The Alignment

THE ALIGNMENT

Copyright © 2013 Kay Camden

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted without written permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real people, places, or events is coincidental.

Editing by Debra Argosy

Photography by Keith Lee Studios

www.keithleestudios.com

Cover art and formatting by
www.damonza.com

ISBN-10: 0991004418 

ISBN-13: 978-0-9910044-1-6 

For more information about Kay Camden go to
www.kaycamden.com

THE ALIGNMENT

Book One

Kay Camden

Chapter 1

Liv

I
stand on the
shoulder of Montana’s U.S. Route 2, staring at my flat tire. Having a blowout in the last fifty miles of a fourteen-hundred-mile drive hints of a bad omen, but I’m thankful for the distraction. Another tractor-trailer roars by, shifting into the empty oncoming lane so it doesn’t pick me up like one of the scrubby plants embedded in my grille. The big trucks thunder past me, but every car and pick-up has stopped since I pulled over.

“The tow truck’s on its way,” I’ve hollered into twenty lowered windows, mentally recording each driver’s physical description and license plate in case there’s a serial killer among them—although those details would only be useful if I escaped. Unlikely out here. Any sicko could drag me off the road and dump my body in the woods. No one would report me missing. My friends in Chicago don’t expect to hear from me again. They all know what happened. Why I’m here.

I open the trunk to free my spare, trapped under the tightly-packed jumble of my belongings. Like luggage unloaded by airport security, it will never go back the same way again, and there’s not an inch in the crammed interior for overflow. I could postpone the task longer, but that deflated tire wasn’t doing much for my entertainment.

I don’t notice until it’s already on me—a black motorcycle headed in the opposite direction, its engine winding down like an angry wasp. Eye contact would suggest I need his help, but I’m staring before I can stop myself. The rider remains curled against the bike as the shiny black helmet tilts toward me. No way to know what he looks like behind the tinted visor. The police sketch artist would have to draw him with a glossy black bulbous head and only one enormous insect eye. A lot of help that would be. He shifts down a gear, then another. In that fraction of a second, his scrutiny becomes too prolonged for comfort. A glint from the sun blinks at me—a visible nudge to force my attention away from him, back to the boxes and bags. I need to get to town. Somewhere with witnesses.

He revs the engine and blasts by me. My stomach invades my throat. I stumble away from the trunk, clinging to the bumper with one hand and bracing myself on the ground with the other. Losing my lunch on the side of a Montana highway would make this delay extra special. And that bad omen harder to ignore. Somebody needs to tell that bad omen my life can’t get any worse.

“The tow truck’s on its way,” I say to the departing motorcyclist. I cough. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Guess I wasn’t his type.

The wave of nausea passes as quickly as it came on, and I resume my unloading, pleased I get to keep my lunch.
Dwell on your positive moments
, my counselor had said. Not throwing up definitely falls into this category.
Positive moments reap new positive moments
. Not getting murdered by a tow truck driver on a road curling around mounded earth and evergreen forest is also a positive moment. Let’s hope it comes true.

The tow truck arrives in the motorcycle’s wake and makes a U-turn to park behind me. I squint at the windshield, trying to make out human features behind a pane of glass that reflects blue sky and the green bristly side of the mountain. The driver climbs out of the truck. I could easily outrun him. I could also curl up and take a nap on his belly.

“Joe’s Towing,” he calls.

A shaggy-haired kid jumps from the passenger side. No way could I outrun him. He looks to be over eighteen, so at least he’ll be tried as an adult. They approach. The driver writes on his clipboard. “I’m Joe. You need a tow or got a spare?”

“I have a spare. Just need to dig it out.”

He takes my information while the kid jacks up my car. My old name rolls right off my tongue. “I’m sorry. It’s Liv Gilchrist,” I correct.

His pen pauses on the paper longer than it needs to. I return to my trunk. The more I unload, the more there is to unload. Everything smells like the old wood of my abandoned house.

He whistles under his breath. “You coming or going?”

“Coming.”

“To Casper?”

“No, to Black River.”

He takes the box out of my arms and sets it on the stack beside us. “Well then I’ll give you an early welcome. Got family there?”

I duck into the trunk, shaking my head.

“You plan to stay?”

I hand him another box. “We’ll see.”

