Chapter 8: Leaving on a Jet Plane
Once we decided to move, we moved fast.
I gave notice to my landlord. He expressed great relief to see the back of me and my broken windows. My furniture and other junk went into a 6’x9’ U-Stor-It locker. Colin paid a year’s rental, in advance. He paid for everything else, too: the plane tickets, the last month’s rent, whipping out a mysterious black credit card with no logo. Whenever a clerk looked at it with suspicion, he’d tell them it was an Amex Visa Black and to just run it, it’ll clear. It always did.
“What is that thing?” I asked, reaching for it as we stood in line at U-Stor. He let me look: it read Colin Braden in embossed gold letters, along with a string of alphanumerics and a chip. “It’s so heavy. Cherise had one at the coffee shop.”
“All Bradens have one. They’re anodized titanium.”
“You should let me pay something.”
He winked. “With what? You told me you’re broke. Let Uncle Armando take care of it.”
Armando, I gathered, headed the Braden clan. Having never met him, I pictured him as an aging Marlon Brando in The Godfather, unrolling $100 bills and sticking them in Colin’s shirt. “Take good care of the girl.”
I never met Armando—and I never saw Cherise or Burke again, either. The harassment stopped. No more slashed tires or bricks through the window. No more Morning Pep or Concordance Therapy. These radical life changes terrified me but at the same time, sunlight broke through the clouds for the first time in too long.
I did see plenty of Colin. As promised, he moved in, grabbing a blanket and sleeping on my couch, a perfect gentleman throughout. He didn’t mind the couch and didn’t sleep much anyway. He lacked any sort of life outside of ‘Operation Butterfly’ as he called our plan. Or if he did, he hid it well. He texted on his phone and had a few cryptic conversations with Armando and others in his clan but that was it. No girlfriends, no wives, no kids—not even a hint of a life outside his work, his projects.
“Colin?” I asked that second afternoon. I was eating a half-assed dinner of whatever’s-in-the-fridge, because I was trying to eat it up before giving it away. Like Cherise, Colin didn’t eat, though he’d nibble on a carrot in pretense as he sat at the table with me, chatting.
“What’s up, Doc?”
I smiled before worry returned. “I just realized, I don’t have a passport.”
“No worries,” he said, “Braden Services is on the mark.” He grabbed a sheaf of travel documents from the crowded kitchen counter, part of the stack he’d come back with after visiting Kinko’s and who knows where else.
“What’s this?” I asked, examining the slim, red booklet he handed over. The words ‘European Union’ and ‘Latvijas Republika’ were stamped on the cover.
“Your passport. We’ll be traveling as Guy and Anne Coddin.”
I raised an eyebrow at the obvious forgery and the addition of one year to my age. “I’m only thirty-two. And this says… I’m married. To you?”
His exuberant manner vanished. “I … shouldn’t have made us husband and wife.” He reached for it. “I’ll get others made up. We can be cousins. No, brother and sister. Nun? Do you want to be a nun?”
I held onto the document, amused. Pleased even. Pretending Colin was the guy in my life was something I’d indulged in over the last couple days. It felt good, reassuring. But only up until a point: only until I reminded myself what he was in truth, until I remembered the Goetic tattoos up and down Burke’s mauled arm.
“These are fine,” I said. “You went to a lot of trouble and pretending to be married makes sense. So, I’m not a U.S. citizen anymore?”
“For the trip. If one of the guards asks, you’ve given it up for tax purposes. It’s a common reason, one they’ll understand.”
“All right. But why Latvia?”
“It’s easier to get their passports. US security is tighter. Guy Coddin is Irish but a legal resident of Latvia. Anne is my American-born wife. We’re booked all the way through to Riga, right, but we’ll deplane at Charles de Gaulle airport. What young couple wouldn’t want to step out for a night in Paris? But another couple with new passports and the same names will finish the journey. Trail concealed.”
“Colin.” My life had taken a U-Turn all right, but on an unexpected, upward trajectory: my job and money problems, solved. The stalking ended. For the first time in years I had a new man in my life. In many ways, he was something more than a man, but in other more frightening ways, he might be something less than one, too. “If I haven’t said so already, thank you. All this for someone you hardly know.”
