The Progeny Read Free Page A

identity?
    I flip the license over. It was issued in Maine, though I know for a fact the Center I woke up in is in Indiana. My identity might be fake, but the license itself is not, despite the suspiciously good photo. I wonder for the fiftieth time if I’m in a witness protection program. And for the forty-ninth time, I hope to God if I am that I’m living far enough away from whatever it was I witnessed.
    Trust your decision, Clare said more than once to me. But it was so much easier to find peace in that mantra when she was here.
    In town, I drive slowly by the small public library. I tell myself I should see if they have a DVD collection. But I’m really thinking about the computers inside. It’d be an easy enough search to look for a fatal car accident earlier this month.
    An easy trace, too.
    Don’t go digging.
    I stop instead at Citgo to fill the Bronco and the boat’s plastic gas tank before heading to the Fly Shop.
    My case of flies—streamers, mayflies, beetles, and caddies—is light but full. The owner’s wife, Madge, who can no longer tie them since her stroke, inspects a full fifteen of them before squinting up at me.
    “How long did you say you been tying flies?” she says.
    “As long as I can remember.”
    “Well, you didn’t lie when you said you were good. I’ll give you that.”
    No. But I’m pretty sure I lied more than once about how I learned. I don’t remember whose hands I watched weave thread and feathers into colorful nymphs and midges, but I never forgot the patterns.
    I convince her to lower her commission if only by five percent—it’s not like either one of us is going to get rich at any rate—and ten minutes later, I’m out the door with some cash in my pocket. Not that I’m strapped.
    The Food Mart is busy in the middle of the day, no fewer than five people waiting in line at the deli counter. I scan the register and then the produce section on my way in, an empty five-gallon water jug in each arm. I drop the jugs in the bin and walk along the ends of several aisles.
    “Can I help you find something?”
    I whirl around and come face-to-face with a friendly-looking man in his fifties. Tanned face, white bushy brows, sunspots on his forearms.
    “Yeah. There’s a guy who works here—he helped me with some wine the other night.”
    “Wine’s this way,” he says, gesturing for me to follow. “Do you know what you’re looking for?”
    “Actually, no. He made a recommendation and I forgot what it was. I was wondering if he’s working today.”
    “Was it Dave?”
    “I, uh, didn’t get his name. About my age . . . brown hair?” Blue eyes.
    “Oh, Luka. I’ll see if he’s gone to lunch yet,” he says.
    Luka. Definitely not from around here. I loiter near a display of saltines, canned tomatoes, and chili beans. A moment later a familiar form strides toward me down the aisle. I shove my hands in my pockets and hope my smile is friendly enough to have warranted his kindness the night I was an ass.
    “Bronco!” He grins. The stubble on his cheeks is gone. He’s got a nice mouth and really great jawline, and with that hair I wonder why he’s not teaching ski school in Utah or modeling underwear or something.
    “Yeah.” I give a little laugh. “Keyless Bronco girl.”
    “I hear you’re back for that cider.”
    “No, I just came to get some water and”—I dig three twenties out of my pocket—“pay you back. Thanks, by the way.”
    I hold the money toward him, but his eyes are searching mine. I slide my fingers up to the hat covering my stubby patch of hair. His gaze follows. I drop my hand. “Here.”
    “That’s too much.”
    “Actually, it’s thirty-eight cents short, but I don’t have change.”
    He frowns. “I never gave you a receipt.”
    “I remember what everything cost. Take it.”
    He slowly folds the bills and slides them into his pocket. “You need help with that water?”
    Ten minutes later he’s following me out of the Food Mart, a jug