I pay Joe cash as the kid lowers my car back to the pavement. “Go easy on that spare,” he says. I watch them drive away to stall my repacking of the trunk, now even more impossible with the addition of a full-size wheel. I could just drive away from the whole stack, watch it disappear in the rear view mirror like I watched the Chicago skyline a few days ago.

Then I see the box I couldn’t label, the layers of packing tape hugging it, so thick at the seam it tilts the box at an unnatural angle. I can’t leave that behind.

I shove the box all the way to the back of the trunk and bury it under the four trash bags packed with clothes jerked off hangers and scooped out of drawers. I should have paid attention. If I rip these bags open to find cocktail dresses and nightgowns instead of jeans and T-shirts, I’ll be living in my scrubs. The trash bag of scrubs goes in next, white, so I know which one it is—a convenient result from unloading the contents of the clothes dryer straight into a bag yanked from the pantry. I’d already been living in scrubs.

Work, dance, bed. Three repeating tasks. A simple routine to cling to so I wouldn’t fall apart. Now, a new goal. A new life.

When I squash the final bag in and slam the lid, I almost expect applause. I take my seat at the wheel. I’m really doing this. I pull onto the road. My old name repeats in my head. The driver’s pen, pausing on paper. An eternity before it moves again. My heart awakens in the way I don’t want it to, thudding and hot, reminding me of questions I don’t want to face. I’m supposed to be running away. My past wasn’t allowed to tag along. Has he started looking for me?

Tires throw gravel, and I straighten up to jerk the wheel just in time. I need to stop thinking about him. It brings everything else with it.

My finger finds the button for the window and the glass lowers, breaking the calm with a blast of wind that tosses my hair around my shoulders. Out of nowhere, a motorcycle blows past me in a blur of noise that claws up my backbone. As the high-pitched whine of the engine subsides with the growing distance between us, a chill rushes along my skin from scalp to toes. I sure didn’t see him coming. Not that I had much time. He must be doubling the speed limit. Black sport bike carrying a man with a black helmet and jacket. It’s the same guy. I watch him round the next curve and realize I need to take a break. I should be coming up on that town soon, whatever its name is.

The gas station is a little shabby. No, minimalist. I’m trying to work on my optimism. I take the pump closest to the entrance and turn off my car. When I look up, there it is again, stationary this time and missing its rider. The dust on the bike’s tires is the only part of its anatomy not shiny black. I lean across the passenger seat to read the letters scrawled on the side.
Ninja
. But why remember details? It looks like I’m the one following him. And he doesn’t even have a trunk for my corpse.

As soon as I open my door and step out, my knees plunge into gravel, followed closely by my palms. A metallic flavor washes from my throat into my mouth. Now I
am
going to be sick. The explosion of the bike’s engine growling to life snaps my head up just in time to see gravel fly as it rockets away. Knees attached to boots appear in the dust cloud, and I am pulled upward.

“You okay, ma’am?”

My head swims for a few seconds until my eyes focus, and I find myself clutching a man’s flannel-covered arm. I clear my throat. “I think so. It just passed. I’ve been driving too long I guess.” And apparently have a new allergy to motorcycles.

“Come inside and sit down. I don’t need no one passin’ out in my lot.”

The old man offers me an orange plastic chair and a bottle of water and goes back to his crossword puzzle. There is something to be said for the people in these small towns. They have a graceful way of showing their humanity that leaves you feeling like you owe them nothing, because they know they can expect the same of you. Out here, there are fewer distractions to clutter the mind, there is more focus. It’s stripped down and basic. Simple. And exactly what I don’t need. Peace and quiet seemed like a cure but I’ve overlooked one crucial detail. I can’t be left alone with my thoughts.

I finish the water in a long gulp, try my legs again, and settle on stable ground. I push the chair back into its spot against the wall. The old man looks up, chewing on a plastic straw.

“Fully recovered?” He smiles, and his eyes crinkle.

“Fully recovered.” I smile back. It’s such a foreign sensation to me now, but for once, it feels natural.

“Jimmy pumped your gas for you, ma’am. Hope you wanted it full. It’s on me if you didn’t.”

