Newmarket

Saturday, May 30

Despite staying up quite late with Jayne (you simply could not seem to get enough of each other) you had managed to get going by 10 AM. A nice breakfast at the cafe near your apartment and then you were off to a specialty import food store you found online, conveniently located on Yonge Street so not that far from your place. That one errand out of the way, the two of you start heading north to the 401 Express east for several miles and then turn north onto Highway 404 towards Newmarket, and your predecessor Karen Harding.

“I feel like a teenager again,” you say suddenly as you watch the generic highway scenery go by.

“Because you had sex 3 times last night?” Jayne says with a satisfied smile.

“Hah! Well yes, that too, but I was talking about how I’ve been riding around in your car so much the last week. It’s like I’m 16 again and my buddy Tom has a car but I don’t so I was the designated passenger for a year.”

With a snort, Jayne replies, “Well if you want to drive you can. I guess I trust you enough to drive my car now. You have a license right? You didn’t get it pulled because of speeding tickets or stunt driving on the QEW?”

“No I’m a boring driver, I just got rid of my car a few years ago and when I moved I didn’t really consider getting one. I enjoy sitting here and focusing on the music while you drive, it just occurred to me that’s all. Speaking of the music…” you pick up your phone, which in a gesture of true romantic trust Jayne paired with the Bluetooth of her car.

“Is this more sad girl music?” she teases. She was not a huge fan of the weepy acoustic guitar folk music you had been playing to start the short 1 hour drive.

“I was going to bring up my classic alt-rock playlist, but I noticed your Spotify had a bunch of bands I never heard of, so I looked it up. I had no idea K-pop and J-pop were so different, but you know for a car ride this isn’t the worst music to listen to.” Honestly, you’re not a fan of pure pop music but you are a fan of Jayne, and seeing her light up as you play some truly baffling half Korean, half English pop song apparently sung by a dozen people makes it more than worthwhile.

The next half hour she impresses you with her pretty decent singing voice - she even sings the Korean parts of some of the songs - and somehow gets you to shimmy a bit in your seat once or twice. Honestly, the music isn’t half bad.

Newmarket reminds you somewhat of your hometown of London, Ontario. Less than half the population of London, it has more of a big town vibe versus the small city feel of London, but it shares the same basic look of a lot of places in southern Ontario.

As you exit the 404 and pass all the hotels and big box retail stores that cluster next to the highway you make your way down to the center of the town. It is mostly malls and retail outlets, no more or less interesting than the vast majority of the same sized towns in Canada or the US for that matter.

“I wasn’t able to backchannel find any hint of Karen online either, even cheating and knowing her address and full name I got nothing on social media,” you say. Now that you’re less than 10 minutes away from the address, a hint of nervousness is noticeable as you discuss the reason for your trip.

Jayne nods slowly, “Yeah I tried again too. Even just to imply I saw her on Twitter so we looked up her might have been enough, but there is nothing at all. We’ll have to just knock and hope she’s glad to see me. Maybe she won’t wonder why or how we ended up here?”

“It feels like she deliberately has no digital footprint,” you reply, “but let’s hope.”

“We’ll know soon enough. This is it up here,” Jayne turns into a small cul-de-sac just off the main road. You’re less than a block away from a strip mall with a large 24 hour fitness centre and a Moxie’s Bar and Grill, but such is the nature of towns this size that it is like being deep in the suburbs on an older tree lined street.

28 Eaves Crescent is a nice red brick two story. There is an attached garage but no vehicle in the driveway, and again you realize that with no way to call or message ahead you have no idea if Karen Harding actually lives here nevermind if she is actually home on a nice Saturday afternoon. Parking on the street, you and Jayne get out and she waits for you to grab a gift bag out of the back seat. Looking at each other, you are just about to walk up the driveway when the front door opens and a man walks out.

Pausing, you awkwardly watch him lock the front door. Your first impression is of a very fit man in a tight tshirt, with many full tattoos running down both arms and several visible on his legs where they stick out of his gym shorts. He is an inch or two shorter than you, and as he jauntily walks down the walkway he looks at you both curiously.

“Hi!” he calls out, friendly but clearly noticing Jayne and you seemed about to walk up his driveway. You smile and wave back as Jayne returns the hello, taking a few steps towards him.

As you get closer you can see he is an Asian guy about your age, his carefully styled hair frosted with blond highlights. He is quite muscular, with the erect but somehow casual posture of a born athlete and the broad smile of a confident man. And he should be, he’s objectively handsome. Dammit, those full sleeves are pretty sick too, he's really pulling off that large ghost demon tat on his forearm.

“Can I help you?” he calls out when you are still a few paces away.

