CHAPTER FOURTEEN

By 7:00 the next morning, Thomas pulled his Shovelhead onto I5 with a comforting roar and headed toward Eugene. His bike rumbled through the light traffic. Fast moving dark shapes and bright lights spread out on both sides of the interstate. Pre-dawn gray blotted out the stars. City lights flared to the west and beyond a dark smoky ridge of clouds lay where the storm brewed. They didn’t expect rain until later in the afternoon. It would be a good ride.

He couldn’t be sure how the talk with Haddie would go. She was the first in a very long time; it had never gone well before. He just had to put his apprehension aside and let her absorb what she could.

The chill of the night air bit into his face and around his collar. He swore he smelled rain on the wind, but it was too far away. When the highway’s curve came he could easily make out the shadows of the mountains against gray sky. They would ride into the valley today and some of the sights would be magnificent, despite all the development along the interstate. The interstate had been there for decades now, and people sprang up around any road.

He did hope Haddie was doing well in her studies. He’d have to ask. He would have preferred she’d gotten into something more creative. He saw an attorney as more destructive than creative, but she loved the idea, had since she was in her teens. He could remember the day; they’d been working on a three-wheeler that had been swiped in an accident, a red, 1958 Harley-Davidson Servi-Car.

“I’m going to be an attorney, like Perry Mason.” She’d had long black hair like her mother’s even at sixteen. Back then, she’d worn it braided and tucked inside a blue mechanic’s shirt that she insisted he buy for her, red embroidered name and all. “I could make the insurance company pay for the work on an accident like this.”

“Perry Mason, who’s that?” He’d heard the name somewhere. They’d been packing bearings on the new axle.

Haddie stopped, raised her eyebrows, and opened her arms up in exaggeration. “Who’s that? Just one of the best attorneys. He figures out what the criminals are really doing and gets them to admit to it, tricks them. They’re all so stupid.”

“And you want to do that?” He paused looking up at her. “Why?”

She snorted. “Because they’re smart, and they help people.”

“We’re smart, and we’re helping people.” He pointed to the bike.”

Haddie tilted her head and grimaced. “Not like that, really help. Like when people have big problems.”

He hadn’t pushed. He’d hoped it had been a phase. The television show had been. The career hadn’t.

Turning the corner, his lights lit up the back of an SUV trolling down her road, likely a driver looking to pick up someone. They rolled past Haddie’s parking spot and then sped up when he came in behind them. There was no need. He could have waited. He pulled in behind her Fat Boy, she kept it in good shape, and killed his engine.

7:22. Technically before sunrise. He pulled off his helmet and rubbed his head. He didn’t need to feel so nervous. Haddie would have a rough time with it. Devil take me, I have a difficult time with it. Still, they needed to move forward. He’d committed to this conversation when he answered her last spring, a decision he hadn’t made lightly.

The air under her carport had a wonderful scent of grease and fumes from his cooling engine, crisp morning dew air, and the mulched gardens from around the buildings. Solid boots sounded on the stairs and Thomas turned to watch the end of the carport.

Haddie wore a tan leather jacket zipped against the cold with a red scarf wrapped around her neck and tucked under the collar. Over one shoulder she had a light brown business satchel and a lunch cooler with a purple dragon on it. In her hand she had a thermos and helmet. She looked like her mother with light brown skin, large almond eyes, and a long thin nose. A nervous smile lifted the edge of her lips on the right side.

“I imagined you’d be early.” She crouched by her saddle bags and put down the thermos.

He shrugged. “Old habits.” He’d been in plenty of armies, they all had you hurry up and wait.

She gave him an odd look and began storing her satchel and cooler bag. The dragon looked too round and cheerful, but she’d always enjoyed modern fantasy stories. Silently, he rubbed his hair flat and slid on his helmet. The sun would take a while to break over the mountains, and the first hour of the ride would be chilly. He waited until she fired up her Fat Boy into a gentle purr before he brought his baby up and it echoed across the buildings. Most of her neighbors would not appreciate their early morning start.

After pulling out onto the street, Thomas motioned for her to lead. She would likely stop at the midway point, and then they’d have to talk. The remainder of the ride would give her some time to digest whatever they’d gotten through. He didn’t take I5 up to Portland, so he couldn’t know how thick the traffic got, but doubted it would be pleasant. There were so many people nowadays. Haddie led the way through apartments silhouetted against gray sky.

