Finding West (2 page)

“So where are you from?” I asked.

He looked around again, shifting from one foot to the other. “I’ll answer all of your questions, I promise. But first I need
a restroom.”

I jabbed my thumb in the direction of the bathroom. “It’s the first door down that way.”

The man took one step and Josie growled in warning.

“Jos
ie,” I said, grabbing her by the collar. “Let’s let the strange man pee first. He’ll taste like piss if you bite him now.”

I couldn’t
be sure but I thought I saw the stranger’s mouth twitch under that beard before he edged out of the room. The sound of his peeing was loud in the small house, affording me a moment of piercing clarity: there was a strange man in my home. I had made a point of avoiding people—men most of all—for the last seven years, but in one moment of insanity, I had willingly brought one back to my home, to my safe haven.

It was very possible that a
ll the years of isolation had finally made me crazy.

I stood up, straightened my clothes, and tucked the gun into my waistband. I pulled my hair back into a haphazard ponytail and took inventory: all of my major appliance
s, including my laptop, were accounted for. Nothing else was really worth stealing.

I watched as he came ambling back a minute later
and took note of his size. He was tall, a few inches over six feet if I had to guess, and had broad shoulders. I’d never seen someone so large before, someone so brawny; if you Googled the word “masculine,” you’d find a picture of him. Still, his strapping appearance was undermined by the dumfounded expression on his face.

I held onto Josie’s collar just in case
he was only playing dumb. “You okay?” I asked without meaning to. I mean, the guy looked so shocked.

He shook his head, touching his thick, dar
k beard. “No, I’m not,” he said, a deep crease on his forehead. “I… I don’t remember a damn thing.”

“What?” I asked, very nearly laughing
. “You don’t remember
anything
?”

“I tho
ught I was just suffering from hangover-induced forgetfulness. But I just looked in the mirror,” he said, pointing to the bathroom’s direction. “And the face looking back is not one I recognize.”

My eyes narrowed. “Let me get this straight: you’re saying y
ou don’t recognize your face? As in you have amnesia?”

He nodded
, touching the bandage on his forehead.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

“Do I look like the kind of guy who jokes around about things like this?”

I laughed in disbelief. It was just my luck to be saddled with a stranger who didn’t ev
en know his own face. Served me right for getting involved in other people’s business. I really should have just kept to myself like I always do. “I hope you’re joking.”

His chest was rising and falling rapidly. “Can I sit down please?”

I motioned to the tattered La-Z-Boy. “Go ahead.”

“Where did you say you found me?”
he asked, resting his elbows on his thighs.

“Wandering down Sommers Lane.”

“What town are we in?”

“Ayashe.” When he didn’t show any recognition, I added, “
Alaska.”

“
Alaska?” he breathed.

“
Yep. The state, not the dessert.” When he didn’t look at all amused, I moved on. “Anyway, you fell into a ditch and knocked yourself out. I pulled you out of there and brought you here.”

“By yourself?”

My spine straightened. “I’m stronger than I look.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He rested his
head in his hands and looked at the floor between his feet. “None of this makes sense.”

I stood up then, tired of playing good little hostess. “Well, let’s ge
t you to the police station. I’m sure they can figure out what to do with you.”

The man—whose age I couldn’t really tell under all
that facial hair—looked up at me and nodded. For the first time since I met him, he finally looked like he knew what was going on. Did I believe he had amnesia? Not entirely. But I sensed something familiar in him, something I couldn’t quite put a finger on.

I went to the hall closet and pulled out my snow boots and winter coat. I grabbed an extra coat and threw it at him. He wa
s only wearing a long-sleeved tee shirt; he was going to be too cold to be coherent. “Here. You’ll freeze your taint.”

There was that little shadow of a smile again. “Your husband’
s?” he asked, shrugging into it. The sleeves were a little short for him, the jacket taut across his back, but it would have to do.

“No, my father’s.”
I opened the front door to find a thick blanket of snow on the ground.

“Please tell me they’ll plow the roads
?” his deep voice asked behind me. He was standing so close his breath was ruffling my hair.

