The Company of Darkness (36 page)

“I’ll be happy to show you the other reasons later,” he said with a faint grin, tucking the other gun into the back of his jeans.  “Let’s go eat.” 

Shari’s Restaurant and Pies was doing a fairly brisk business as they arrived, but they were easily seated in a booth by the window.  Ethan scanned the menu for about sixty seconds before laying it down, his eyes returning to the view of the parking lot, his attention fully focused on their surroundings.  Cady, however, flipped back and forth from page to page, too hungry to decide between pancakes or French toast, an omelet or country potatoes.  The waitress had already been by to fill their coffee cups and still she hadn’t decided. 

Ethan nudged the back of the menu as the waitress started in their direction again.  “Pick something, I’m sure it’s all great.”

“I want
all the things.
”  Cady’s brows drew together as she flipped back and forth between the scramble and a monster burger with bacon, cheese, avocado, an onion ring, and an egg on a pretzel bun.

“Then order more than one thing,” he said easily.  “I’ll finish whatever you don’t eat.” 

Cady stared at him as if he’d grown another head.  “You order your own two meals, I’m eating all my food,” she grumbled, turning a sweet smile to the waitress.  In the end she went with the scramble, adding a side of bacon and a short stack of pancakes with a chocolate milkshake that boasted an entire piece of chocolate peanut butter pie blended into it.  Ethan didn’t skip a beat, adding his own meat-heavy order with an extra side of garlic tater tots. 

They didn’t speak of anything serious or heavy as they waited for the food to arrive, with Ethan’s attention still divided between her and the parking lot, and Cady distracted by the gnawing hunger that couldn’t be satisfied with coffee.  When the pie shake arrived, she fell upon it with gusto, eyes closing in sugary ecstasy. 

“Oh my God, this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth!” she declared in rapture.  “You have to get one.”

Ethan’s amused smile flicked in her direction.  “Can’t I just try yours?”

“Ah, no?  This one’s mine, get your own.”  Her arm curved protectively around the tall glass, pulling the extra metal cup closer.  “Unless you want to split this one and then buy me another.”

“Sure, I’ll get you another one if you like,” he chuckled over the possessive display.  “Whatever my girl wants, my girl gets.  Just don’t complain to me later when you’re in a sugar coma.”

In the end he got his own shake, with lemon cream pie, which she agreed was delicious, but not as amazeballs as hers.  When all the food was gone, she lounged back with a long breath, staring at the carnage left behind. 

“I can’t believe we ate all that.”

“It’s not so much,” he shrugged.

“Yeah, for a trucker.  That’s more food than I usually eat in a whole day.  All I want to do now is curl up into a ball and digest.  We don’t have to get back on the road yet, do we?”

Ethan’s face scrunched up as though he smelled something bad.  “We really should move on to at least the next town before we hole up for a while.  It’d be bad to stay near the Jeep.”

“Unless that’s the smartest thing we can do because they’d never suspect it,” she pointed out brightly.

He slid over to the seat beside her.  “I’m sorry, you were driving for a long time, weren’t you?”  His hand settled on her shoulder, kneading the muscles there.  “You must be tired.”

Actually, she was in surprisingly good shape, thanks to Rikard’s gift of energy, but she wasn’t about to say no to an impromptu massage.  “I’m okay.  How are you feeling?  Is it weird without Ash in there?”

“I’m good, I slept, remember?” he replied, switching to her other shoulder.  “Is it weird?  No, it’s the opposite of the weirdness I’ve been living with.  I feel the most normal I’ve felt since… maybe ever.”  His surroundings forgotten, he sat deep in thought, his fingers gradually stilling on her neck. 

“What is it?” she asked softly when he didn’t say more, and he shook himself out of it.

“Nothing.  It’s just that I think my sense of normal wasn’t so normal before I met you.  It’s like I was on autopilot and I didn’t see or feel anything around me.  But now, even on the run, I feel like this is the closest thing I’ve had to a normal life, being here with you.”

“Aw, Ethan, I think that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Cady said with a watery smile. 

