Alter Ego

by Brian Freeman

  “Lala wanted to stay with me?” Cab asked.

  He felt as if all he could do was repeat Tarla’s words with an increasing sense of disbelief.

  “Yes, she’s worried sick about you. It’s sweet. I had a hard time convincing her that she didn’t need to come up here with me to drag you back to Florida. Winter is a terrible thing. How can people live in this icebox? It’s like the whole world is in hibernation. How I miss the palm trees.”

  Cab sighed and studied the gray sky outside the hospital window. “You know, Mother, I feel guilty imposing on your time. If Lala’s willing to stay with me, that’s probably best. We have kind of a rhythm together.”

  Tarla shook her head. She sat down beside the bed and grabbed a Starbucks Frappuccino from the metal tray where his hospital lunch sat untouched. She sucked on the drink through a straw. “Nonsense. I’ve cleared my calendar for you. Besides, all you and Wawa ever do is argue. That’s the last thing you need right now.”

  “Because you and I never argue?” Cab asked.

  “You argue, darling. I rise above it.”

  Cab looked for the morphine drip, but the nurses had removed it. He had a headache, but he couldn’t blame it entirely on the concussion now that Tarla was here. He’d broken his left wrist in the fall after the explosion, and his back was a mass of cuts and bruises. Even so, he was impatient to get out and go home.

  Tarla was right about one thing. He didn’t belong in Duluth.

  “Where’s Maggie?” he asked.

  “Your little China doll? I told her to go home and get some rest, since I have the situation handled. I promised her I would not leave your side. This is a very nice hospital, by the way. The doctors and nurses all love me. I’ve signed dozens of autographs.”

  “Well, they’re probably mistaking you for Naomi Watts,” Cab said.

  Tarla wagged her finger at him. “Wicked, wicked, wicked. I forgive you, but only because you’re injured.”

  “And tired,” Cab added pointedly.

  “Yes, of course; more sleep is what you need. Never fear, I will be right here when you wake up again.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  Cab closed his eyes. It took no time for him to fall sleep again. In his dreams, he was where he usually was, alone on the beach, watching the surf come and go in Naples. The waves were hypnotic. That went on for what felt like forever, but at some point Mo Casperson rose out of the water in front of him like a horrible mermaid. She pointed her gun at his head and said, “Bang.”

  He started awake from that dream and had no idea what time it was, but he noticed that daylight had given way to night outside the window. Tarla was gone, at least for the moment. Maggie had taken her place in the chair by the bed, and she was digging into a bag for McDonald’s French fries.

  “Hey,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Sliced and diced.”

  “Well, you are still the most handsome car bomb survivor I’ve ever seen.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Your mother said to assure you she would be back momentarily.”

  “What a relief,” Cab replied.

  “I hear she’s going to be staying with you in Naples,” Maggie added with a snicker.

  “So it seems.”

  “She says Lala volunteered, too. You can’t go anywhere without attractive women around, can you?”

  “That’s true. Present company included.”

  “Very smooth,” Maggie replied. She shoved a French fry in his mouth, and he swallowed it.

  “How are you?” Cab asked.

  “Indestructible. Which is more than can be said for my Avalanche. My insurance agent couldn’t believe it when I called him. I’m not exactly his favorite customer to begin with.”

  “Did you find out who made the bomb?”

  “We’re still following the trail. Mo made several calls to anonymous numbers. Security cams in my parking garage caught a van with stolen Wisconsin plates coming in overnight. That was probably when they planted it.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to thank Stride for saving my life,” Cab said.

  “Well, don’t,” she said with a grin. “It’ll just feed his ego. By the way, Tarla met Stride and pronounced him ‘tasty.’”

  Cab shook his head. “That’s my mother.”

  They were quiet for a while, sitting in the hospital room. Outside, it was snowing again, with the flakes landing and melting against the glass. He was beginning to wonder if it ever stopped snowing up here and if winter ever ended.

  “My offer still stands,” he said. “About Florida. Come with me.”

  “I’m flattered, but no. I’m a Minnesota girl. Besides, it looks like Lala wants back in your life.”

  “She and I are always complicated. What about you? Did you tell Troy about the bomb?”

  “Yes, and he was very sweet and very concerned. Actually, I had dinner with him and the girls last night. They’ve been bugging him about getting a dog for months, so I thought they might like to meet Lori Fulkerson’s Yorkshire terrier. He needs a new home. It was love at first sight.”

  “Dinner,” Cab said. “That sounds promising.”

  “It’s a start. I’m still not the marrying kind, but Troy says he’s okay with that for now.”

  They heard a chorus of laughter from the hallway outside Cab’s room. He looked through the doorway to see Tarla taking a selfie with two of the nurses. “She’s back,” he said.

  “I guess that’s my cue,” Maggie replied.

  She stood up from the chair and looked down at him. They didn’t know what to say to each other. He’d always found that good-byes were more awkward when you knew what someone looked like naked.

