White Lies

by Jeremy Bates

  The Honda rattled, as if it had just been peppered with machine-gun fire. Startled, Katrina yanked the wheel to the left, steering the car clear of the shoulder.

  “What the hell was that?” The man sat bolt upright.

  “Sorry. I must have drifted.”

  “How do you guys get your licenses?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Women drivers.”

  Katrina said nothing but added sexist to her passenger’s less than stellar résumé. The guy was turning out to be one in a million. From the corner of her eye, she saw him checking her out again. This time he was much less discreet. His eyes crawled over her body like a cluster of little spiders, eating away her clothes until there was nothing left to cover her and everything left to see. She tried to ignore him. Gripped the steering wheel more tightly. Too tightly. She forced herself to relax, though her heartbeat continued to race the rapid swoosh-swoosh of the windshield wipers.

  Where was the damn turnoff?

  The golf ball inside her had swelled to the size of a tennis ball. Katrina considered stopping and demanding the unpleasant young man get out. She didn’t, and the reason she didn’t frightened her. What if he wouldn’t get out? She certainly couldn’t overpower him. She would have to either remain on the shoulder of the highway in stubborn defiance, stranded in the middle of nowhere, or keep driving, a hostage in her own car. It was crazy. How the hell had things gone this far? No—how had she let them? She wanted to rewind time so she could drive by the hitchhiker without stopping. Maybe toot the horn in passing. But she couldn’t turn back time, of course, so she followed the only option afforded to her: stared straight ahead and pretended everything was all peaches and cream. Pretended the man beside her had a prim British accent, a Windsor knot around his neck, and a wife named Grace and a puppy named Crumpet.

  The headlights cut two circular swaths of light out of the blackness, barely illuminating the ghostly trunks of the trees that crowded both sides of the road, creating the effect of traveling down a long, dark tunnel.

  “You know, Kat,” the man said, still eyeing her. “You remind me of someone I know. Kandy. That’s her name. Kandy with a K, like yours.”

  Just then, off to the right, a green road sign appeared, announcing the turnoff to State Route 207 and Lake Wenatchee State Park. Katrina felt almost weak with relief.

  Thank God!

  She cleared her throat. “Sorry for such a short ride,” she said, trying not to sound too pleased about the abrupt end to her personal slice of The Twilight Zone, “but this is as far as I can take you.” She pulled over to the shoulder a third of a mile farther ahead and flipped on the emergency lights. She could leave him here without feeling guilty. She’d dabbled in a good deed, and though it didn’t work out, it was the thought that counts, right? Besides, the rain had dwindled to a light sprinkle. At the very least, she’d given him shelter from the storm for the past ten minutes.

  He didn’t get out. She looked at him, waiting. He just sat there. What did he want? A kiss? More than a kiss? She shoved those chilling thoughts aside.

  “Listen, Zach—”

  “Just give me a minute to dry off.”

  Oh no you don’t, buster. Don’t even try it. “I really have to get going.”

  “You like hockey? I like the Red Wings.”

  “No, I don’t watch it—”

  “What’s your place like?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Your place. On the lake.”

  “Listen, Zach. It’s late and I’ve been driving all night. Now please get out.”

  “Is it actually on the lake? Or back in the trees?”

  Katrina began to panic. Why was he stalling like this? Was he lonely? Wanting company, someone to talk to? Wanting more than a kiss? God, could that be true? Could he possibly be so daft to think they were going to tear off each other’s clothes and steam up the windows? No, she didn’t believe that. Then again, maybe she was on the wrong track completely. Maybe he wasn’t thinking about tearing off each other’s clothes, just tearing off her clothes.

  Headlights appeared in the rearview mirror, two small pinpricks, which quickly grew larger, brighter, chasing the shadows to their nests in the foot wells and beneath the seats. In the rare light Katrina risked a glance at the hitchhiker and found him not only staring at her, but staring at her with glazed eyes. Glazed, drunken, lusty eyes. She swallowed. The dread that had started off as a golf ball now filled her entire chest, making it difficult to breathe.