I pay, but he won’t take money for the bottle of water. The intensity of the sky hits me when I step outside, and I notice it’s not so much the brightness of the sun, but the amount, the spread of it. Its warmth touches my skin through my clothes. The cool breeze blows into the ripped knees of my jeans. Someone once told me these jeans make me look like a teenager. I should’ve gotten rid of them. All they do is remind me of someone I’m trying to forget.

Back on the road, I feel like a night has passed and the day is new. My destination is close enough for unexpected hope to replace the nausea I felt earlier. It was either anxiety, or some abrupt sickness that starts a blender in my stomach just to turn it right off again like the power cut out.

Downtown Black River pops up on both sides of me like a Hollywood set. The classic wall of joined buildings common in old Westerns updated with twenty-first century touches—new windows, modern signs, an ATM. I pass the address so I go around the block. This town can’t be more than a few stoplights wide. Its flatness seems a human invention, but the town’s founders probably chose this land for that natural feature. I wonder why I chose it. It seemed obvious at the time, like a gut feeling I no longer have. I spot the real estate sign on my second drive-through. Two women holding takeout coffees chat on the sidewalk as I slip my Civic into a row of pick-ups and SUVs angle-parked along the curb.

Nancy, my real estate agent, is on the phone when I enter her office, so I busy myself with an Avon catalog. She’s a real estate agent by day, Avon lady by night. Or maybe vice versa. It probably depends on the day. Or night. Her energy and positivity are not human. The pages waft perfume samples at me, and I close my eyes and picture a hot bath. There’s something about long drives that makes me feel so grimy and worn out.

Nancy slams the phone down and spins her chair around, making a dramatic gasp. “Liv, you made it!” Her turquoise earrings swing with the momentum of the spin.

“Yes. I’m committed. Were you worried?”

“Not in this lifetime.” She reaches into her desk, pulls out a key, and shakes it in the air next to her spirited smile. “How about you follow me?” I know her good mood is going to be contagious, even with my powerful immunity.

Nancy leads me through a small town more active than I would expect for the middle of Montana. I navigate the Civic around logging trucks, women with strollers, and UPS making a delivery. My Chicago real estate agent hooked me up with Nancy because she said this town was peaceful and remote, and “has everything you’ll ever need and nothing you don’t.” A little past the railroad tracks that seem to mark the edge of the downtown, we go over a narrow bridge above the Black River, the town’s namesake.

The river is narrow enough for an untrained swimmer like me to swim safely across, but wide enough for the fear of some flesh-eating creature to keep me on shore. Its water dances with reflection, but below the refracted light is a darkness that confirms its bottom consists of slate or some dark rock. After five double thumps from my tires on the bridge, we’re on the other side.

From the main road, Nancy turns onto a narrow road cutting through a thick forest, and I feel the walls close in, like each tree is reaching its branches toward us to have a taste. It’s a striking change from the openness of the interstate. Our elevation is increasing. The clouds seem closer, and the rearview mirror shows the landmarks of our path in miniature form, far below us. Pavement turns to gravel, and I follow Nancy’s SUV up the incline toward the house.

I park beside her and reach for the door handle, but the tops of two pointy ears and a furry tail have appeared between our cars. She gets out, and motions me out of my car.

“I’m told the dog comes with the house,” she says.

“Dog?” The animal looks too wild to be a dog. I’d have guessed it was a coyote.

“He’s friendly. The sellers told me their father befriended him.” She offers her hand to him. “He still sticks around, but he’s maintenance-free. No one comes by here but me, and he won’t eat the kibble I bring. You probably won’t need to feed him.”

He doesn’t look too friendly to me, but I’m sure the same could be said about me. He glares at me before slinking off to sniff my car.

Nancy chuckles. “Well, give him a little time to warm up to you. But I have been told he doesn’t get along with other dogs.”

I turn to look at the house. It’s more enchanting than the pictures from the listing which showed a rustic log cabin surrounded by pine trees. The large front porch, complete with two rocking chairs, is lined with hanging baskets full of late-summer flowers. White drapes billow outward from the windows with the breeze as if they are waving to me.

“I opened all the windows this morning to freshen it up. I know the contract says everything in the house is yours, but the seller said he’ll haul away anything you don’t need.”

“That’s very nice of him.” My hand slips into my pocket to finger the folded paper that should still be on my kitchen counter in Chicago. I was wrong to take it. Leaving it would have been the mature thing to do. But who would blame me?