Nowhere to Run

by Nancy Bush

  Liv had opened her own door and was greeted by the scent of loneliness and lost opportunities.

  The next-door couple’s name was Martin and though they hadn’t formerly introduced themselves she knew the shrieker was Jo. His name started with a T . . . Travis, or Trevor, or something kind of cowboy-sounding to Liv’s mind. She should know what it was as she’d heard Jo scream it out enough times while they were making love, but it always made her feel like an auditory voyeur and therefore Liv covered her head with her pillow whenever they went at it.

  The worst of it was that their lovemaking reminded Liv of the two times she’d gotten close to sex and the third time that she’d actually gone through with it and had been left wondering, what the hell? Where were the bells and flowers and rainbows and endorphins? She’d mostly felt sort of depressed and wondering if sex, too—touted as a supposedly wonderful expression of love—was just another part of life that she wasn’t able to experience like everyone else.

  Cynical. That’s what she was. And afraid . . . afraid to open a package from someone who’d sent it to her long, long after her death.

  The following morning she went through the shower, dressed in black slacks and a black, long-sleeved T-shirt, drank a glass of orange juice and ate a piece of peanut-butter toast, her gaze on the envelope. She grabbed her purse and keys and headed out the door, then turned around abruptly and went back for the package, ripping it open while her heart pounded. She fought the crippling anxiety that sometimes overtook her and left her gasping for air and practically in the fetal position and shook the package’s contents onto the counter.

  Out tumbled several pictures and a couple of folded pages.

  She saw her mother with several other people in one of the pictures, and she staggered backward to the couch and sat down hard, the photo in her hands; the other papers flew to the floor—someone’s birth certificate among them . . . hers.

  Drawing a long breath, she tried to stem a tsunami of coming panic. Her ears roared. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t see. Could scarcely recall where she was.

  Her vision went inward, to the memory of a long ago, cool, summer evening, the air breezing inside the kitchen through the opened back door. The toes of her mother’s shoes drifted from side to side . . . her face purple . . . her tongue fat and sticking out....

  Liv squeezed her eyes shut. Attempted to shove the image into blackness, but it shone white on the insides of her eyelids like a negative. Her eyes flew open again, and for just a moment her mother was standing right in front of her.

  “I’m done,” Mama said, then the mirage poofed into mist.

  Chapter 2

  Liv drove home from the office during her noon hour, even though there really wasn’t enough time, even though she would probably skip lunch entirely. She’d left the package opened and spread across the coffee table. She couldn’t look or touch any part of it when she’d left for work this morning, but the way everything was exposed had haunted her inner vision all morning.

  Now, she took the steps up from the apartment parking lot to the second level of the L-shaped building where her apartment lay one in from the end unit. She threaded the key in the lock and pushed open the door before she felt someone behind her.

  She screamed. One short, aborted shriek and stumbled into the apartment, turning, facing the intruder.

  “Whoa, whoa! Sorry!”

  It was her neighbor, Trevor or Travis or something. He was standing there in shock, holding up his hands. Liv felt the energy drop out of her and she leaned against the wall, near collapse, quivering inside.

  Worried, he grabbed for her and said, “Geez, sorry.”

  She flinched away. “I’m okay. What . . . are you doing?”

  “Come on.” His arm was around her shoulders and he started to help her to the couch against her protests, her legs moving forward, but feeling detached from her body.

  “What do you want?” she asked, trying to keep all traces of fear from her voice.

  The pictures from the package were scattered across the coffee table as was her birth certificate and the note from her mother. She glanced at them, then at him, but he was only looking at her. “Just wanted to invite you over tonight,” he said apologetically. “Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t know what to say. She was working to get her pulse under control.

  Then his gaze swept over the photos and he focused on one where an angry-looking man was stalking toward the cameraman, his hand up as if he were about to rip the offending camera away. The same man was in several other photos with Liv’s mother, but he was always turning away, frowning, as if he didn’t want his picture taken.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Liv said stiffly.

  “Looks really pissed. This an old photo?”

  The color had leached out of the print and the women’s permed hair and over-the-shoulder tops and black stretch pants, straight out of Flashdance, spoke volumes about the date of the picture. “Yeah.”

  “Huh.” He turned back to her. “So . . . Jo and me . . . we’re just havin’ some drinks and pizza. We don’t get goin’ till late. That work for you?”

  “Thanks, but I’ve already made some plans.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. She’d determined over the course of the morning that she was going to show her brother the contents of the package. Hague had his issues, but he was strangely insightful as well.

  He’d only been a baby when their mother died, but maybe there was something buried in his psyche that could offer some explanation. “Another time, maybe? I’ve gotta run. I’m on my lunch break.”

  “If you change your mind, just stop by,” he said.

  “I’ll do that.” And she hustled him out the door.

