LITMIR.BIZ

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sat in a brown leather chair that nearly swallowed him whole. He was lithe to the point of wispiness but he was tall like Albert—his biological father and Liv’s adoptive one. He looked a lot like Deborah, too, Liv realized, seeing those hauntingly large blue eyes of her dreams stare at her from Hague’s thin face.

      “What do you want?” he asked gruffly.

      “Nice way to greet me. I came to find out if you know anything about this.” She held up the manila envelope and his eyes followed it, a frown creasing his brow.

      “What is it?”

      “Guess that answers my question.”

      “What is it?” he demanded more loudly and Della moved to his side and laid a comforting hand on his shoulders.

      “It’s from the law firm of Crenshaw and Crenshaw. Ever heard of them?” Liv asked.

      “ No.”

      “They were directed to send me this package when I turned twenty-five.”

      “Last Friday. Happy birthday.”

      She smiled faintly. Hague didn’t live by the world’s time line though he understood it perfectly. “It had pictures of our mother and some other people inside.” She handed him the series of pictures she’d pored over throughout the last two days. This morning she’d decided to go visit her brother directly after work and see what he made of the package’s contents. “And it has my real birth certificate and several other papers.”

      “Who directed the lawyers?”

      “Our mother.”

      His eyes caught hers. “What?”

      Liv explained how the lawyers had gotten hold of her and sent the package. “She—Mama—wanted me to have this, but I don’t really understand why. My birth certificate, okay, and personal stuff, but who are these people?”

      “That’s our father.”

      In one of the pictures Albert was standing beside Deborah in a grassy field, possibly the one behind their old house.

      “But who’s this?” she asked, pointing to the man trying to grab for the camera.

      Hague was ignoring her as he selected a piece of paper, holding it up between his thumb and index finger, away from his body, as if it might bite him. He glanced at her expectantly.

      Liv had read the missive, knew what it was. She said carefully, “It’s a note from Mama to me.”

      Hague was utterly silent. Liv gazed at him and her heart squeezed. Framed by his scruffy hair and beard were a pair of glittering blue eyes and a handsome face that he would never—could never, apparently—let the world see.

      “Read it,” Liv urged him gently.

      Hague brought the note closer and stared at it hard for several seconds, then he said in a monotone: “Livvie, my sweet girl, if you’re reading this then everything I’ve feared has come to be, and I’m not around to tell you these things for myself. You know you were adopted. Your biological parents are listed on your birth certificate. I’ve enclosed some snapshots for you to have of me. Know I love you. . . . Mom.” He peered at the photographs, then up at her quizzically. “Why these pictures? They’re not even that good of her. I have better ones.”

      “Do you remember anything about those other people?” Liv asked.

      Hague glanced at the photographs again, zeroing in on the one Liv had pointed to with the angry man. His shoulders tucked in and his head tilted back, his gaze glued to the photo.

      “There he is again,” he said in a strained voice.

      Liv looked at the man in the picture. “Again? You’ve seen him before?”

      “Zombie,” he said.

      Kill you . . . Kill you!

      Liv’s head spun a bit. “This is the zombie man?” she demanded, pointing to the picture.

      “They keep their hands in their pockets and wear rigor smiles.” His eyes rolled away, stretching wide as he looked into some distant horror only he could see.

      “Hague,” Della said uncertainly.

      “He follows me,” Hague said in a harsh whisper. “If I look, he’s always there. Out of the corner of your eye. Just there . . . almost . . . there . . . there!” He jerked violently and Liv and Della both jumped, too.

      “Hague,” Liv said sharply, recognizing the signs that he was leaving reality. She hoped to keep him with her. “Hague!”

      But his eyes closed and he drifted away. Into one of his fugue states.

      Gone...

      Chapter 3

      “You put him in a trance!” Della snapped.

      Liv looked at Hague with resignation. She wanted to call him back, but it was too late. It was futile to try to rouse him when he disappeared into his own world.

      She slid a glance at the photograph. Zombie man . . .

      Della fussed over Hague, tilting his head back in the La-Z-Boy recliner he practically lived in. Hague didn’t trust computers or telephones, especially cell phones; he was more of a Luddite than Liv. He was absolutely certain malicious groups bent on evil and destruction were tracking him. He spent hour upon hour calculating figures on lined yellow paper with an ink pen. Della worked part-time as a care assistant at a nearby assisted living/nursing home facility. Hague, who’d never been able to keep a job, received government assistance, and she thought maybe her father subsidized them as well. However, that would only be if Lorinda, the evil stepmother, didn’t know about the tap on Albert’s finances, which was questionable.

      As if she could read Liv’s thoughts, Della said, “Albert’s coming by.”

      Liv reached for the pictures, note and birth certificate and she saw that her hands were trembling. She felt guilty enough for sending Hague into the trance; Della’s accusation hadn’t been necessary. “He is?” Liv couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her father.

      “He called,” she said with a certain satisfaction.

      Ignoring that, Liv asked, “Does he see Hague often?” Since Lorinda had entered their lives, both Liv and Hague’s relationship with Albert had suffered, and in Liv’s case it had become basically nonexistent.

      “Now and again. He’s not good with Hague, either.”

      “When is he showing up?”

      Della shot a glance at the old grandfather’s clock, which stood against the living room’s far wall. It was the kind that was wound with a key. Hague liked to limit their amount of electricity use in any way he could, and it wasn’t that he was trying to lessen his carbon footprint, he just wanted to make himself smaller and more indistinct in the world, and therefore less traceable. The less information the “government” or “powers that be” had on him, the better.

      “Anytime, now,” Della answered.

      “I’ve got to be going,” she said.

      “Oh, no, stay. Maybe Hague’ll come out of it. . . .”

      Liv arched a brow. She and Della both knew Hague’s fugue states were unpredictable, but it was rare that he snapped back within a few minutes.

      Della added, “We could go down to Rosa’s Cantina and talk. Hague has his own table there.”

      Rosa’s Cantina was on the street level of the apartment building. Liv had seen its bright green and yellow neon sign when she’d entered. She knew Hague went to Rosa’s; his only habitual place of business, and she suspected his “own table” was the establishment’s way of appeasing him, and wondered what would happen were someone already at his table should

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