“I know you well enough now, lass,” he said with a grin. “Pop-Tarts for breakfast, a spot of ginseng tea and the good Doctor in the evening.” Seeing my smile, he winked. “Oh, aye, I see how you look at that smarmy twit pretending to be the Doctor, but for my money it’s that lad from the Seventies, what was his name?”
“Tom Baker?”
“Spot on. That’s the Doctor for me.”
“Gah,” I said, making a face. How old was my pretend-vampire husband, anyway? “You may think you know me, Mr. Coddin, but there’s a few things you don’t know about your wife!”
“Such as?”
“There’s more to me than cats, television, and a failed real estate career. I get out and have fun once in a while!”
“You mean Boardgame Night?”
I almost smacked him, laughing. “Hey, I used to be a mean swing-dancer. Back when that was a thing. Kind of a thing.”
He winked. “Sorry to have missed it.”
The only bit of ugliness that week came from, of all people, Jill. After Colin moved in, I never went to another Morning Pep or Concordance Therapy session again. I didn’t even go back to the office until checking with Amy, who texted me the ‘all clear’ when Jill left for some meeting at a bank. That’s when I went in, cleaned out my desk, and took Amy and Maria out for a farewell lunch—and warned Maria to stay away from the Lotomaw Murder House.
I even emailed Jill my resignation with a note of bridge-burning triumph: “… and that’s why I’m quitting the Jill Thorman Real Estate Agency. As we say in C.T., bury the past to build a foundation for the future.”
That night, as I washed up my semi-solitary supper of Spaghetti-O’s and canned corn—deep in the dregs—the doorbell rang.
“Who’s that?” Colin hissed, since I’d beat him to the peephole. He’d been in the bedroom, playing cat tickler with Pookie.
“It’s just Jill,” I said in a low voice, ushering him back into the bedroom.
“That slag,” he muttered as the door shut. He’d voiced a low opinion of Jill after hearing bits and pieces of my real estate career.
I opened the door halfway, kept my foot on the threshold. “Hi, Jill.”
Jill looked flushed, still wearing her Concordance Therapy track suit: blue and yellow with Shame Badges across the chest pockets. Hers were: tax cheat, loudmouth, know-it-all, and more. Mine, packed away with my other junk in the U-Stor-It, included dropout, cat lady, and divorcée.
“Sparks!” she barked. “What’s this backsliding?”
“Sorry, Jill, but my resignation letter explains—”
“Backsliding!” she bellowed, pushing past me into the empty apartment. “Where are all of your things? Have you been selling off furniture to make rent?”
I started to apologize, but what for? “It’s none of your business, but I’m moving out of Port Selkie.”
“Moving!” she roared, wheeling on me. She marched right up into my face, like Morning Pep. “You’re not going anywhere, Sparks! You owe me!”
“Owe you what?” I demanded, incredulous. “I worked on commission and almost starved to death. I quit. End of story.”
Her face purpled. “Fine, but you owe C.T. thousands of dollars. You can’t just walk out on your therapy—I’m your sponsor!”
It’s true, I owed Concordance Therapy back fees for the sessions but had lost track of how much. It’s not something I felt comfortable asking Colin to pay and while I didn’t want to skip out on the bill, I didn’t see any other choice. “I’ll pay when it’s due.”
“It’s due now!” Jill shouted, grabbing my arm. I didn’t understand. “You’re getting an intensive with Super-Mike, right now.”
The bedroom door opened. Colin stood there with Pookie in his arms. “What’s all this ruckus, now?”
Jill stared at him with goggle eyes. He might’ve been the Lotomaw House Monster, given how horrified she looked. Pookie took one look at her and leapt out of Colin’s arms, running for his safe place in the closet.
“Jill,” I said in a calm, even voice, hoping to defuse the situation. “This is Colin—Guy Collins. My boyfriend, Guy Collins. We’re moving to Australia.”
Colin chuckled while Jill sputtered.
“You can’t have a boyfriend,” Jill fumed. “You’re still recovering from Burke. You’ve not advanced enough in C.T.! You have to destroy the past and transcend the present before you can have a future!”
“I don’t know this ‘Concordance Therapy’ you’re on about,” Colin said, his smile softening the directness of his eyes, “but from what Rowan tells me, it’s a load of bollocks.”