  The apartment where Liv’s brother, Hague, lived was on the third/top floor of an older, industrial building on the east side of the Willamette River that had been converted into loftlike units during the ’60s. Those lofts had subsequently grown tired and in need of maintenance over the intervening years, but the place still had a spectacular view toward Portland’s city center, its westside windows looking back over the river. Hague’s unit was in the northwest corner and would have commanded an amazing slice of Portland skyline had he ever opened his blinds.

  Liv parked her blue Accord a block and a half from Hague’s building, the closest spot she could find. She hurried toward his apartment, the package tucked beneath her coat, feeling unseen eyes following her, though there were probably none. It was more likely her own paranoia, always on the prowl. She usually could hold it at bay, but there were times when it simply took over and she was powerless to do anything but feel its paralyzing grip.

  She wished fervently, like she always did, that she could change the past, but it was impossible. She’d lost her mother and huge parts of her life—days, weeks, months, years—and there was no getting them back. She could still remember the policeman’s probing questions after she’d woken from her trauma-induced coma. She was in a hospital with its bad smells and gray walls.

  “Did you see anything when you were in the kitchen?” he’d demanded. She didn’t know he was a policeman at first. He didn’t have the clothes of a policeman.

  “I saw Mama.” She forced the words out. Her lips quivered uncontrollably.

  “Anything else? Something?” He threw an impatient look toward the woman who’d come with him. A social worker of some kind, she knew now, but she hadn’t understood at the time.

  Livvie’s quivering lips were replaced by out-and-out sobs.

  “Useless,” he muttered.

  “She’s just a child,” the woman responded tautly.

  He turned back to Livvie. “The back door was open. Did you notice that?”

  She nodded jerkily.

  “Did you walk outside? Look outside?”

  “NOOOOOOOO!”

  “Calm down,” he told her. “Was there anyone—anyone—around?”

  “H-Hague w
as in his bed,” she stuttered, plucking at the covers. “He—he started crying. . . .”

  “Any adults!” His mouth was smashed together like he was holding back something mean to say.

  She felt the tears rain down and the woman walked over to her, patted her hand, glared at the man and said, “Let the poor child be!”

  “Maybe her mother killed herself because she knew something about those dead women out in the field behind her house.”

  “Shhhh.” The woman’s mouth was a flat line, too, but Livvie was glad to see it, understanding that it was for him, not her.

  “Or, maybe somebody thought she knew something and decided to take care of her himself ?”

  The woman marched right over to him and said in a low voice, “This child found her mother! It was suicide, and it was tragic, and she’s been terribly traumatized. Try to remember that.”

  He gave her a mean, mean look, and said, “I’m trying to catch a killer. You should try and remember that.”

  With the hindsight of age Liv now realized the man had been a plainclothes policeman with the small Rock Springs police force and completely out of his realm working with children. But that didn’t excuse him. And he hadn’t given up after that first interview. Oh, no. He’d come back to the house as soon as she’d gotten out of the hospital. By that time she and Hague had a neighbor woman taking care of them but Liv would not go into the kitchen. She was in the den when the officer came to interview her, and this time she was on her own with him . . . and the panic started to rise.

  He tried a little harder, but Liv had lost trust completely.

  “Try to think back to the night your mom died,” he told her, smiling at her through his teeth. She recognized that he was trying to be kind, but his smile just creeped her out all the more.

  “Okay,” she said in a small voice.

  “Don’t think about your mom. Think about the kitchen.”

  Panic swelled. She saw the table and the sink and the window. “It was really dark. The outside was coming in,” she said.

  “Yes. The back door was open,” the officer said, nodding. “Do you know who went out the door?”

  “My dad?”

  “You think your dad went through the door?”

  “Mama was holding her face.”

  “Your dad told me they had a fight. Do you know what the fight was about?”

  That made Livvie think hard, but she shook her head.

  “Have they fought before?”

  “Yeah . . . Mama hit him once.”

  “Your mama hit your dad?”

  “I think he hit her, too,” Livvie said solemnly. “That’s why she was holding her face.” Then, remembering Mama, she started shaking and hiccupping.

  “Now, be a big girl and stop crying. I need your help. Your mama needs your help.”

  “Mama’s dead. Mama’s dead!!!”

  “You can help her.”

  “You’re lying! Mama’s dead!” Livvie wailed and clapped her hands over her ears and the policeman left the den, said something mean to the neighbor lady and slammed the front door.

  After that the police gave up trying to interview her, though the social worker questioned Livvie further about her parents’ relationship, which created havoc for her father and was probably partially to blame for their chilly relationship ever since. The police questioned Albert Dugan thoroughly, and he’d been furious with Liv for telling tales. Still, he admitted that he and Deborah’s relationship had been tempestuous. He might have slapped her . . . once . . . or twice . . . but she’d hit him, too. He admitted to slapping her the night of her death before he’d stalked out the back door. Deborah had bitten him and he’d struck without thinking. But he was so sorry. So, so sorry.

  It was also why Mama had said, “I’m done,” Liv was pretty sure.

