Chapter 1
Chris's first thought as he stood in the middle of her living room was that he could love to live like this. It was simple.
At six foot three, and two hundred pounds, Christopher Sparks was nothing but simple. He worked a simple job. He ate simple TV dinners every night by himself, and he wore simple clothes. He was the average, simple, American man. He worked the nine-to-five shift as a cop. He had been a sergeant in the Army only a year after his first deployment in Germany, at the age of twenty-one. He spent his nights there drinking in bars and keeping company that his mother wouldn't have approved of.
Now, he stood in the middle of Catherine Kelly's living room. It was occupied by a simple black sofa, a rocking chair, and a rectangular scratched up coffee table. To the immediate right, a small round table with two chairs served as the dining room. A sink, microwave, and a small counter were the kitchen. Down the hallway a few feet, was one bedroom. That's were Catherine and her two and a half year old daughter were. Catherine was quickly shoving raggedy jeans and baby clothes in bags. Two already sat at the door. Chris wondered how much she would pack.
She bent down on her knees, wrapping a blue and white jacket around the girl, zipping it then kissed her head before scooping her up. She got back to her feet and grabbed the bag, slung it over her shoulder, and walked to the door. Chris took this as the cue that she was ready to go.
Catherine bent and kissed her little sister on her blond covered head. She knew the man thought Megan was her daughter. She wasn't. She was her sister. Myra, their mother, had given birth to her three weeks before she was murder by her husband and the father of her children. She had always wanted the best for her children. Now look at what they had.
Tyler Mathew Carrier was thirty-two years old when he went to prison for murder. He raped, beat, and then stabbed his wife to death. Thirty-two cuts. Tyler Carrier was also a mob boss. He was responsible for over two thousand deaths. Of course, being a mob boss at the top of the chain, he never did get tried for them. The death of his beautiful, twenty-eight year old wife was what brought him down.
Now, Catherine's nightmare had come true. Her worthless piece of shit father had broken out of prison. Now, she had to run. She had promised her baby sister and her own self that she would never let Megan know what really happened that awful January night. Catherine would never let that nightmare come into Megan's life. No matter if she had to drive for the rest of her life. Which is what she was doing now.
Chris stood awkwardly at the door, waiting as she pulled a blanket over the baby's head. Why did they do that? He always saw mothers doing that. Let the kid breathe!
"Are you ready?" He asked, opening the door. Catherine nodded.
Chris led the way to a black Explorer in the gravel driveway beside the house. He opened the back hatch and placed the bags inside. Catherine laid the young girl down on the leather seat, covered her with a flannel blanket he had given her. He got behind the wheel, started the engine and the heater. He waited as Catherine looked around then got in the truck with a sigh.
He had never had a real conversation, but it occurred to Chris what Catherine might have gone through. In the case report, she had been the key witness to her own mother's brutal murder. Her testimony was the only thing that sent her father to prison for the rest of his sorry life. Wait, if she was seventeen at the time, and it had only been two years.....that meant he was driving a nineteen year old across the damn country. Nineteen? And she had a two year old daughter? He thought frantically as he changed stations on the radio.
"I can only imagine how hard this must be for you. With a young daughter and all." He glanced at her and she looked back.
"She's not my daughter." Catherine lowered her voice as she said it. "She's my sister. My mom gave birth to her three weeks before Tyler ki-before what happened."
Chris leaned back in his seat, gripping the wheel tighter. He glanced over at Catherine, seeing him looking at him. He gave her a smile and she tried her damndest to smile back him. It couldn't legally be called a smile though.
"So, you...adopted her?" Catherine nodded, sighing.
"Yeah. I grew up fast. Dropped out of school, got an apartment as far away from that house and neighborhood I could. She knows me as her mother and I won't be the one to ever tell her different."
"But, you're her sister...."
"Do you know what makes a mother? It's not the nine months you carry a baby, or giving birth that makes a mother. The nights you rush to the emergency room because she has a hundred and two fever that won't break, the sleepless nights of rocking her to sleep, and the thousands of diapers you buy make you a mother."
With that, she stared at him. He saw tears in the corners of her eyes. In a blink, they disappeared and he questioned whether they had actually been there. He cleared his throat and picked at the leather on the steering wheel. He tried to calm his nervousness, but he couldn't seem to get a grip on it.
"You have kids? A wife?" Chris shook his head. "Why not? You're what, forty?"
Chris gapped at her opened mouth. Forty? For god's sake, he was only thirty-four.
"I look like I'm forty? You've got to be kidding me-"
"I am." Catherine interrupted, smiling. Chris chuckled.
"I'm only thirty-four. You're what, sixteen, seventeen?" He asked with a smirk. Catherine's smile disappeared.
Catherine turned her head to look out the window. She knew this would happen sooner or later. If it wasn't that she had Megan, it was her age that men started judging her on. Was it impossible for a young woman to have a life if she was still a teen? Was she supposed to be fucking guys left and right, getting drunk on the weekends and skimming off her parents? Well, she didn't have the options. Even if she did, she wouldn't take them. She was a virgin and intended to wait for the right one, or the closet one to him, before she even thought twice before she spread her legs.
"I'm almost twenty. Why do you care?" She snapped, still looking out the window.
"You shouldn't have this burden on your shoulders at nineteen. Raising a baby when you're still a baby yourself."
"You think she's a burden to me?" She narrowed her eyes at him, shouting the question. Before he could think, the little girl in the back woke.
Chris pulled to a stop at a 7-11 to the left. Catherine got out, sitting in the backseat with Megan. She wrapped her in the red flannel blanket, holding her to her chest as she got a black suitcase from the floorboard.
When Chris got back to the truck, he was surprised at the site beside him. The girl-Megan-was wrapped in the blanket on Catherine's lap. On her lap was his brand-new traveling DVD player, in it was a Winnie-the-Pooh movie. Great, driving cross country listening to Winnie and Tiger too. Just what he had planned.
He got behind the wheel again, starting the trip for the second time in thirty minutes. He sipped at a Pepsi while she had refused to eat or drink. By the way she looked, she did that often.
By eight that night, they were in Orangeville. They arrived at the first operator's house. An operator, they make it sound like the Underground Railroad. The operator happened to be a fellow police officer. He was a plump round man with three kids running around screaming and a wife baking in the kitchen. An all American family.
Amy, his wife, set them up in one of the bedrooms on the third floor. It was adjoined by its own bathroom. Unfortunately, it only had a full size bed. When Catherine saw this, she fought a surge of panic in her throat.
"You and the girl take the bed. I'll sleep in the chair over there."
"The girl has a name, it's Megan. And that's fine, but I won't be sleeping."
"You need your rest. Sleep." Catherine looked up from the suitcase she was digging around in.