I took a step
and my leg was swallowed up to knee by the snow. “I seriously doubt it. The only plow in this town is the one attached to the front of Larry Masterson’s truck and last I heard, the truck was getting an engine overhaul.”

“So what’s the plan?”

I took a few more steps, feeling the snow sneaking into the top of my boots. This was not good. “I’m pretty sure my Jeep can make it,” I said, looking dubiously at the square-shaped object under all that snow. The snow had made my all-terrain, bad-ass vehicle look like a marshmallow. With my bare hands, I wiped at the snow on the door to get inside and immediately regretted it. Why wasn’t I wearing gloves?

With my frozen fingers,
I turned the key in the ignition and was relieved to hear the engine turn smoothly. “Get in,” I called to him. Josie stood at the doorstep, unsure of what to do with all the snow. “Stay, girl. I’ll be back soon.”

After closing the door behind him, t
he man waded through the snow. I belatedly wondered if I should have lent him a pair of snow boots as well; he was wearing a pair of black leather boots, but in no way were they waterproof. He climbed into the passenger seat, the lower half of his jeans completely coated in white. He brushed it off. “I’m sorry about the mess,” he said, indicating the pile of snow that now lay at his feet.

“No big deal. It’s just water.”
I put the car in reverse and hit the gas gently. The snow crunched under the tires for a second before the Jeep stopped moving. The wall of snow surrounding us might have something to do with it. “Come on, baby,” I said and hit the gas.

The engine roared and the vehicle jumped backwards but didn’t move more than an inch. I changed gears and went to Drive, stepped on the pedal aga
in. The car jumped forward and out of the snow bank. I turned the steering wheel, narrowly missing the side of my house, and headed towards the road. We were almost at the entrance to my property when the Jeep got stuck in a dip in the ground.

“Fuck,” I said, slamming a hand on the steering wheel.
I’d been meaning to fill that ditch in but had just never got around to it.

“Hold on,” he said and jumped out. A few seconds later, the Jeep lurched forward as he tried to push it out of the embankment.

I stepped on the gas as he pushed, but I only spun my tires. He came around to the front and I hit reverse but no dice. I watched him through the windshield giving it his all and found myself admiring his commitment. He was pushing with such a mighty effort that his face turned red and veins popped in his forehead.

After fifteen minutes
of trying different tactics we finally conceded to Mother Nature. My Jeep was good and stuck. Shivering, we trekked back towards the house, and by the time we got inside, the guy’s pants were soaked nearly to the middle of his thighs. He sat on a kitchen chair and took off his boots, sighing as he pulled off his soggy white socks.

As
he massaged some warmth into his feet, it suddenly dawned on me that he was stuck here. Unless he wanted to walk the mile and a half into town balls-deep in snow, this complete stranger would have to stay at my house until the snow had abated some.

Most surprising of all was that
it didn’t even scare me.
He
didn’t scare me. And I finally understood why: he was completely at a loss. A man wandering around without a clue was about as fearsome as a stray puppy.

I sighed and shook my head all the way to my dad’
s bedroom. Technically my father had never even slept in this room, but I’d set it up with his belongings when I moved from Anchorage, ready for the day he came home.

I walked over to the pine dresser and
pulled out a pair of jeans and thick socks. Before I changed my mind, I also pulled out a flannel shirt. “Here. I’ll throw your dirty clothes in the wash.”

He looked up at me, his grey eyes filled with emotions I couldn’t even begin to understand. “Thank you,” he said barely above a whisper and looked down at the clothes in his grasp.
“I know this can’t be easy for you, having a strange man in your home.”

Here’s something nearly everybody in town knew about me
through personal exposure or otherwise: I’m one stubborn, contrary motherfucker. And I have a potty mouth.

But
for as long as I can remember, I have always enjoyed proving people wrong. Tell me I’m sad? Well, I’ll paste on a smile and laugh in your face. Tell me I can’t possibly replace my tires myself? Done and done.

So for this guy to insinuate that I couldn’t handle
having a strange man around made me all the more determined to prove him wrong. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to think this stranger was harmless, but I never said I was smart either.