  Even so, to this day Liv wasn’t sure what the truth had been between her parents. Her father swore they’d loved each other . . . well, at least he’d loved her . . . but then she’d taken her own life and there had to be a deep-seated reason for that, and he just couldn’t understand it. He’d never agreed that Deborah had committed suicide. Wouldn’t talk about it. Within the year after her death he married Lorinda, and the whole family moved from the house with too many memories to another one across town. Employed by the forestry department, Albert pushed his old life behind him, and made a new one. Liv understood he was as haunted by the events of that night as she was, maybe in a different way, but in one just as powerful. Deborah’s death had affected and shaped his life from that day forward.

  As it had Hague’s . . .

  Now Liv climbed in the rattling elevator with the accordion door, slamming the handle shut, watching the floors pass as she headed for the third story. She let herself onto the hallway with its scarred wooden surfaces and scents of floor wax and dust and overcooked vegetables, and walked quickly to Hague’s door.

  After their mother’s death, the policeman had interviewed Hague, too, for all the good it did. Hague had babbled about “that man.” The authorities had looked around for help but no one seemed to know what he was talking about. Liv asked him later, when they were alone, and he squirreled under the blankets of his bed and said, “Zombie man. Kill you. Kill you!” And he was crying and laughing and crying some more.

  He’d scared the living daylights out of Liv, who ran to her own room, hiding beneath her covers. Later Hague said Mama had a friend. “A friend!” he’d yelled at the authorities. “Mama’s friend!”

  They, in turn, labeled “the friend” Deborah Dugan’s Mystery Man.

  Liv never mentioned Hague’s zombie man comment to the police, nor that he’d also said kill you in the same reference, like he’d said when he’d been sitting in his high chair, if that’s what he’d said that day; she’d never been completely sure. And she didn’t know then that his words were the first inkling of the behavioral changes that would send Hague down, down, down in a descending spiral that would last until his life to date.

  “Hello, Olivia.”

  Della Larson, Hague’s companion, stood in the open doorway, answering Liv’s knock. She leaned her head back and crossed her arms, assessing Liv suspiciously; behind her the place looked like a dark hole. Hague didn’t like lights, or fresh air, or anything remotely different. Unless, of course, he chose to do an about-face himself, which happened occasionally.

  Della was older than Hague by about a decade and was a nurse-cum-attendant-cum-friend and maybe lover. She’d been with Hague for most of his adult life, ever since his release from Grandview Hospital, the mental institution for teens where he’d been sent briefly while Liz was at Hathaway House. Even though Liv had been adopted by the Dugans—a fact the birth certificate she’d just received spelled out clearly—and wasn’t related to Hague by blood, it sure seemed like mental illness relentlessly plagued their family. Hague was a genius with a 160 IQ but it didn’t mean he knew how to live in this world. Maladaptive was the word often used to describe his behavior. On that, Liv was way ahead of him, though her problems had been diagnosed as derived from mental trauma, not from a mind that moved in ways the rest of the so-called normal humans couldn’t understand. As the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said—as quoted by Della more often than Liv cared to count—“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

  That and a dollar would buy you a newspaper. Maybe.

  Della’s white-blond hair was scraped into a bun at her nape and her icy blue eyes raked over Liv as if she were someone she’d never seen before. It irked Liv, but then she knew it really was a reflection of the suspicions her own brother held inside himself as well.

  “You didn’t call ahead,” Della said.

  “Hi, Della,” Liv said. “The last time I called the line was disconnected.”

  “It’s been reconnected for over a month.”

  “Under whose name?”

  She hesitated briefly. “Mine.”

  “No ma
tter what you may think of me, I’m no mind reader,” Liv said. “I’ll leave that to Hague.”

  Her nose twitching in annoyance, Della stepped aside and Liv was allowed into the dim recesses of her brother’s den. The place smelled like bleach and lemon and everything clean, which was a relief given the fact Liv’s eyes were adjusting to a whole lot of clutter. Hague might be a hoarder of sorts, but everything had to be squeaky clean, per his decree and by Della’s hand.

  “He’s in his room,” Della said, leading the way to the northwest corner of the apartment. She knocked on the door panels and when he barked, “What?” she said, “Your sister is here.”

  A long silence ensued, before Hague bellowed, “Well, let her in!” as if Della’s interference were just that, interference. She ignored his tone and opened the door and when Liv crossed the threshold, Della was right on her heels.

  Hague sat in a brown leather chair that nearly swallowed him whole. He was lithe to the point of wispiness but he was tall like Albert—his biological father and Liv’s adoptive one. He looked a lot like Deborah, too, Liv realized, seeing those hauntingly large blue eyes of her dreams stare at her from Hague’s thin face.

  “What do you want?” he asked gruffly.

  “Nice way to greet me. I came to find out if you know anything about this.” She held up the manila envelope and his eyes followed it, a frown creasing his brow.

  “What is it?”

  “Guess that answers my question.”

  “What is it?” he demanded more loudly and Della moved to his side and laid a comforting hand on his shoulders.