I laughed but Jill wheeled on him. “You—just who do you think you are?” she sputtered. “You, you kidnapper!”
“Sweetheart,” Colin asked me, “Do you want this woman in your house? I’ll call the guarda.”
“He means the police, Jill,” I said. “Get out of my house.”
She got.
“Here, kitty-kitty,” Colin said. It was next morning, the day of our trip. He was on his hands and knees, dangling a Taste-T Treat, trying to coax Pookie out from behind the hot water heater in the hall closet. Packing off my stuff had diminished the number of possible feline hiding places.
I laughed to see them. “That won’t work now that he’s seen the cat carrier.”
Pookie had taken one look at the travel cage on the living room floor and disappeared. To him, it meant confinement, disruption of routine, a terrifying car journey to the Big Room that reeked of Strange Animals, where a kind but overly familiar woman poked and prodded him in an undignified and far too intimate fashion and sometimes jabbed him with strange needles.
I could relate. In a big way, I could relate. “I’ll put the cat carrier on the porch and we can move the last of the junk over to the U-Stor-It. By the time we get back, he should be okay.”
“No time,” Colin said, dropping the treat and reaching for Pookie. “Get that thing open.”
“Careful Colin, he’ll scratch!”
“I’ve had worse scrapes, believe me.”
Vampire vs. Cat: Round 1. Colin carried the day, but Pookie got a few good licks in before my new vampire ‘husband’ tucked the squirming ball of orange fur into the travel carrier.
“That’s that, then,” he said.
“Oh Colin, your jacket!” I said, frowning as I touched the fresh gouge across the distressed leather.
“Eh, it’s no bother,” he smiled, hand brushing mine.
I moved my hand away, blushing. “I’ll call the cat-man.”
The door-to-door pet shipper arrived soon after.
“Goodbye, Pookie,” I said, trying not to cry as I leaned over the carrier. He didn’t know it, but he was going to Sedona, Arizona to live with Mom and Joyce. I didn’t know if and when I’d see him again.
Pookie just yowled, a hurt, accusing look in his eyes.
“Be good now, my special little guy!”
The shipping guy let me have my moment then off they went. That accomplished, we moved the last of my furniture into the U-Stor-It, delivered the keys to the landlord’s mailbox—no hope of getting the security deposit back—and returned the panel truck. Then we loaded up Mr. Reliable with our luggage for the five-hour drive to Portland, where we’d catch a connecting flight to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and then on to Charles de Gaulle in France. I suggested flying out of San Francisco instead but Colin recoiled at the idea, said “that’s another clan’s patch, and not a friendly lot at that.”
He had just one duffel bag, packed with—I knew, because I’d snooped—far too few clothes, a couple phones and chargers, some Ian Rankin mystery novels and Paris guidebooks. Not enough stuff—not even a toothbrush—for an extended stay, but on the other hand he could just buy whatever he wanted. The guidebooks gave me pause.
Why had he chosen Paris? It could be, like he’d hinted, a place he knew, one with allies who could help hide me from his clan. But maybe, just maybe, he wanted to take me to Paris for the reason couples always went to Paris.
But we were not a couple and I had to stop kidding myself that we were or ever could be—unless, but no. I could never become a monster like Burke and Cherise. Like Colin. As much as I enjoyed his company and believed him, at heart, to have once been a good man, he was no longer human but something I did not understand from a world above and beyond me.
“Colin,” I asked, once I’d settled behind the wheel of Mr. Reliable. We headed up U.S. Route 199 toward Grant’s Pass, a two lane highway that ran through a national forest and over the coastal range before hitting Interstate 5 in southern Oregon. Pine trees pressed in all around, dark green among their autumn-colored cousins. We left the lowlands behind, rising into the hills. “How did you become, you know, a …”
“Blooded? It’s all right to say the word.”
“Blooded. Who blooded you?”
“It happened a long time ago.”
“I thought you might be older than you looked.”
“I am that, lass, I am at that. You ever hear of the Fenians?”
“No.”
“After the American Civil War, some Irish patriots and veterans of the Union Army got together and invaded Canada.”
“Canada? Whatever for?”
“To take the country hostage and force the Brits to liberate Ireland in exchange.”
I blinked. “That’s insane.”
“It was, lass. The funny thing is, we won the battle, even if we lost the war…”