19. Connor
Connor
I’ve never ridden on a bus before.
The experience is welcome, although the combined body odors aren’t.
Neither are the people who are taking pictures of me. They’re trying to be covert about it, but I’m aware of my surroundings. How could I not be? People have been trying to kill me since birth, starting with my own mother.
I sit in the front row like a star student who intends to graduate at the top of his class.
“How are you doing, sir?” I ask the elderly driver. He wears the blue shirt the city drivers wear as part of their uniform, paired with beige slacks. The blue hat that matches the shirt casts dark brown eyes into shadow.
“Mr. Crossbow,” he says, “I didn’t think you took public transportation.”
“My first time, actually.”
“I’m honored,” he deadpans, his tone telling me he’s clearly not.
“I need to take the line 66 bus that goes toward the border. Am I on the right track?”
He nods. “If you get off by the docks, which is seven stops from now, you’ll catch 66 before it leaves for the day.”
Our public transport is excellent when you judge it by how it can get you around the city, or the whole country, for that matter.
But if you weren’t born and raised here and you don’t know how it works, it’s a nightmare.
Anyone trying to find their way around Selnoa via public transport will probably get lost.
The natives like it that way. They don’t want the tourists on buses or expats in the city, so they make it harder to get around.
The records of the bus lines are outdated, and the buses are over forty years old, with no air-conditioning.
Mind you, we’re on the Mediterranean, where the summers clock in at over forty degrees Celsius.
Selnoa thrives in this controlled chaos. I’d like to standardize the bus lines. Maybe the mayor can do something about it.
The bus makes its stops, and little by little, the previously relatively empty space fills up with more passengers. They recognize me and sit as far from me as possible. Even the elderly, who should sit up front, won’t take the vacant space next to me.
People act like I have the plague. The guns I carry openly don’t help either. It’s for the best.
The bus makes its seventh stop, and the driver turns toward me. “This is your stop.”
I thank him and exit just as bus 66 pulls up.
I get in and ride it out of the city, then get off.
I’m not going in the direction of the border.
That’s a diversion in case someone comes looking for me or is tailing me.
I doubt anyone is right now, but my brother will look for me.
When I’m ready to be found, I’ll let him find me.
From my backpack, I take out my black windbreaker jacket and sling it on. I put on a cap to hide my face. With the shades on and a hat, I won’t be recognized as I switch buses.
Besides, I’ve got access to the cameras in the city, but there’re none out here.
I catch another bus and get comfortable in the back.
It’s a long ride to the other side of the coast.
It’s twilight when I get off the bus in a small, cozy town of about twenty-seven thousand people. I walk the short distance between the bus stop and the city center. A group of boys running with ice cream cones in their hands nearly knocks me over.
A woman rushes after them, telling them to slow down. She curses under her breath, then sits down at the table with two other women. They’re having their evening cappuccinos. The outdoor tables of the street cafés spill onto sidewalks that are full of people of all ages socializing this evening.
Yet, it’s less noisy than the big city.
I walk through the lively square. Lively with people, but not noisy with buses or honking cars. Older men gather around a table where two men are playing backgammon. There are three more tables like it. Families walk their dogs. A young couple hold hands as they eat leftover movie popcorn.
Straight ahead after I cross the square, I come upon a church as well as a hotel a little farther up on the left. I head toward the church. The hill behind it is steeper than I expected, and I’m breathing a little heavier as I search for the address I paid seventeen million pounds for.
866 Lover’s Lane
A bunch of dreamers founded this coastal town.
It’s not like Couldermouth, the coastal town I grew up in.
You won’t find a lover’s lane in Couldermouth.
You’ll find a Deranged Anchor pirate bar.
If a stranger walked down a residential street in Couldermouth like I’m doing here, the people would dial my uncle Endo and report a stranger.
He’s the authority there. Law and order.
I strolled down the streets here, and they barely even looked at me.
Don’t get me wrong, we have tourists in Couldermouth, but they stay in their designated areas. They don’t venture into residential neighborhoods. Not the middle-class ones, that’s for sure.