“Well, as normal as sitting here with a girl who eats like a trucker can be.  I guess I’m glad you didn’t order any beans.  Enclosed spaces and all.”

Cady kicked him under the table, he had such a dorky sense of humor.  “I should’ve left you back at the campus,” she muttered, even as she accepted his hand in hers.  He hadn’t asked her much about where they were headed yet, which had suited her fine, but it wasn’t a subject that could be avoided forever.  Neither was the reality of having to steal another car.

“We should get moving though, I’ll do all the driving.  It’ll only take me a few minutes to find us a new car.”

By
find
he meant
steal
, and that left a sour taste in her mouth that had nothing to do with the huge breakfast.  “Can’t we buy a cheapo one with the money we found?”

“No, it would cut into our reserves too much and we’re out of my usual operating territory.  We’d have to go back south again to reach any of the stashes I have hidden away, and we’ll need hardware for me to access my offshore accounts and move some money into an identity I can access.  That takes time, so we’ll need all the walking around cash we can get.  Especially if you keep eating like you’ve got a hollow leg.”

Cady kicked him under the table again.  “Okay, but can we at least rent a car and take off with it?  It’d be nice to have a car with a key instead of you having to hotwire it every time we need to start it,” she whispered. 

“Oh, I can get you keys, no sweat,” he beamed, and she didn’t want to know what he had in mind.

“No sweat?  Who says that?” she teased, shouldering the canvas bag.  “I’m going to go pay our bill.  You figure out the car situation and I’ll meet you outside.”

“Groovy,” he grinned, deliberately trying to provoke her.   “I’ll see you out there.”

Cady lingered by the cash register, wanting to give Ethan plenty of time to do the deed.  Even though she was stuffed, she bought a box of cream cheese frosted cinnamon buns to go as well. 

By the time she got outside, Ethan was waiting at the corner of the parking lot in a black Nissan Sentra with the engine running, his expression placid and easygoing, as though he had all the time in the world.  Once she spotted him, Cady stepped up her pace, eager to be out of there.  She slipped in quickly, but he drove off at a sedate pace that made her toes tap with impatience.

“Can’t you go faster?” she hissed, craning around to look back at the restaurant entrance.  “What if someone sees us?  I don’t want to be here when whoever’s car this is comes out.” 

Despite her agitation, he made no move to comply.  “Going the regular speed limit is the best way to keep them from noticing us, trust me.  And so what if they see us?  By the time our descriptions make it to the local law enforcement, we’ll be long gone.  Relax, I’ve done this a million times.”  He patted her knee comfortingly but that didn’t make her feel all that much better.

Once they hit the highway she settled down, attention torn between the rearview mirrors and trying to find a decent radio station.  Ethan switched it off though, right as Katy Perry started singing about Friday night. 

“So, where to?  Or are we going north until we hit Canada?  I hate to break it to you, but the Company’s got facilities up there too.”

“Awesome,” she said sourly.  “But that’s not what I had in mind.  Keep going north for now until we hit Portland and then we’ll head for the coast.”

“It’s getting kind of late for beach weather, isn’t it?”

“The place I have in mind isn’t right on the beach, it’s a lot more rural, almost like farm country,” she replied.  At least it had been the last time she was there.  For all she knew, it’d been replaced by condos by now, but she was fairly sure she would’ve heard about it. 

“We’re going to a farm?”

“Something like that.”  Cady wasn’t sure why she was dealing in half-answers, the way Ethan tended to when he didn’t want to talk about something.  Only that’s exactly what this was.  She didn’t want to talk about it, much less go there, but they were running low on options.  “You wanted a safe place to hole up where they’ll never think to look for us.  I can guarantee the middle of nowhere qualifies.”

“Middle of nowhere, huh?”  Ethan accepted that without argument.  “We should stop in Portland then.  We’ll need the cover of a bigger city to pick up ammo and other supplies.”

“As long as we get there while it’s daylight, I’m good.  It’s been about eight years since I was last there and I’m not sure I could find it in the dark.”

“Where are we going, by the way?”

There were a couple different ways she could answer that, but the simplest one won out.  “To see my mom.”

