Runaway

by Anne Laughlin

  “Are we each going to take a pizza and eat in our separate rooms?” Catherine asked.

  “It’s an option.”

  “Good. That implies that there’s another option, that we eat together. That’s what I opt for.”

  Jan pulled her bag out of the backseat. “Fine. We’ll eat in your room.” Jan liked to have an exit available to her at all times.

  The room was paneled with knotty pine and decorated with hunting and fishing paintings. The lamps had heavy shades, throwing out a golden light that made the room feel warm and cozy. It felt like a cabin, but not the kind of cabin she grew up in. That was more a stark and desperate feeling, where socks were stuffed into holes in the wall and a crackling fire simply meant you wouldn’t freeze to death in the Idaho winter. This room made her want to sit in a chair and read a book.

  Catherine sat at the small table in the room and opened two beers and unwrapped the pizza. “What’s our next step?” she said.

  Jan remained standing. “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the boss.”

  Catherine sighed. “You’re still angry that I came up here, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not like I’ve had a long time to get over it,” Jan said. She sat down and drank some beer. “It feels like something someone would do who’s used to getting her way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s obvious. At least to me. You decided I wasn’t answering your calls quickly enough to your liking, so you used your authority to call off my partner and come up here to talk to me. You weren’t thinking about what might be best for actually finding this girl, or what I may have thought of the idea.”

  “Do you feel I’m a hindrance to you in working the case?”

  “That’s not really the point. Peet was supposed to be here. She’s my partner.”

  Jan ate some pizza as Catherine leaned back in her chair and watched her.

  “You’re right that I used my position. Absolutely. But only because I could do so and not compromise your case. I know what I’m doing, though I can’t say missing teenagers were my regular beat.”

  Jan stared at her hard. “No, I don’t suppose that was the sort of case you handled at MI6. It must be a hardship to be working on something so mundane.”

  Catherine looked surprised. “How did you know I was with MI6? I don’t think I’ve mentioned that before.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So how did you know?”

  Jan ate more pizza and stalled. She wasn’t sure she was ready to open the can of worms. But if not now, when? “There’s quite a bit about it on the Internet,” she said.

  Catherine was still for a moment. “You looked me up on the Internet? I suppose I should be flattered.”

  “Flattered?” Jan was incredulous. She stood and walked away from the table with her beer. “More like ashamed or embarrassed, or something.”

  “Because I worked at MI6?” Catherine looked genuinely confused.

  “Haven’t you ever Googled yourself, for Christ’s sake?”

  “I haven’t, no. But apparently you’ve Googled me.”

  Jan turned on her Mac. She’d saved the Web pages that showed Catherine in photos with Ellen. She handed the laptop over. “You’re quite the news item, it seems. You and your girlfriend.”

  Catherine read through the first article as if she were glancing through a quarterly sales report. Her only visible reaction was the vertical line forming between her brows. She closed the computer and handed it back to Jan.

  “At least now I know what you’re really mad about.”

  Jan stared at her. She’d never felt jealousy before, never even cared whether a woman she’d slept with was involved elsewhere. Even when Josie left her years before for another woman, the feeling was more annoyance than pain.

  “If I tell you the truth about Ellen, it’s going to sound like utter crap. But I haven’t any choice.”

  “There’s no point, anyway.”

  “Yes, there is a point. I don’t know what it is we have together, at least not yet. But I do know I don’t want to lose it,” Catherine said.

  Catherine leaned back and ran her hands back through her hair, pulling the mass of it behind her head and letting it fall. She stared at the ceiling. Finally, she looked at Jan.

  “The woman in the photo is Ellen, my partner for many years now. We live together in London. There’s no other way to put it than we are a married couple and I was a shit to sleep with you. And I won’t tell you that it’s the first time I’ve done this sort of thing. You can probably guess that it’s not.”

  Jan tossed the computer on the foot of the bed and took another beer. She remained standing.

  “But it is the absolute truth that I’ve never had the experience I had with you. It’s changed everything.”

  Jan stared as Catherine searched for words.

  “Ellen and I haven’t been happy for quite some time. I know that’s the part that sounds like utter crap, but it’s just the way it is. We have not talked about splitting up, but it has been in the back of my mind for months now. I’ve been putting off the decision. I keep working, traveling, returning home to the same bloody uncomfortable house that I can barely stand to be in anymore.”

  Jan was determined to not ask leading questions, but her heart was picking up its pace. She was feeling hopeful, she supposed. Catherine leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped in front of her.

  “One of the reasons I was calling you repeatedly was to tell you about Ellen and to ask you whether you’d agree to spend time with me, to see if you’d like to pursue something. I mean, you don’t really know me. I’m not sure you really even like me much. But I know that something happened between us that was so different from anything I’ve felt with other women. I can’t stand the idea of flying back to London without seeing if there really is something there.”

  Jan sat at the table and fiddled with her beer can. “In other words, if you like what’s happening between us you’ll dump your girlfriend, but if not, you still have her to go home to.”

  She spoke in an even tone, as if she weren’t ready to explode. There seemed such a narrow path to navigate. One step off of it and she’d be hurt, badly.