I shrugged. “
Not at all.”

“You’re taking this all very well.”

“So are you. Seems to me like you should be the one freaking out, since you lost your mind and all,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Unless, you’re lying.”

“I wish I was
.” He ran a hand through his hair then grimaced as his fingers came away with dirt and grime and old blood.

“
You could use a shower.”

“Yeah, I feel really…”

“Disgustingly gross?” I offered.

“Dirty was the word I was looking for,” he said in such a wry manner that I let out a soft chuckle.
At the very least, he wasn’t some humorless dickhead.

“The towe
ls are in the bathroom, under the sink,” I said and turned away.

2

STRANGER

I am a man without an identity.

A heavy mass of dread weighed
down my legs as I made the short walk from the kitchen to the bathroom. I knew it had to be done, but even the idea of looking at the stranger in the mirror one more time fired fear down my spine.

But I did it. I put down the bundle of clothes on the counter, took a dee
p breath, and looked in the large rectangular mirror. Seeing the face I didn’t recognize wasn’t so bad the second time around, not quite as shocking. I still didn’t recognize the man who stared back, but at least I no longer wanted to throw up at the sight of him.

The bandage on my forehead looked fairly untouched, but I pulled
it off anyway to see the damage underneath. The wound that had allegedly knocked me out was held together by butterfly strips, but it was not so big that it might cause memory loss. At least, I didn’t think so.

I ran a fin
ger along my dirt-stained cheek and pulled my lower eyelids away from my stark grey eyes but felt no spark of recognition.

“Who the hell are you?”
I asked, my breath fogging a spot on the mirror.

M
y dark brown beard was thick: not completely unkempt, but coupled with my wild hair, I looked like a mountain man. It was a wonder the woman outside hadn’t mistaken me for a bear and just left me to die on the side of the road.

Not wanting to keep my host
waiting, I tore off my clothes—finding no wallet or any form of identification in my pockets—and stepped into the tiny glass-walled shower and turned on the water.

The cold
blast of water was a shock, like a thousand little knives stabbing my chest, but it was reassuring in a way. Pain was something I remembered, something I was apparently used to. I looked down at my body, surprised at the definition in my stomach, at the muscles on my legs. Then I saw them, the indented lines on my body consistent with scarring. I saw one on my thigh, then a long one along my side, and suddenly it was like a hunt, as if finding each one could unlock the memories in my head.

Who the hell was I and why did I have so many scars on my body?

It felt good to be clean, to wear dry clothes again even if I was freeballing in some other man’s jeans. Even the reflection in the mirror looked marginally better. I combed my fingers through my hair, brushing it away from my face, and straightened out my eyebrows. It was the best I could do under the circumstance.

When I came out
I was greeted with the most heavenly scent known to man: the mouthwatering aroma of frying meat. I followed my nose and found my host in the kitchen, pouring orange juice into two glasses.

She spun around when my grumbling stomach announced my return. “I guess I’m hungry,”
I said, rubbing my stomach and eyeing the food, hoping she’d made some for me.

She
pointed to a plate on the counter. “Help yourself,” she said, taking her own food to the table.

I followed suit and sat down across the round
table, feeling a little awkward at the normalcy and domesticity of it all. “Thank you for—”

“You can stop thanking me now,” she said in that raspy soft voice of her
s that was always edged with steel, as if she had to constantly prove something. “Anybody would have done the same.”

“No, they wouldn’
t,” I said. I didn’t know how I knew, only that I was certain kindness like hers did not happen every day, that not everybody was hiding a heart of gold under a gruff exterior. “So thank you.”

She flicked a hand in the air and began to eat. I watched her fo
r a few moments, fascinated by the movement of her lips. Her long blond hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and there was no trace of makeup on her pale, heart-shaped face. Still, anyone with eyes could see that she was a blue-eyed beauty hiding underneath a baggy sweatshirt and an attitude.

She put her fork down.
“Would you stop staring at me?” she asked. “I don’t like being looked at like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a piece of meat.”

