Until Kelly by Vera Quinn
Chapter One
Kelly
I hear the drip, drip, drip of the leak in my bedroom ceiling as it lets the rain from the roof drip into the bucket that I set out so there are no puddles in my carpet in the morning. It’s a tedious chore of emptying the bucket when it rains, but it’s better than a floor that is rotted from all the water.
The farmhouse that I live in now is older than I am, and I thought the worst thing I had to deal with when I moved in was the creaks and cracks that the old house had at night. Who am I kidding? This house is older than the elderly woman that I rent the small farm from. It only took a few months for me to realize that I had a bigger problem than the eerie noises in the middle of the night to worry about. This house comes with its own set of problems.
It took me a good three weeks to get accustomed to the noises that all old houses make in the middle of the night, but this house magnifies them. My own ghost comes to me in my dreams, and it was only compounded by the noises around me. I was a walking zombie for those weeks it took me to exhaust myself out so I had no choice but to sleep all night. That’s if you can call six hours all night. That is my normal sleep pattern these days.
I don’t know how I was convinced that country living is what I needed to get my act together and become a productive member of society. The thought of it makes me laugh.
Oh, I know I have changed since I first moved here. My aching back and callouses on my hands are proof of it. Another thing that has changed is my love of coffee. With only six hours of sleep every night—okay, a good night—coffee has become my best friend just to get through the day. I need a hot cup right now, but I look at my clock and it’s only three in the morning and there is no way I am starting my day yet. By the sound of the splash of the drip in the bucket, it’s nearly full and time for me to empty it again. It’s sad to think that I know how full a bucket is by the sound of rain hitting it. I laugh at my thoughts—stupid thoughts of a lonely woman. Oh well, it is what it is.
The list of things to be fixed in this house just keeps growing. If Mrs. Lamb doesn’t fix them soon, I will need to hire my own handyman and hand her the receipts. I don’t know what I am complaining about, at least I am safe, and I have a roof over my head. I need to keep that in mind; it hasn’t always been the case.
No, I can’t let my memories take me back to those ugly times. I am a changed person now and I will never be the desperate, lost person I was in those days. I have plenty of regrets in my past, but the biggest one is never far from my thoughts—my other half and the one person I let down the most in my life. No, I won’t let myself go there.
I flip my covers back and the cold in my room has chills shooting up my spine. I hurry and grab the bucket and run for the bathroom. My feet hit the coldness of the hardwood floor of the hall as I hurry before my carpet gets too wet back in my bedroom. I pour the water in the bathtub and it goes down the drain. I rush back to my room and set the bucket back in place. Why I didn’t bring my second bucket in here last night is beyond me. I knew the weather forecast had said we were going to get a downpour tonight, or should I say early morning. I look at my bed and I know I won’t be able to get back to sleep, so I may as well make the most of the morning hours. I can take a nap this afternoon. Who would have ever thought a woman in her twenties would be looking forward to an afternoon nap before she has her coffee?
I grab my hoodie off the chair and put it on over my nightshirt and I step into my house shoes. My feet are freezing, I should have thought to put these on before. I walk out of my room and go straight to the kitchen. I stop at the thermostat and turn it up so the house will start to warm. It’s not liked the old furnace works all that well, but it’ll put some heat out until I can get a fire going in the fireplace. It’s not like Texas has that cold of a winter, but for some reason, Mother Nature has decided that it is an appropriate time to give us thunderstorms and temperatures that are below freezing a week before Christmas.
I walk over and switch on my coffee maker, then make my way into my living room and move around the coals from last night’s fire. I have learned to bank them, so I don’t need to start from scratch each morning when I start a fire. It doesn’t take long for the kindling to catch, and within fifteen minutes; I have a nice fire going. I laugh at the memory of the first time I tried doing this and ended up with a house full of smoke when I adjusted the flue the wrong way. Live and learn. I just always do it the hard way. That’s what happens when a clueless city girl moves to the country.