When they passed over the Santiam River, the sun had taken some of the chill off his face. She pulled off earlier than he expected into the rest area. To the west, the clouds held a steady, dark line merging into the mountains. Dreading the conversation, his heartbeat quickened as they rolled by grass yellowing under the cooling season. Haddie led them past a small, white Ford truck with black toolboxes and pulled into a spot facing a pair of oaks and a powder blue picnic table. The next section of the lot had a camper and a red SUV with a young woman walking her dog on the grass.

He turned off the Shovelhead and took a deep breath before unstrapping his helmet. The sun felt good. Haddie had already jumped off and balanced her helmet on her seat. Aching joints didn’t let him move as fast unless he needed to. The cold stiffened his fingers. The rest area smelled fresh with nearby water and grass, the city and interstate fumes left behind. A tinted Durango moved behind him toward the next section of parking, leaving them nearly alone.

He followed her to the bright picnic table and took up the bench opposite her. “One question at a time.”

Face grim, she jumped in. “How old are you?” She spat out the question and pinned him with a look.

He spread both hands out on the powder blue table, feeling the cold surface under exposed fingertips. “Six hundred and twenty-three years old.” The last time he’d told his age, he’d been less than three hundred. Tove had left him, taking their boys.

Haddie raised her eyebrows and her mouth opened slightly. The dull roar of the interstate intruded into their silence. A west wind pushed at her hair that had been flattened from being under her helmet. She snapped her mouth closed and swallowed. “That’s impossible.”

The last time, Tove first accused him of lying. This might be an improvement. “We’ll get nowhere if you say that word. Nothing that has happened to me is possible.”

“Then how about — insane?” She rubbed her face and then came back to pinch her nose. “Six hundred years? You must realize how crazy that sounds?”

Try living it. He rubbed his hair down and felt the tie at his braid. “Nonetheless, it is my reality. I don’t expect you to immediately believe it.”

“Immediately, how about ever?” Shifting on the bench and looking to each side of them, she acted caged, like an animal that needed to flee. Her eyes had widened and the muscles around her jaw were tight.

He could let her dismiss him as crazy. In time, she’d see he wasn’t lying. Tove had been with him for thirty years before she insisted on the truth. He’d loved her enough to make the mistake of not leaving her, and then made it worse by telling her the truth. She’d branded him a demon. Maybe. Haddie had been there when her mother died, but at four years old she didn’t seem to remember it.

“There’s three pictures of me on the internet. From the Great War. I served France.” They’d called him a Swede, even though Norway had been independent for a number of years before that. “I’ll email you the links.”

Haddie stared and her face grew slack — emotionless. At least, she hadn’t accused him of being the devil. He’d always worried that she remembered the day her mother had died. She blinked and scurried up off her bench. After two quick steps, she strolled toward the river and left him sitting at the picnic table. He waited while she wandered.

The woman walking the dog left, and the Durango sat quietly beside the camper in the next lot. Thomas didn’t turn to look at the white truck behind him. He just needed to wait. Haddie might have more questions, or be overwhelmed and let it be for now. He couldn’t imagine how the news would affect her. The more he thought he understood people, the more they surprised him.

She stood for a long time at the far edge of the fading grass, just staring south. The white truck behind him started up and left.

When she started back toward the table, he felt his pulse rise. But she looked composed, pulling her hair out to smooth it.

She tied it back up as she stopped by their table. Her mother had had the same habit. “Send me the links.”

Haddie’s tone sounded more like she’d agreed to review a legal document than determine his sanity. Well at least she wasn’t judging the dog by its hairs. She’d given him a chance to explain, though he hadn’t even gotten to how he’d been born in 1985. That, he expected, would be the harder conversation.

Ice in his stomach, he stood up. “Thank you. When we get back.” He wanted to hug her, let her feel that everything would be okay, but that would have to wait.

She nodded and made for her Fat Boy.

It had gone better than he’d expected. Then again, she might just think him insane and never talk to him again. He took a deep breath and pushed slow joints into keeping up with her.

They reached Portland with the sun warming the day and pulled off I5 before they reached downtown. They cut through a residential district of old homes and older trees. The asphalt had been recently patched with dark lines that filled cracks from the previous winter. The fumes of the city held the air despite all the green. A turn down another suburban street led them under the interstate, and Haddie took them right onto a thoroughfare with businesses down the sides and a suicide turn lane in the middle.