The drive from Portland to Astoria was a pretty one, surrounded by trees and the occasional glimpse of the Columbia River.  Even though a knot of dread grew in the pit of her stomach as they got closer to her mom’s place, Cady could appreciate the rustic charms of the countryside. 

The stop in Portland had taken less than an hour.  The Fred Meyer store had provided them with a one-stop shopping experience, and they’d picked up a change of clothes, a few basic toiletries, a couple of boxes of ammunition, snacks for the road, a very wicked looking hunting knife, and a small but powerful laptop computer. 

Now as the Astoria-Megler Bridge came into view, it was at once beautiful and terrible.  Once they crossed it, Cady would be in
her
territory and that seemed almost as unpleasant as being in Company territory.  At least she was free to hate the Company without judgment. 

“Keep going, over the bridge, head to Long Beach,” Cady directed, when he looked to her for guidance.  They drove past the sleepy fishing town of Ilwaco and the beachy Seaview before the main drag of Long Beach came into sight – touristy, but not crowded by California standards. 

There were plenty of seafood restaurants and oodles of places to go antiquing, nothing that screamed excitement to a pre-teen girl except for the arcade, but Cady remembered her mother calling it a silly waste of money back in the day.  The boardwalk, boasting the longest beach in the world, had been way too far for her to get to on her own.  The town hadn’t changed all that much since the last time she’d driven through it, and neither had the resentment built up for the woman at the end of their drive.

Up Highway 103, near the signs for Loomis Lake State Park, Cady found it oddly easy to find the right road, its location deeply etched into her memory.  How surreal it was when Ethan turned into the private drive that stretched between tall evergreens until the lake opened up ahead and the ranch house came into sight.  A hand lettered sign proclaimed proudly that there were goats for rent. 

“Goats for rent?  Who would want to rent goats?” Cady couldn’t help but ask aloud.  It was a twelve acre spread in all, the home sandwiched between tall, dense trees and Loomis Lake.  The dock was still there and the long, ranch house looked the same, the covered porch running the length of the house, but the solar panels on the roof – those were new.  There was also quite a lot more open space than she remembered behind the house, with neat rows of crops to the right and a huge, hundred foot shed near the tree line.  In addition to the pen of advertised goats, there was a chicken coop in the shade near the rear of the cleared property.  “The goat rental business must be good,” she murmured; it certainly looked prosperous.

Ethan parked near the edge of the property, turning the car to allow for a quicker exit if needed.  His head craned to take in the spread.  “What is this place?  I thought we were going to your mom’s house.”

“This is my future,” Cady replied, making no move to exit the car as her eyes roved over the property.  “After my dad died, Mom bought this with the insurance money and pretty much all of Dad’s savings.  It was supposed to go to Ian’s and my college tuition, but Mom didn’t think that was a good use of it.  She wanted us all to move up here with her, but…”  She shook her head sadly.  “All it represented to me was no future.  I couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

“How fast was that?”

“I did six months of hard time on the rotten ranch before Ian saved up enough to buy a car and get us out of here.”

“Six months isn’t so long.”

“It’s long enough to an eleven year old girl still getting over the loss of her father.”  Her mom had tried to reach out to her to fill that void, but Cady had never given her the chance.  That door had been fused shut by abandonment as far as she was concerned.

Ethan’s voice was light, almost teasing as he tried to draw her out of her dark mood.  “And here I thought you were a city girl through and through.  It’s hard to imagine you out here feeding chickens and tending to goats.”

“Oh, I
am
a city girl, you’re right about that.  There weren’t any goats back then, but she had the chickens to take care of and she was barely starting to plant a garden.  I didn’t do any of that stuff, the farm was her dream, not mine.  Even before she bought this place and flushed my future down the drain, we didn’t get along.  Not after she left to go
find herself
,” Cady snorted. 

“You’re right.  I think this is definitely the last place anyone would look for us.”  He gave her hand a squeeze before dropping it, opening the car door.  “Come on, I see movement up by the house.  Time to go play nice.”