Don’t get me wrong, Comfort, Texas is the best place for anyone who wants to hide. The average age of the locals is fifty on a normal day, and that’s being generous. Now there are times when there is a festival or a city-wide antique sale and younger, married people come in, but I have yet to see a gathering of people that don’t start all their conversations with, “Back in the day”. It all suits me fine, it’s not like I have conversations anyway, but it’s nice eavesdropping on other people’s conversations.
The smell of my dark brew Folgers is calling my name. I put enough wood on the fire in the fireplace to get the temperature to a more comfortable feeling. I turn and go back to the kitchen.
I reach in my cabinet and take down my favorite coffee mug that says Shit Happens on the front of it. The story of my life summed up in two words.
I have seen the worst life has to offer, but sometimes I think I deserve everything that has happened to me. I’m not in the deep depression that plagued me for years, but it’s like doom and gloom is just on the horizon every morning. It’s like I need to shake myself out of this line of thought every few days. I have been a survivor since the day I was born. You know, the kind of woman that no matter what the world throws at her, she lands on her feet. The people around me are the ones that pay for things I do wrong. I mean, the one person that should have been able to depend on me—my twin, my other half—I could have made her life easier, but instead of doing that, I took off and almost died for my efforts. I barely got away from the men chasing after me. Kim, my twin sister, could have been caught in the middle of all my crap. It’s the only decent thing I have ever done by getting away from her before my bad decisions visited my sister. She will never know that while her life depended on me donating my kidney, by not doing so, I saved her the heartache of being caught in one of my messes.
No! I can’t go there. I can never go there. I swore if I got away from Kim, I would never let her name even pass from my lips. I came too close to putting her life in jeopardy. Both our lives. The witness protection program is the only reason we are both breathing. I know that now, but then, I was too busy running. I know Kim is healthy and safe now. I know Sage will keep her that way, and that is the reason I can never go back. That is the reason I am living this lonely life.
I fix my coffee and I go back to the living room and sit in my favorite lumpy chair that I bought at a garage sale. I grab the throw off the back of the chair and place it over my legs, then take the first drink of the hot coffee that puts a smile on my face. The clock on the mantle over the fireplace says a quarter to four. It’s still dark outside, and I let the quiet of my house fill me. It’s a peaceful tomb.
I look at the hardwood floor and wonder why there isn’t carpet in the living room. I know, stupid thoughts, but they are safe thoughts that don’t hurt my heart. Why do all the rooms but the bedrooms, kitchen, and bathrooms have hardwood? The kitchen is tiled along with the bathrooms and that makes sense, but why don’t all the other rooms have carpet? There is nothing about this house I haven’t questioned in my mind at one time or another. I have counted all the circles in the ceiling in my bedroom where the leaks have discolored it. I have counted all the knife marks on the kitchen counters where things have been cut. I have counted the bricks in the fireplace. I need to get out of this house before the guys in the white jackets bring my own fitted white jacket for me to wear.
Yes, today, I am going to town and I am going to have at least one conversation with someone. I am going to make eye contact and I am going to make friends or at least one friend. If I die in this farmhouse, I don’t want my decaying body to stink up this place, waiting for my handlers to come and make their monthly visit. Someone else should miss me. I don’t think that is too much to ask for. I will not be afraid that I am going to be discovered by the men who are hunting me. I will make up a history about myself and lie with a straight face.
That’s the thing though, I swore off lying. I swore off using people. I swore off everything—alcohol, drugs, and the me that I hated. I swore I would become a new and improved me. I would make my sister proud, even if she couldn’t know about it. Now to find a way to live up to the promises I made to myself and to have a life of some sort. Today is the day I make that happen or start it, anyway.