Oh, hey, here’s 866 Lover’s Lane.
A two-story white home with green trim and a green door. Two border collies lounge on the porch, one with a damaged ear, as if someone had bitten it. It’s an old wound. We all have those.
Mindful of the animals, I test them by slowly opening the gate.
When neither dog so much as lifts its head from the ground, I walk up to the door and take off my glasses. I, push back my hat so they can see my face through the peephole. I don’t care if they recognize me. These folk will die if they resist. If they cooperate, they will live.
I want them to cooperate. Be like their useless dogs. Not a care in the world. Zero guarding skills.
A middle-aged man wearing dark jeans and a checkered shirt opens the door. Pastel-green eyes widen and stare at the barrel of my gun.
“Evening, Mr. Richardson,” I say, chipper as fuck because those pastel-green eyes tell me I successfully broke the international witness protection tracking system. Once I dug in there, I paid seventeen million to one of their moles, who gave me Ekatia’s, actually Renne’s, address.
The man lifts his hands. “Take whatever you want.”
“Thanks. I will.” I step into the house.
At first, the man refuses to move, so our bodies touch, and his protruding belly slides against my middle.
“You don’t want to do this with me,” I tell him.
“I do because my wife is in the house.”
This is a good husband. Instantly, I respect him. “If you cooperate, you will both live.”
“Don’t hurt my wife.”
“My dad wouldn’t have said that. Right off the bat, you’ve scored points. Let’s keep up the score. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll let you both live.”
“Roy, who’s at the door?” a woman asks from somewhere inside the house. She’s not in the living room or the kitchen, which I can see from here. She must be in the back and not upstairs, where the bedrooms are. Where Renne’s room is.
“Who are you?” the man asks.
A woman in her fifties with gray and brown hair, carrying a laundry basket, stops at the end of the hallway when she sees us. She drops the basket and lifts her hands. “Don’t hurt him. Take whatever you want.”
Now I’m getting offended. “Do I look like I need to rob random couples for a living?” I lift my gun, showing off the golden handle.
“This is a custom-made piece that costs more than your house.” I pull out the other gun, and she gasps.
“I own two of them. Guys, please, use your heads and sit your asses down over in the kitchen. Let’s talk. ”
The man walks to the wooden kitchen table, and the woman follows him. “What’s this about?”
The couple sit down.
I sniff. “What are you baking?”
“Banana bread.”
“Huh. Coincidence. My sister-in-law, well, soon-to-be sister-in-law, baked us banana bread the other day. Your granddaughter loved it.” I sit across from them.
“You must have the wrong house. We don’t have a granddaughter.”
“I think you know you do.”
Their expressions change from fear for their lives to stern determination. The tightening of the jaw and the hard gaze give me whiplash. They’ll protect Renne with their lives. I might have to shoot them after all. How unfortunate that would be.
I need to try harder. I tuck the guns into the holsters, place my palms flat on the table, and splay my fingers.
“We know nothing about our daughter or where she is, and even if we did,” the father says while he takes his wife’s hand, which is shaking, “we wouldn’t tell you. Do your worst.”
“You can’t handle my worst.”
“What Roy means,” the wife says, “is that we don’t know where Renne is.”
“Oh, but I do.”
Blood drains from their cheeks. “We don’t know anything about the case the police are building. We’re kept in the dark for her and our safety.”
“I know all that too.”
“Then…” The man starts, then swallows hard. “What do you want from us?”
Renne takes after her dad more than her mom.
“I want to know if you would like to be reunited with her? I want to know if you’re the kind of parents who want to be part of your kid’s life, but can’t because some cop decided she would be the witness to a crime they’re never going to be able to pin on the monster who did it.
And I want to know if you two are idiots like the rest of the people who hid Renne, thinking they could protect her from monsters. Are you?”
“We…we think the police will do their job and justice will prevail.”
“That’s not my question.” I slam my palm on the table. “Do you think the police can protect her from the monster on the yacht?”
Dad swallows.
Mom looks away. “We don’t know.”