“I wasn’t even…” I shook my head and stuffed a slice of bacon into my mouth before I could say or do anything else that would offend her.
For the first time it occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one with a hidden past, and based on the stubborn set of her jaw, something had made an obviously beautiful girl hide herself from the world. The possibilities left me cold.

“I just realized I don’t even know your name.”

She glanced up at me. “Kat. And you?” she asked, then quickly added, “right, I forgot.”

I chewed quietly, watching her watch me
.

“How about your age?
Do you have any clue how old you are?”

I scratched at m
y bearded cheek. “I have no idea.”

Her blue eyes studied me for a moment.
She was so fearless. “I’m guessing you’re around mid-thirties.”

“
I don’t feel that old,” I said. “What about you?”

“How old do I look?” She sat back
and raised an eyebrow.

I shook my head. “Hell no. If I tell you what I think, you’ll get all huffy because I’ll inevitably say the wrong number. I might
not know much right now, but I’m aware that age and weight are two things men never discuss with a woman unless he wants to lose a testicle.”

She stood up, he
r chair scraping along the linoleum, and smirked. “I’m twenty-five and one hundred and fifty pounds,” she said, taking her plate to the sink. “And that’s a very antiquated idea you’re running with.”

My eyes followed her movements as my brain tried to make sense of the information. She was tall, slim but not skinny
, and she had a nice curvy behind. “It must be all in your chest and ass,” I mused out loud.

She spun around, her eyes wide, and crossed her arms across her chest. She d
idn’t say anything, I suspected out of shock, but she didn’t have to. Her body language alone was enough to chastise me.

“
I shouldn’t have said that.”

“
Let’s get one thing straight,” she said through stiff lips. “If you want my help, you can’t say shit like that. Ever.”

I
nodded, disturbed that I might be the kind of guy who usually said things like that to women. “Sorry. It just slipped out.”

She looked away.
“That’s your first and only warning, Lenny.”

I frowned. “
Lenny? Did I miss something? Did you see my name somewhere?”

“
No. I just decided you deserved a name.”

“Yeah, but…
Lenny?” I hoped to God my real name wasn’t Lenny.

“Yeah,
Lenny
sounds like the kind of guy who’d talk about a girl’s ass and tits, don’t you think?”

I sighed through my nose.
“I think I’m more of a Dean or Jack.”

“
More like Hershel.”

“Dean?
”

“
Gilbert.”

“Jack?
”

“Herman.” She fought off a grin
. “I can go all night.”

“Fine,” I conceded.
She could win this one for now. She fed me bacon after all. “Greasy Lenny it is.”

Kat made me wash the dishes while she stood on the other side of the counter and watched. She was, I was beginning to understand, hardheaded and a bit of a smartass, traits that I didn’t think I’d like on a person. She was both surly and soft at once, a confounding study in contrasts.

She retrieved her laptop from the bedroom—the fact that she had one surprised me as she
seemed like a low-tech, off-the-grid kind of girl—and set it on the kitchen table. “I’m going to look in the police database for missing persons in Alaska.”

“If I’
m even from Alaska,” I said, drying my hands on a dishtowel.

“This is going to be a long ass day,” she mumbled as I walked around to look over her shoulder.

She searched website after website tirelessly, but every link she clicked on, every new page with missing persons listings, sent me deeper into a dark place. I’d seen more depressing things than I’d ever wanted to.

After an hour and a half, Kat had finally had enough
. “I need a drink,” she said, pushing away from the kitchen table. “I can’t see any more pictures of abducted children.”

“Do you mind if I look?”
I asked, but she grabbed the laptop before I even had a chance to touch it.

“Hold on,” she
said, holding onto the computer with one hand while doing something with the other. Probably clearing the browser history, if I had to guess.

“You have something to hide there, Kat?”
I asked when she finally handed the machine over.

“Don’t we all?”
she asked and made her way to the fridge while I found a police database we hadn’t perused. “You want a beer?”

I meant to say yes but
my entire body was suddenly frozen with fright. Right on the screen was a mug shot of a guy with a thick beard, grey eyes and dark hair, and underneath his picture was the caption:
Murder in the first degree.