You ask me why? Why do it today? That is a long story that fills me full of disappointment at myself, and I can’t even be myself. I’m not Kelly Mavis any longer. Not that Kelly Mavis was anything to be proud of. She wasn’t, or I wasn’t. The whole sordid story is something that you hear on a news program or read in a newspaper. I am one of many people in the witness protection program and that is how I ended up in this old farmhouse wishing I were anywhere but here. I should just be happy that I am safe, and no one wants to kill me today, but that is the part of me I am still working on. It seems when my identical twin and I were still in the womb that Kim received all the good qualities and I got what was left. I turned out just like our drug addicted mother and I guess that our sperm donor must have had some good qualities because that is what Kim got. I don’t want to be this way, so my change needs to start today.
Lucky for Kim, I am no longer her burden to bear. Kim and everyone else think that I am dead. I know it sounds cruel to let my twin sister think I am dead, but trust me she is much better off. If the man that tried to kill me had seen Kim, he would have killed her too. He’s behind bars but the man he was working for isn’t and I am the one that will send him to prison.
You see, where my sister is a good person, I wasn’t. I became involved in drugs and prostitution voluntarily just to get my next high. I was always chasing that next high just to forget the crummy childhood I had gone through. Kim was the lucky one. She was adopted by a good family and I was left with our mother. I’ve always known I had a twin unlike Kim whose parents protected her from that fact. There was a lot of things Kim was protected from. I never knew where my next meal was coming from or if I would have a roof over my head when it came time to go to bed. Then it turned to what I would need to do to have food, my drugs, and a place to sleep. I’m not proud of the times I sold my body to survive, but it is what it is, as I always say when I have no words for what is happening. I survived another day. I wasn’t stupid though. I listened, and I watched even when people thought I was too drugged out to know where I was. It’s the only thing that kept me out of prison and gave me a fresh start. A start where no one knows where I came from or who I really am. Maybe I can outrun my past, or at least try.
At first, I thought that was a good thing, but then I realized that I can never go back and make the things up to Kim that I need to. I need to tell her I’m sorry for being jealous of the things her parents gave her and the love they showered her with. I need to say sorry and I know she would never try to use me the way I accused her of. I know that now that I am free of the alcohol, drugs, and our mother. I was blinded by the need for the drugs and the things my mother kept putting in my head. I could have saved Kim’s life, but I ran instead. Now, there is no going back. I don’t know if I will be able to live with myself if anything happens to Kim.
I try to keep tabs on Kim. I know she’s married to Sage Mayson and they have a good life and Kim’s health is good right now. The two special agents that check in on me from time to time keep me somewhat updated. Nothing specific since that is against the rules, but just that Kim is still alright and seems happy. Sage is another regret. He wasn’t the easy mark I thought he would be and who would have thought Kim would fall for the man. I can only hope they are happy.
Comfort, Texas wasn’t the first stop when I was put in witness protection. My first location that they located me in was Birmingham, but that didn’t last long. I couldn’t remember the name they gave me. I was still recovering from my near-death experience, and trying to remember a fake name and background was too much for me. We came to the decision I would keep the name Kelly and change my last name, so I don’t blow my cover again. I also didn’t like the Marshal’s service people that were put on my case. They must not have cared for me either because now the two special agents from the FBI that put me in this program are my handlers—Special Agent Kace and Special Agent Torres. I can’t say they are my favorite people, but then I don’t have many people to choose from. They are familiar, but still cops. I have no trust for people in authority. I ran from them for too long. Maybe I can learn to trust in the future, but I wouldn’t guarantee anything. I’ve never had anyone that I could trust until Kim, and then I let her down.
Today, I start to try. Today, I want to make Kim proud, even if she doesn’t know what I am doing. Today, I want to be a different me but not lose the real me if that even makes sense. How can I make sense at four in the morning? Maybe a nap is what I need now, or maybe just another cup of this strong coffee. I know I want a better life, but to do that I need to have a life that doesn’t include staying locked up in this old house and counting water splashes in a bucket. I also want to live the kind of life that I can make Kim proud of me, even if I can’t have contact with her. From this day forward, I will just ask myself what would Kim do? She’s my role model. She’s not perfect, and I know that she knows that. It’s just she’s been the only one in my life that I can look up to. Kim’s the only one that ever tried to show me that she cared. Today starts the new me.