  The car zipped past, sinking them into darkness once more. Katrina felt like a castaway who’d just watched a rescue plane fly by overhead. Goodbye, good luck, you’re on your own.

  “There’ll be another along soon,” she said, though she didn’t believe that. “You can get another ride.”

  “You want to get a drink? Something will probably be open in Coles Corner.”

  So he’s from around here, she thought inconsequentially.

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  The hitchhiker named Zach turned in his seat so his body became square to hers. In that moment he seemed to grow larger. Either that, or the car had suddenly become much smaller. Katrina had the mad urge to shy away from him, but the seat belt held her firmly in place. Trapped. Sweet Jesus, she was trapped. In her own car. And she had brought this all upon herself. That thought burned itself upon her brain like a brand into a cattle’s flank. All she’d had to do was keep driving. Why did she stop? Why did she have to be the hero? A fleeting thought, her epitaph: Katrina Burton. She asked for it. It was then she realized she had never felt true terror before, because for the first time in her life she experienced the wild, frenzied buzz that accompanied imminent mortal danger. This is what you read about in the news, she thought. Unsuspecting woman picks up hitchhiker who overpowers her, drags her into the woods, rapes and murders her. Was that what happened to Kandy with a K?

  “Get out now,” Katrina said in the strongest voice she could spit out.

  The man flinched. “Hey. What’s your problem?”

  “Get out!”

  “Calm down,” he said, and reached for her.

  She smacked his hand away. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

  Bandit leapt to his feet and began growling.

  “Listen,” the man protested, his head swiveling from Katrina to Bandit and back to Katrina. “I wasn’t going to do anything. Christ.”

  “Get out, right now,” she told him in a low, threatening tone she scarcely recognized. “Or I swear to God, I’ll get that dog to take a good mouthful out of you.”

  “I wasn’t going to touch you.”

  His words had a ring of truth to them, but by then Katrina couldn’t have cared if they’d been carved in stone and found in a burning bush.

  “Get out!”

  He winced. Hesitated. Shoved open the door and got out. Katrina stamped the gas pedal and tore away. The door remained open until acceleration swung it shut.

  “My God,” she whispered to herself.

  The heat continued to blast full power from the vents. She clicked it off. Bandit stuck his black nose between the seats and whined softly.

  “It’s okay, buddy,” she told him, as much to calm herself as to calm him. She patted the passenger seat for him to join her. “It’s okay. Come on.”

  He hopped into the front seat where he remained standing at attention, his jaw set in a resolute under bite, his chest stuck out, his muscular front legs stiff and straight. The ultimate guard dog. What would she have done without him?

  As Katrina left the hitchhiker farther and farther behind, and her cocktail of adrenaline and fear began to subside, she questioned whether she had, indeed, overreacted. But that was a moot point, she told herself. The only thing that mattered was that it was all over.

  By the time she reached a sign reading LEAVENWORTH, POP 2074, her mind had turned to her new future there, and she tried not to give the unsettling episode with the hitchhiker another thought.

 
; Chapter 2

  “What can you tell me about this one?” Katrina asked, gently touching the leaves of a three-foot-tall strawberry plant.

  “Oh, yes,” the bent, elderly woman said from beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat. They were walking side by side in the greenhouse out back of a nursery located in the heart of downtown Leavenworth. Dotted throughout the jungle of temperate and tropical plants were a good handful of fountains, sandstone statues, and garden gnomes for sale. The air was rich with the peaty smell of soil and the sweet fragrance of flowers. “We have several types of alpines. This is the white variety. Highly recommended since it doesn’t attract the birds.”

  “How do the berries taste?”

  “The flavor is very intense. They need to be eaten soon after they’re picked, as they deteriorate rapidly when they sit around. They don’t freeze well either, but, my, do they make great preserves!”