Jayne takes the lead and says, “Yes, this may be odd but does Karen Harding live here? My name is Jayne Hall, I worked with her at Bathurst Health for a number of years and I was told she lived here in Newmarket. Just wanted to say hello if she does.”

As Jayne speaks the man grins even wider, “She does! That’s so cool, nice to meet you! I’m Timothy Khánh, basically just pronounce it like ‘hang’ and you got it. Karen and I moved here end of the year, so it’s awesome to meet some of her friends from back in Toronto.” As he speaks you reach him and he shakes your hand while giving Jayne a thousand watt smile. His grip is firm and he gives you a solid, friendly slap on the shoulder with his free hand.

“Hi, I’m Zach Pritchard, I work at BHC too but never knew Karen myself,” you say.

Clearly pleased, the man says, “Well damn this is great, it’s awesome to have company. Sadly, Karen is out right now, she’s off on a quick errand. I’m running off too, but if you two are going to be in town for a while I’m sure she’d love to catch up with you Jayne. We don’t get many visitors from the big city out here.”

Sharing a look with Jayne, you shrug casually and she says, “Oh we’re here doing a little sightseeing. We can certainly come back to say hi to Karen, I’d love to catch up with her.”

“Perfect!” Timothy claps his hands and says, “I have to go to the gym for a minute, I do some personal training there and the owner called me in to meet some people. Karen is out getting some groceries but she could be back any time. I’ll run in the house and leave her a note, wish I could text her but no phone obviously so we’ll do it the hard way as usual. I’ll be back in a half hour, but to be safe let’s say an hour?”

“We know we dropped in unannounced, that sounds perfect,” you say, then as Timothy jogs back into the house you and Jayne return to her car.

As soon as the car has started you say, “Well, so far so good?”

The two of you do drive around but there isn’t much to actually see in Newmarket and you’re not really in a sightseeing mood so you end up back close to Karen Harding's house. You grab some Starbucks drive-through, then park in the lot next to it and sip your drinks in the shade of some trees where a pathway leads into the houses next to the strip mall.

“What do you think he meant about ‘no phone’?” you ask.

Shrugging, Jayne replies, “Not sure. It sounded like she doesn’t have a cell phone, but he said it like I’d know she doesn’t. She definitely did while I worked with her.”

Glancing at your own phone, you see it’s still almost a half hour until you’re due back. “One of these houses is hers, right?” you point to the backs of the houses that come up to the fence and hedges that separate the strip mall parking from the residential neighborhood.

“I guess, I got turned around driving here.”

Looking at your phone, you pull up the map and confirm your suspicion. “Yeah it is, one of the ones that backs out onto this little alley.”

“Want to go take a peek?” Jayne asks, smiling.

“At their backyard? Not really, but sitting here isn’t getting anything done either,” Jayne hops off the bench then you get another idea, “I’ll just walk down the lane towards the church there and you go right and we’ll meet on the other side? Something to do at least.”

“Why split up?”

You shrug, “I need to pee so I was going to pop into the Starbucks while we're here,”

“Oh of course,” she laughs, “well I’ll go the long way around then, just meet you in the middle.”

The Starbucks has a more accessible washroom than most so you are back out walking down the small lane in no time. You slow down as you look at the back doors and yards of the houses. Most have high fences, which makes sense as they back out onto a small alley and then a strip mall, but you think you know which one is 28 Eaves Crescent based on the red bricks. Pausing in the alley, you look at the windows for a minute, not seeing anything exciting. You glance at your phone, about 20 minutes until the hour is up, then look again at back door.

Just as you start to continue walking to meet up with Jayne again you hear footsteps behind you and turn. A woman is approaching with a small tote bag in her left hand and a large purse on the same shoulder. She looks to be around 40 years old, slightly plump with long curly hair parted in the middle and thick glasses. She’s dressed in cargo shorts and a simple blouse, and you can see her looking at you intently. Realizing you look like a burglar casing the neighborhood, you smile.

“Hi, just waiting to meet a friend,” you say, as her eyes narrow suspiciously. Wait, considering her reaction to you, and her basic description, you put the pieces together. “Ah, hang on, are you Karen?” you ask as her expression shifts from mistrustful to openly hostile. With her free right hand, she reaches into her bag, probably to call the cops, and you raise your hands slightly in a non-threatening manner as you start to apologize again for creeping around this back alley. The gesture is especially apt, as the woman pulls a dark grey object out of the bag and starts to raise it at you.

Her look of anger and fear as she is moving is surprising on it’s own, and a tiny part of your brain is trying to process that until a much larger, more insistent part of your brain says ‘that’s a gun dipshit!’ as she aims it at your face.

“Who are you?” she hisses, her hand shaking, “How did you find me!”