognition lock. Probably weather, which would work in any situation. He opens another drawer.

  “Yeah, it was still raining just before I walked in. Traffic’s a mess.” I shake my head.

  “Always is. It’s always bad, and then sometimes it’s worse.” He rummages around in the drawer and I study the wall behind him.

  Hung in the center is a large framed reprint of the poker-playing dogs. I imagine the picture’s on hinges and swings out to reveal a wall safe that likely has nothing in it. Glancing at the fedora hanging from a hook next to his long overcoat, I smile. Joe fancies himself to be a modern espionage version of Humphrey Bogart or Edward G. Robinson. He’s always been enamored with the twenties and thirties gangster era, yet usually has the latest in high-tech gadgets. I chuckle quietly to myself as I recall what an eccentric he is.

  “What are you grinning about?” He glances over his shoulder at the wall behind him, his expression puzzled. He looks back at me, eyebrows raised, as he sets several half-inch stacks of bills on the desk in front of him.

  “Nothing. I just hadn’t realized how much I’ve missed you.” I smile again and note the surprise that crosses his face.

  “I can always use a good courier or a bartender with keen eyes and ears and a closed mouth. You did both jobs pretty well, as I recall.” A wry smile tugs his lips. “Except for the little . . . temper problem.”

  “Yeeahh, there is that. I’ve gotten better, but every once in a while—” I glance to the side and shrug.

  “Regardless, you’re still welcome here anytime. I mean that.” He wraps rubber bands around the money, stuffs it into a manila envelope, and fastens it.

  I nod. His expression shifts, becoming more serious.

  “You’re not in any trouble now, are you?” he asks.

  “I’m . . . not real sure yet. I’ll find out when I get back home.”

  He smiles, shaking his head. “Whatever it was, I’d have given my left arm to see it.”

  “No, wouldn’t have been worth it. It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.” I chuckle.

  “But I’m sure he or they deserved it.”

  “They did. Let’s just say I left them with a lasting impression.”

  He snorts. “I’m surprised I got that much out of you.”

  “Don’t get used to it.” I smile, but my voice and eyes carry a hint of warning.

  He laughs. “Yep, there’s the Sunny I remember. Keep ’em at arm’s distance. That’s the key to survival.”

  I can’t help but laugh out loud and he laughs again with me.

  He has no idea the survival he’s referring to pertains to those at the other end of my arm as well as my own. Or maybe he does.

  He grows serious again and sets the envelope in front of me. “Here’s twenty grand. If you need more, I have work for someone with your unique talents.”

  “I, uh . . . I can’t take that much.” I sit back, shocked. I don’t even know what to say.

  “Bullshit. No option. How’re the ID contacts holding up?”

  “Fine, as far as I know. I haven’t needed to use them for a while, but I may soon.”

  “Here’s a couple more in case you run into dead ends.” He scribbles on a piece of paper and hands it to me, along with his business card.

  Both of the names listed on the paper are men’s clothing companies, which makes me chuckle again. Getting a new ID is sometimes referred to as changing clothes. In this case I’d be buying a suit, wearing a new label, and giving myself a new look. Funny shit.

  “Thank you.” I stand, pick up the envelope, and put it in my bag. “And thanks again for this. I’ll pay you back.”

  “Well, I won’t accept it—at least not in cash. But it’s not free. I’m serious about needing your help. Just let me know when you’re available.” Joe gets up and walks around the desk.

  He puts out his left hand. His non-weapon hand. I hesitate, then take it, and we shake.

  Something flickers in his eyes at the touch of my cool skin and I quickly let go.

  He smiles. “Now that’s progress. Three years to get a handshake. We’ll work on a hug next time.”

  I snort.

  “Don’t hold your breath.” I head to the door. But before opening it, I turn back around.

  “Joe, I just want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know if I could have made it.” My chest tightens with emotion, as he’s the closest I’ve had to a true friend since I came into this . . . life, or whatever it is.

  “Well, don’t be such a stranger. You can visit more often than every couple years, you know. My cell is on the card—call me when you get things straightened out. At least let me know you’re still alive.”

  Alive. Right.

  “Okay, I will.” I slip out the door, regretting that I can’t stick around. But he’s too sharp, and it won’t take him much longer to figure out that I’m not human.

  If he hasn’t already.

  The rain has tapered to a drizzle, but the roads are still slick and the traffic still lousy. The trip back to Santa Barbara takes a little longer than the trip down this morning, but I make it back in time to swing by my daughter’s work. Her car isn’t in the lot. Fighting a twinge of worry, I head to her house and cruise by the empty driveway. I didn’t really expect anything different, but the disappointment surfaces nonetheless.

  It’s still drizzling. I’m not in the mood to get muddy tonight, so I stop at Starbucks for a hot tea. Soaking in a steamy bath and drinking tea sounds like a nice warm way to spend the evening before curling up in bed with my book.

  As I get my bath ready, I think back on my visit with Joe and how comfortable I felt with him today—at least most of the time. I guess it’s because we know that we each have secrets that must be protected. But I can’t fight the paranoia that arises when I think of him knowing exactly what my secret is. As friendly and helpful as he seems to be, I have no doubt that his loyalties to his own self-interest far outweigh any he would have toward me. No matter how lonely I get, it’s just not worth the risk.

  I shudder at the thought of what the military or other agency might do to someone like me.

  As for working for him again? Not likely. Once I get stable with a job and a place to live, the only payment he’s getting from me will be a wire transfer of cash.

  Anger boils
up at the thought of the isolation I can’t seem to escape. Snarling, I slip under the hot water. I’m such a freak that I can’t even drown myself.

  THURSDAY

  CHAPTER 7

  My eyes fly open and I look at the clock—10:08 AM. A peek out the window reveals the storm has passed. Pale grey clouds drift eastward, separated from one another by freshly washed sky, its brilliant blue almost painful to my eyes.

  I dress for a day in the sun, hoping that the outside temperatures are still cool enough that a long-sleeved blouse and gloves won’t stand out. From my small collection of wigs, I choose the red one, its hair long and straight, and tug it on, shoving the dark ends of my ponytail underneath. A wide-brimmed straw hat and flower-framed sunglasses top off the semi-hippie look, and I chuckle at how cliché and dorky the woman in the mirror appears to be. As long as she keeps on those goofy glasses, that is.

  Andrea’s turning onto the main road just as I approach her street. Crap. I whip around and try to catch up without appearing obvious. After several blocks, she pulls into a small shopping center. I park a few dozen spaces away as she hurries around to the passenger side and takes out a large plastic bag. She carries it into the dry cleaner, and a minute later she walks out empty-handed and gets back in the car. Her next stop is a florist down the street.

  Great. Looks like I get to chase her around the city this morning.

  Suppressing a growl, I stay two to three cars behind her. She turns again and I crowd the bumper of the car ahead of me to keep her in sight.

  Electricity runs through me as she parks in front of the grocery store. She gets out, opens the rear door, and retrieves my granddaughter. A stray breeze flips back the hood on the baby’s lavender jacket. Short dark curls dance across her tiny head.

  My throat tightens. Dark hair, like her mother’s. Like mine.