  Katrina was more of a jam person herself but, hey, she was always up for something different. She’d packed up her entire house and moved to a tiny village in the mountains after all. That thought still unleashed a whisper of uneasiness inside her. She hoped she hadn’t been premature in deciding to come out here. She didn’t think she had the energy or fortitude to start over yet again. Her nesting instincts were calling out to be heard more and more every day. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll take this one also then.”

  “Excellent! Now do you have a van, or a compact car? Because I can wrap your plants to fit—”

  “Actually, I walked here today. If it’s all right, I’ll collect everything tomorrow.”

  They returned inside and Katrina paid for her purchases. She scooped out several little fridge magnets from a bowl on the counter. One read SAVE OUR EARTH, PLANT A TREE. Another: PLANT A LITTLE HAPPINESS. The third: I MY MOM. She added the first two to the bill; she returned the third to the bowl with a lump in her throat. A mother hen minus the chicks, that’s what she was. It was slightly tragic.

  She scribbled her signature on the Amex receipt and was just about to leave the shop when she froze. Outside on the other side of the glass door was him—the hitchhiker. His hands were jammed into the pockets of his loose jeans, his head down, his hair blowing in the wind. Katrina had only gotten a brief glimpse of his face before he’d passed by, but she knew she was not mistaken. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to chase him down and demand to know why he was stalking her, or run out the back door. In the end she merely stood there, second-guessing her initial suspicion. Stalking her? No, she wasn’t thinking straight. It was just a coincidence. Had to be. Because even if he’d been crazy enough to spend the night tracking her down for whatever sick or vengeful reason, how had he done it? She’d told him she lived on Lake Wenatchee, not in Leavenworth. She’d never mentioned Leavenworth. She was sure of that. And it wasn’t like someone could have told him a Katrina had just moved into town. She didn’t know a soul in Leavenworth, and not a soul knew her. Unless—unless he’d contacted someone at the high school? No. Ridiculous. She’d only told him her first name. Certainly she hadn’t told him she was a teacher. She was being paranoid.

  But what was he doing here then?

  There was only one answer. He lived here. Not in Peshastin or Dryden or some other nearby town. Right here in Leavenworth. Hell, maybe they were neighbors. She could invite him over for strawberry jam, and they could reenact their showdown on the highway for kicks.

  Talk about starting out on the wrong foot.

  “Dear?” the elderly woman said. “Is everything all right?”

  Katrina nodded and left the shop. She glanced down the street, the way the hitchhiker had gone. A mother pushing a baby carriage. A rotund middle-aged man painting the sign outside his shop. No hitchhiker. She headed off in the opposite direction. The September sky was a bright azure blue, scrubbed clean from the thunderstorm the night before. The wind was sharp and crisp, carrying with it the hint of autumn. In the distance, behind the gingerbread-style storefronts, the snowcapped peaks of the Northern Cascade Mountains towered majestically. She turned off Front Street the first chance she got. Her earlier rationale aside, she couldn’t shake the feeling Zach the hitchhiker was following her, ducking behind a mailbox or garbage can each time she looked back over her shoulder.

  The bungalow she was renting on Wheeler Street was a quaint redbrick with white shutters and matching trim. It was set far back from the road and just visible through the branches of two massive Douglas firs and a ponderosa pine. The grass in the yard was shin high. The flower garden was dead. The ivy crawling up the front wall only reluctantly gave way to a large bay window. If she left it how it was, it would make a perfect haunted house for Halloween next month. However, becoming the town witch was not in the playbook, and with a little work—including the addition of the plants and flowers she’d purchased today—it would clean up nicely.

  The reason she’d chosen this place, as opposed to something a little more up-market, was the space and privacy it offered. She’d spent most of her life living in tightly packed city neighborhoods. So when the real estate agent had mentioned a single-bedroom, single-bath bungalow on a four-acre lot, she’d driven down the following day for an in-person inspection, quickly snatching it up. Her little slice of nature, she’d thought then, and now.

  Katrina followed the stone pavers to the front porch, unlocked the door, and stepped inside the foyer, closing the door again behind her. As an afterthought, she peeked through the beveled glass in the door. The street was empty in both directions as far as she could see.