She moved to the middle lane at a red-topped lighthouse and then crept forward slowly, as if searching. Hesitantly, she pulled down a side street to the left and then into the small parking lot on the corner where a gray house, serving as offices, sat empty. A concrete-walled bar or lounge sat across the side street. He killed the Shovelhead and the city noise around him sprang up, mainly from the busy street they’d just left.

“Is this it?” he asked.

Haddie’s expression said it wasn’t what she’d expected. “No. Not at all. I should have pulled up streetview before driving us out here. I’m looking for 8425 Southwest Barbur Boulevard. Which would be between that building,” she said pointing toward the concrete bunker bar, “and the storage place.” She didn’t look him directly in the eye.

The door to the gray office had ‘8405’ written on it. Removing a glove, she pulled out her phone and began searching.

Thomas slid off his bike and began unstrapping his helmet. He wandered across the front of the gray building. The sparse brush on the right corner hadn’t been trimmed or mulched in a while. In the drive on the side of the house, fall leaves had spilled into yellow piles from the neighbor’s silver maple across the hedge.

“Damn.” Haddie shoved her phone in her jacket pocket and put back on her glove. She looked first to the bar, and then stepped toward the sidewalk. “I’m going to ask the storage place next door, but I think it’s a false address. I might have wasted your time.”

Thomas smiled as he followed. Hardly a waste. They’d gotten a little further and she hadn’t locked him out completely. Today had been a good day. A ride, and a little uncomfortable conversation. He’d had worse days.

She strode down the sidewalk toward the lighthouse, forcing him to follow. Her posture and speed told him she was pissed. Haddie didn’t like wasting her time.

Inside the office, a middle-aged, balding man glanced up from his monitor over round glasses. “Welcome. How can I help you today?” His tone sounded anything but helpful.

Haddie stepped up to the counter, looming enough that the man visibly craned his neck to look at her. “Hopefully, you can help me. I’m looking for Sirota Imports at 8425 Southwest Barbur Boulevard.”

The man swallowed and tapped his keyboard with one quick stroke. “I — I’ve never heard of any such place. You must have the wrong information.” He spoke fast and stood to check on keys and papers on the counter behind him. His back turned, he shook his head. “Sorry I can’t help you.”

Haddie rested her hands on the front counter. “The business is owned by a Mark Colman.”

Still checking the keys and shifting papers, the man glanced back after a moment. With Haddie looming, he quickly returned to the rear counter. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Haddie stood a moment, and then raised her hands up in an expression of frustration.

Thomas waited. The man, whether he knew anything or not, had no intention of engaging her.

Haddie spun with a frown and muttered as she passed Thomas, “I’ve wasted your time. Sorry.”

He shrugged and they made for the door. Whatever she hunted had her obsessed. He’d seen her like this through her entire childhood. Whenever she got a project, she would do whatever it took to finish it. An asset, if not taken too far.

The door opened with a chime. Haddie didn’t turn around as she called out, “Thank you.”

She acted as though they hadn’t just had the most uncomfortable discussion of their life at the rest area. Haddie could compartmentalize though. Probably make her a good attorney. It could have gone worse. He could let her be for a while, until she returned with more questions.

They’d reached the other building when she spun to face him. “Did he seem weird?”

He stopped. “Most people are.”

“I think he’s hiding something.”

Nodding, he noticed a dark tinted Durango pass them. Black, with no stickers. He turned a little late and watched it head down the thoroughfare.

“What is it?” Haddie asked.

“Nothing. It’s the same kind of SUV that followed us into the rest area.” He turned back to find her frowning.

“I saw a gray Outback, thought it might be following me, but that was a few nights ago,” she said.

He would have to keep an eye out. There had been a gray SUV at her apartment when he’d arrived. “What have you been up to?” What was this Mark Colman business? Sirota Imports?

“I thought it might be the dogfighting ring. I outed them and the police picked up a small gang. But, they’re still in jail.”

Thomas prickled, momentarily considering getting on his bike and chasing down the Durango. He’d taught Haddie to defend herself, forcing Taekwondo practice on her until she took to it on her own. Still, he had a nasty habit of trying to protect others. It had gotten him into some tight places. This was different though. Haddie was his flesh and blood.

“Be careful,” he said. “How is Mark Colman related to the dogfighting gang?”

Twisting her hair into a black knot around her fist, Haddie started back toward their bikes. “He’s not. It’s intern work.”

He felt his jaw tighten. No matter how independent he wanted her to be, he’d be looking up both this Mark Colman and news of dogfighting rings in Eugene.