The instant Cady’s door cracked open, a flock of geese waddled up, their wings spread wide as they hissed in warning, driving them back away from the house.  “Oh, balls, I forgot about these guys.  Shoo, go away, you stupid turkeys,” she hissed right back at them, waving her arms.   

“What’s the accepted etiquette on shooting them?” Ethan frowned, stepping in front of Cady to shield her from angry beaks.

“Go right ahead, they’re mean as shit from what I remember.”  She’d been scared to death of them as a girl, running away whenever they got too near.  Even now, with her added height, she was still reluctant to get too close to them.  “Maybe this was a bad idea,” she muttered, taking a step back toward the car.  Maybe they could get back in and drive up closer to the house. 

About to suggest that plan, Cady was distracted by the sight of her mother stepping onto the front porch, the ancient screen door slamming shut behind her with groan and a clatter.  Her auburn hair hung loose, falling a few inches below her shoulders in a layered cut softened by wispy bangs.  Dressed in a tight fitting gray tank top with the hint of a purple lacy bra peeking out of the neckline, and faded blue jeans rolled up over strappy sandals, she was exactly as Cady remembered, except for a few silver strands mixed in with the red.

“Oh, don’t mind them, come on up,” her mother called out with a friendly wave as she shooed the geese away.  “Go on, girls, beat it.  Are you here about the goats or looking for something greener?”

“Greener?” Cady blinked, not having any idea what she meant by that.  From the corner of her mouth she whispered to Ethan, “Would you try to walk more casually?  You look like a freaking cyborg for Pete’s sake.”

“Sorry.”  His shoulders instantly slouched lower, his stance more casual, a genial smile snapping into place.  “How’s this?”

“Not so big, she’s going to think we’re happy to see her.”  Louder, she called out, “No, we’re not here for the goats or anything else, but how about we roast a fat goose for the prodigal daughter?” 

Her mom cupped a hand over her eyes to hold back the glare from the afternoon sun, squinting.  “Cady?  Oh wow, it
is
you!”  Delighted, she ran toward them, a silver ankle bracelet jingling at the motion.  “Oh, Cady, honey… come here and give me a great big hug!”

Cady let herself be swept up in her mother’s arms, but did little to return the hug, patting her back awkwardly.  “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Mom?  Is that all you have to say after all these years?” she laughed, brushing the hair back over her ears as she stepped back to get a better look at them.

“Um, how are you?”  What else was she supposed to say?  It wasn’t like she’d made the trip to reconnect, but she couldn’t exactly come out and say so.  Talk about awkward. 

“How am I?  I’m wonderful, especially now that my baby’s come to see me after all these years.  Wait…”  Her hand came up, censoring herself.  “Not a baby, but a beautiful young woman,” she amended, reaching out to stroke Cady’s hair.  “I’m so glad you decided to take us up on our open invitation.”

“Us?”  Had her mother remarried and this was the first she was hearing about it?  Right on cue, a guy stepped out of the house, shirtless and deeply tanned, he couldn’t be more than a year or two older than her.  He smiled and nodded at them, stretching (mostly for their benefit as far as Cady could tell) before heading off to the shed.  Her mom’s eyes never left the guy who looked as appealing going as he had coming. 

“Are you and he, um…?”  Cady swallowed, not quite able to wrap her head around the idea of calling him Daddy.  “Together?”

“Who, Zeke?” she grinned, shielding her eyes from the sun as she continued to watch his tanned shoulders in the sun.  “No, I just like to look at him.”  She let out a long, covetous sigh before turning her attention to Ethan.  “Who’s this?” 

“Sorry.”  Cady turned to Ethan, having temporarily forgotten to introduce him.  “This is my mother, Julie Garrett.”

“Oh no, baby, I don’t go by my slave name since the divorce,” she interrupted.  “It’s Weston now.”

Cady ignored the rudeness in that statement, her brows twitching closer together as she tried to figure out where the name came from.  “But… your maiden name is Murray.”

“That’s just a different kind of slavery,” she winked, her smile stretching wider as she offered her hand to Ethan.  “I’m glad to meet you, you’re the first boy Cady’s brought home since the second grade.  What was his name?  Jeremy something, cute kid, but he had a tiny bit of a lisp, I’m afraid.  All the kids teased him, it was a crying shame.”