  “That’s not what I mean at all.” She reached for Jan’s hand, placing her own over the fist Jan reluctantly left on the table. “Please listen to what I’m saying. I’m done with Ellen no matter whether you agree to see me or not. I know that much, and by God, it feels good.”

  Jan’s cell phone rang and she picked it up as quickly as she could, thankful for the interruption.

  “This is Anna from the Pinehurst. I’m over at the bar and just heard something that might be about that girl you’re looking for.”

  “I’m on my way,” Jan said. She hung up and grabbed her jacket.

  “Wait. What’s going on?”

  “Someone at the bar might know something. You can stay here.”

  Catherine was up and at her side. “Don’t be absurd. I’m coming with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m your partner.”

  Jan raised her eyebrow. “Don’t get any ideas. You’re not my partner.”

  Catherine smiled and a crack formed in Jan’s resolve. Every smile, every laugh out of Catherine’s mouth, made the risk of being hurt so much more worth taking. She spun and went out the door, crossing the parking lot with long strides, Catherine keeping pace behind her.

  Inside the bar the drinkers were down to a few. It was Sunday night, well into the evening, and the hunched figures were the hardcore regulars. The feel of a barstool below them was more comforting than any living room La-Z-Boy. Annabeth was talking to her mother at the end of the bar. As they approached, Anna discretely pointed at a man sitting by himself at one of the few tables in the tavern. He looked startled when Jan and Catherine sat down at the table with him.

  “Excuse us for interrupting you,” Jan said, “but we’re looking for someone and we’d
like to see if you can help us.”

  “What are you talking about?” the man said. He was middle-aged, tired, his coveralls dirty from whatever it was he worked at during the day. His hand was thick, gripping the bottle of beer in front of him. He was eating one of the tavern pizzas.

  “We’ve been hired to find this girl,” Catherine said, as Jan showed him the photo. “She’s run away from home.”

  “And we know she’s been training at the militia camp that’s near here. Do you know anything about her?” Jan said.

  The man turned around and looked at Anna, who just waved cheerily back. He sighed.

  “I didn’t know that Anna was going to call you in here. I don’t want to get involved in nothing.” He didn’t seem hostile. He could have been saying he didn’t want to buy any Girl Scout cookies. He just wasn’t interested.

  “If you could just tell us what you told Anna,” Catherine said. He cocked his head at her, most likely because she talked funny. “She’s just a girl, you see. We need to find her.”

  “I don’t know if I do know anything at all about her. When Anna mentioned there were people here looking for a missing girl, I told her what I heard when I was at the gas station a bit ago. A couple fellas from the training camp were there and I overheard them saying they all had to scramble out of there ‘cause it turned out there was a runaway in the camp and someone had come looking for her. They thought she was part of the group of young folks who are heading out to Idaho.”

  Catherine and Jan looked at each other.

  The man gave the photo back to Jan. “I didn’t see her myself, so I don’t know if that’s her.”

  “Do you know the names of any of the people going to Idaho?”

  “David Conlon is the only one I know of. I’ve heard him in the bar here talking about Idaho. They’re crazy, if you ask me.”

  “Why do you say that?” Jan asked.

  “Well, what the hell are they going to do out there? There aren’t any more jobs in the middle of Idaho than there are here, and they won’t have their parents’ homes to go to when they run out of money. And Idaho is hard country. A Michigan winter is nothing compared to what they have.”

  Jan had to agree with that. The winters of her childhood were endless months of freezing cold and unending snow. Every fall was spent shoring up the sorry structures in their camp in the hope they’d be sturdy enough to keep them alive until spring. Men cut wood non-stop, piling split logs into small mountains that never seemed large enough to keep them warm through the season.

  “Do you have any idea where they planned to go in Idaho? Did it sound like they have a destination?”

  “Conlon was boasting that they had some property they bought, with a house and some stables and who knows what else. I couldn’t tell you where it was. Didn’t hear him mention it.”

  “Do you know where we can find David Conlon?”

  “He lives somewhere around here, I guess. I’ve seen him in here enough. I couldn’t tell you what town he’s in though.”

  “What about the men you overheard at the gas station?” Catherine asked. “Can you tell us who they were? They might know more about the girl we’re looking for.”

  The man shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t know those fellas.”

  Catherine looked at Jan, who then turned for a final question.

  “Can you give us your name, sir?”

  “It’s Fred Hansen. But I’d appreciate you not spreading it around that I talked to you. People don’t much like it when you talk about them to outsiders.”

  “I understand. I’ll leave my card with you and ask that you call me if you hear anything else about the group going to Idaho or the girl we’re trying to find. Her name’s Maddy Harrington.”

  Hansen nodded and turned back to his pizza as Jan and Catherine got up from the table. When they returned to the motel they stopped in front of their two rooms.

  “What do we do now?” Catherine said. She stood facing Jan, close enough to put her arms around her neck and pull her down for a kiss, which she looked like she was about to do. Jan pulled back a step.

  “I’m going to try to find David Conlon. You can do whatever you want.”

  She put her key in her door and left Catherine standing outside, her hands on her hips.