  She slid the deadbolt solidly into place.

  Unpacking.

  That’s how Katrina spent the remainder of the afternoon. Unpacking and making the house as comfortable as possible with the few belongings she’d managed to cram into the Honda. She placed her favorite African wood carvings around the living room and plugged her stereo system into a wall socket—leaving the stereo sitting on the floor, as there was no table to set it on. As she looked around at all the beige walls and empty floor space, she realized she was going to have to go on an even more extensive shopping spree than she’d originally planned. She greeted the prospect with a spark of excitement. Unlike many other small towns, whose main streets were lined with mom-and-pop diners and barbershops advertising ten-dollar haircuts, Leavenworth’s Front Street was a string of pearls boasting fashionable clothing shops, specialty cheese and wine boutiques, and chic galleries. Not to mention its exotic foreign vibe, thanks to the authentic European architecture and store names such as Das Meisterstruck and Haus Lichtenstein.

  After the Depression some eighty years ago, the Great Northern Railway Company had rerouted its railroad and the sawmill had subsequently closed, destroying the lumber industry and leaving Leavenworth little more than a ghost town. Thirty years onward, however, entrepreneuring—or desperate—community leaders concocted a plan to remodel their ailing hamlet into the form of a Bavarian village, complete with traditional festivals such as the Autumn Leaf Festival and the Christmas Lighting Ceremony. Consequently, Leavenworth was now a medieval-themed village that attracted over a million tourists a year. All that was missing were chubby men with dodgy facial hair dressed in lederhosen. And as far as Katrina was concerned, it was a refreshing contrast from the pollution and noise and general big cityness of Seattle. She did hope it had a good coffee shop though.

  By five o’clock she was getting ravenous. Who would have thought unpacking could work up such an appetite? She decided to open the last two boxes in front of her, then make something to eat for dinner, maybe the salmon she’d picked up today from Headwater Inn Grocery. Salmon with ginger sauce and steamed jasmine rice. Sounded good to her. She cut the masking tape that sealed the first box and extracted some paperbacks she hadn’t read yet, a folder that contained recent credit card receipts, more books, and a thick pile of cards bound by an elastic band. The sympathy cards she’d received after Shawn’s funeral. She’d donated all of Shawn’s personal belongings of value to the Salvat
ion Army, then disposed of anything else related to him except those items of sentimental worth. These she’d given to his parents. But she hadn’t been able to let go of the cards. She needed to move on with her life, yes, understood. However, she also needed to keep at least one reminder of the man to whom she’d been engaged to marry. To erase him categorically was not therapy. It was cruelty— to the memory of the person and fiancé he’d been.

  The second box contained her MacBook, a black nylon case that held her CD collection—Chopin, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and the gang, as well as some acid jazz and early rock—a bunch of wires the purpose of which she wasn’t exactly sure, and her digital camera, a high-tech toy that had gotten very little use lately. Tucked down at the very bottom of the box were a number of framed photographs. She lifted them out. The top one was of her as a child: blue eyes bugging out of her heart-shaped face, blonde hair tied back in pigtails. She stared at the photo with the rusty, aged feeling you got when you reminisced. Her life seemed to flash before her eyes, her ups and downs, her moments of joy and sorrow, and out of the jumble of images emerged one long-forgotten memory, a show-and-tell session back in elementary school. A boy in her class named Greg—Greg something, something Greek—had shown a Japanese anime magazine his father had brought back from a business trip to Tokyo. Katrina’s classmates had all seemed to think the girls in the comic-book pictures bore a striking resemblance to her, and for the rest of the year everybody teased her by calling her “Japrina.” She remembered only pretending to be insulted, because she secretly enjoyed being compared to the beautiful anime girls with their bright eyes and colorful hair. She told Shawn the story on one of their first dates, and he surprised her over dinner a few days later with a Sailor Moon doll. Later that same evening, tipsy from a bottle of wine, they both agreed that some twenty-odd years down the road the likeness was still apparent.