“Mom…”

She continued, barely pausing to take a breath even as Ethan blinked, bewildered by the rapid turn in conversation.  “Adorable smile though, and all those blonde curls.  Or was that Mark from kindergarten…”  She pressed a chipped fingernail to her top lip.  “I always get those two mixed up because you were only there for two weeks before they skipped you up to the next grade.”

“Mom, that’s not important,” Cady tried again before the woman launched into a detailed catalogue of all of her boyfriends through the sixth grade.  “Mom, this is…”  All at once she drew a blank.  Was she supposed to introduce him as Ethan?  David?  Barry?  All of his covers were blown and they hadn’t discussed any new ones yet.

“I’m Ethan, ma’am.”  He recovered his tongue with a genial smile, shaking her hand politely, and she maneuvered it into looping her arm through his, pressing inappropriately close as she led him to the house.

“None of this ma’am stuff, that’s for old ladies.  What am I, chopped liver?  Don’t answer that!” she chuckled at her own joke.  “Call me Jules.”

“Nice to meet you, Jules,” Ethan managed to get out, tossing a worried look over his shoulder at Cady as she followed along behind.  Whatever delight she felt at seeing her daughter again was nothing compared to the opportunity to press close to a good looking man.  Same old Jules. 

“Come on up to the house and meet everyone.  I’m sure they’ll be so excited to meet you!”

“Everyone?” Cady frowned, bringing up the rear.  “How many people live here?”

“We have a sort of floating population here, people come and go all the time.  You’ll see.  It’s kind of like a kibbutz without the cholera,” Jules grinned, pausing on the porch to lay a hand on Ethan’s bicep.  “I’ll give you the grand tour.  Can I get you something to wet your whistle before we get started?  Maybe a soak in the hot tub to wash off the dust of the road?”

“No, thank you.”  He carefully extracted himself from her grasp to pull the screen door open for them, standing to the side for them to pass through first.  Jules smiled in delight over the display of manners, sailing over the threshold. 

“I’ll have a Diet Coke,” Cady replied, not that she was the one in her mother’s sights, but the request was enough to shake her fixation on Ethan. 

“Blecch, no, we don’t have any of that poison here, baby.  You should know better than that.  I can fix you up with some iced tea.  How’d that be?”

“Sure, that’s fine.  Ethan loves tea, don’t you?”  Cady traded a private smile with him and he wrapped his arm around her waist before Jules could zero in on him again.

“You definitely know what I like,” he whispered, just for her. 

The front entry opened into a huge eat in kitchen, with a fireplace large enough to sit in, the deep recess above it made for baking bread before ovens were invented.  The counters were crammed with canning jars covering every inch of space.

Jules scooped up two mugs from the dish drainer and retrieved a pitcher from the ancient fridge out in the hallway, filling their glasses before handing them over.  “I hope you like it sweet.”

Cady didn’t mind, but she knew it wasn’t Ethan’s favorite.  Still, he took a polite swallow, with no sign of distaste leaking through whatsoever.  “Thank you, ma’am… Jules,” he corrected. 

“There’s more where that came from,” Jules winked broadly, leading them through the warren of rooms.  The place was bigger than Cady remembered, she must’ve added on at some point.  The bathroom they passed for sure hadn’t been there before, nor the screened in porch. 

“Sorry, you caught us in a bit of a mess.  It’s always busy the day before market,” Jules explained.

“I saw the crops out there.  Do you guys sell vegetables and stuff?” Cady wondered aloud.

“Among other things,” she smiled, leading them to the back porch where two women worked, washing and sorting eggs.  “Girls, this is my daughter, Cady, and her Ethan.  This is Graciela and Ngoc.” 

Graciela barely looked up from her work, too shy to meet their eyes.  Sixteen or seventeen years old at the most, she wore a pair of shapeless overalls, her long, black hair plaited into thick braids that hung over her shoulders.  The girl smiled more at the floor than them directly, as though she was afraid of her own shadow.