  *

  Maddy woke to find herself in Kristi’s cot, tucked under her arm and buried under their coats and the two thin blankets they’d found in the cabin. She barely remembered waking earlier in the night, freezing, not thinking twice about climbing in with Kristi and her generous body heat. Kristi had simply grunted and moved over a bit, wrapping an arm around Maddy.

  Kristi’s vibrating cell phone went off. She could hear it skittering along the floor below her. Kristi slept on.

  “Hello?” she answered the phone knowing it was probably David.

  “We’re five minutes away,” he said. “Get yourselves ready to roll. We’re heading to Idaho.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. We have to. People are looking for you and we need to get out of here.” David didn’t sound like his usual easygoing self. She felt Kristi shift behind her.

  “Okay. We’ll be ready.”

  “You know, Maddy, there are some who want to leave you behind. And they may be right. You shouldn’t have lied to me,” David said.

  “Why are you taking me then?” She didn’t want to go where she wasn’t wanted. She’d had a lifetime of that, she felt. But she wanted to go to Idaho, more than ever before.

  “I don’t know. It might be stupid of me. But you and I talked so much about this together that it doesn’t feel right to leave you. Let’s hope I don’t regret this.”

  “You won’t. I promise.”

  Now Kristi was sitting up. “What’s happening?”

  “Can’t you talk to your parents and call them off the search? I thought you said they don’t care much what you do,” David said.

  “They don’t. This is just for show. So they can tell people they did what they could. They’re not going to hunt me to the ends of the earth.”

  “They did send this investigator to Michigan.”

  “Don’t worry, David. The investigator will lose the scent, we’ll be out of the Midwest, and that will be the end of it.”

  “We’re heading up the road to the cabin. Meet us out front.”

  Maddy disconnected and handed the phone to Kristi, who looked dazed.

  “Come on. We’re heading out to Idaho. David’s almost here.”

  “What? What about my stuff? Am I supposed to go to Idaho with literally the clothes on my back?”

  Maddy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he plans for us to swing by your place. Where do you live, anyway?”

  “It’s not far. My brother’s garage. I’ve got to get my stuff. It’ll take me ten minutes.”

  They heard a truck roll up out front and scrambled into their coats and out the door. The fire was dead; whoever came to this hole next would have to fold the thin scraps they called blankets. David was driving his pickup and they climbed into the front with him.

  “What the hell, dude?” Kristi said. “We aren’t going without me getting my stuff, are we?”

  Maddy was starting to become fascinated with Kristi’s stuff. When she ran away from home, the only thing she cared about bringing were her computer and a few changes of clothes. She wondered what Kristi valued.

  “Don’t worry, Kris. We’ll swing by your brother’s, then on to meet the rest of our caravan at Ed’s. We’re heading out from there. Maddy, I threw your things in your bag. It’s all in the hold.”

  A few miles down the county road and another Michigan hamlet appeared, with trailer courts leading the way into the town and then popping up again on the other side. They drove beyond the last of these and then down a gravel road where actual houses were scattered about. David turned off his lights and pulled into the dirt driveway of one of them, a one-story ramshackle structure, badly in need of paint. It was a few hours before dawn, b
ut the moonlight showed off everything most people would just as soon keep hidden—the peeling paint, the cockeyed screen door, the falling gutters, and missing roof shingles.

  “Wait here. I’ll be right back,” Kristi said, but Maddy slipped out with her.

  “I’m coming too,” she whispered. “I’ll help you carry.”

  Kristi gave her a sort of helpless look and shrugged. She led her up the driveway to the back of the property, shrouded in trees and much darker than up front. The garage wasn’t what Maddy expected. Instead of a two-story structure with a cute studio apartment on top, it was simply a garage. No toilet, no kitchen. There was a mattress on the floor. The setup was so dismal that Maddy could instantly see why Kristi thought David’s basement was upscale.

  Kristi’s dresser was a duffle bag gaping open by the mattress. She started to throw some scattered clothes into the bag and then bent to unplug a handheld gaming device. She wrapped the cord around it and tucked it safely into her jacket pocket. There was a kit bag and a well-thumbed romance novel that went into the bag also, and that was it. She zipped it up.

  “I really didn’t need any help carrying,” she said.

  *

  Jan spent several minutes on the Internet before locating an address for a house owned by a Frank Conlon. Google Maps pinpointed the house at about a mile away from the Pinehurst Inn. Catherine remained quiet as Jan worked. She finished off a beer and checked e-mails on her phone. Jan glanced at her repeatedly, worried Catherine would keep at her about their personal mess, worried also that she wouldn’t.

  “I’ve got something,” Jan said, pulling on her jacket. She clipped her Glock back onto her belt.

  “Should I be armed?” Catherine asked.

  “What do you think, Secret Agent Woman?”

  “Hilarious. But I’m afraid I’m without my weapon. It appears you’ll have to protect me.”

  Jan handed her a revolver to be on the safe side.

  “Take my backup.”

  Catherine handled the gun with ease and slid it into the back of her jeans. “Right. Are we going in Western style, guns a-blazin’ and all that? Or have you considered calling the authorities?”