  “Better go get yourself a new Avalanche,” he said.

  “Better go get yourself a new Corvette.”

  “I’m not very good with endings. Will I see you again?”

  “Oh, I’m pretty hard to get rid of,” Maggie assured him. “You never know where I’ll turn up.”

  She bent down over the bed and gave Cab a kiss that smelled of perfume and French fries. It was soft and perfect and lasted a long time. She wiped her mouth with a little bit of embarrassment and then wiggled her fingers at him as she left the room.

  *

  “Was that Tarla Bolton?” Aimee Bowe asked Serena, sounding starstruck. She pushed herself up with a painful effort and tried to see into the hospital corridor.

  “Yes, that’s her,” Serena replied. “Her son is a detective. He was helping us make the case against Dean Casperson.”

  “I’d love to meet her. She was one of my role models when I was getting started.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged,” Serena said. “I don’t think Tarla is much of a wallflower.”

  Aimee smiled from the bed, but just the effort of raising herself up had weakened her. The doctors were optimistic about her recovery, but she had a long way to go. She wasn’t leaving Duluth anytime soon. She’d undergone two surgeries since they’d rescued her from the cage, and the combination of bullet wounds and hypothermia had left her fragile. Serena also was concerned about emotional damage.

  “Lori Fulkerson pled guilty to the assault on you,” Serena told her. “She gave a full confession about the earlier murders, too. She’ll be behind bars for the rest of her life.”

  The news didn’t seem to give Aimee any comfort. “It sounds strange, but I feel a little sorry for her. No matter what she did.”

  “A lot of us have bad childhoods,” Serena replied. “At some point, you have to decide for yourself who you really are. If you let it make you evil, that’s on you.”

  Aimee nodded. “What about Dean?”

  “The prosecutors say if he ever gets out of prison, he’ll be an old man. He won’t have a dime left from all the lawsuits. I hope you don’t feel sorry for him.”

  “No.”

  Serena nodded. “Me neither.”

  “The only thing I wish about Dean is that I’d said somethi
ng when I had the chance. I let him get away with it.”

  “You weren’t the only one. He and Mo intimidated a lot of victims. And they killed others.”

  Aimee took Serena’s hand in a weak grip. “I’ve only known you a short time, but you’ve saved my life twice. Thank you.”

  “I’m relieved you’re okay.”

  “Can I ask you something? You felt me calling to you when I was in the box, didn’t you?”

  Serena found herself at a loss for words. She didn’t know how to explain what she’d felt as she hunted for Aimee.

  “It’s okay to admit it even if you don’t understand it,” Aimee went on. “I told you, I don’t understand how it works myself. I just knew if there was one person who could rescue me, it was you. So I tried to reach out to you.”

  “I wish I could say I believe in those things,” Serena replied, “but I’m still not sure. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we found you.”

  She checked her watch and saw that it was getting late.

  “I have to meet Stride,” she told Aimee. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll send Tarla your way,” she added.

  “Thanks.”

  Serena went to the hospital room door, but then she turned back. She returned to the bed and said, “I do have one question, Aimee.”

  “Sure.”

  “You told me that you were sure Art Leipold wasn’t guilty.”

  “That’s what I felt,” Aimee said.

  “Did you also know about Lori Fulkerson?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lori kept saying she could feel you inside her head. She kept talking about you being able to see what she’d done. Like you could look inside her and know she was guilty. I was wondering if that was true. Did you get a bad feeling from Lori Fulkerson even before she abducted you?”

  “You don’t believe that, Serena. That’s not who you are. So why ask?”

  “Lori believed it,” Serena said. “So I was curious.”

  Aimee looked away at the darkness and shook her head. A smile played across her lips and then went away. “Well, the irony is, whatever Lori felt was all in her own head. She made that happen, not me. Maybe her guilt finally caught up with her, because I didn’t suspect a thing. I didn’t feel anything from Lori Fulkerson at all.”

  50

  Stride sat on the green bench at the end of the Point.

  The Christmas lights decorating the homes in the town of Superior still glittered on the other side of the frozen harbor. Fishing shanties and trucks dotted the ice, and music from someone’s radio floated across the bay. He didn’t notice the cold or the whip of the wind that sent flurries through the night air. He had his arm around Cat, who huddled next to him with her legs pulled up on the bench. Her chin was balanced on her knees.

  Days had gone by since the shooting, but Mo Casperson’s eyes still followed him. When he slept, he saw her. When he was awake, he remembered. Sometimes a twitch rippled through his muscles as he felt himself pulling the trigger again and again. He could still see each bullet strike her body like a movie scene replaying in his head.

  “Was it awful?” Cat murmured as if she could read his mind.

  He didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, “It wasn’t what I expected.”

  “How so?”

  “It was easier.”

  “And you don’t like that?”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t like that.”

  Cat leaned her head against his shoulder. “Would it have been easy to kill Dean Casperson?”

  “If he’d hurt you? Yes.”

  “I don’t regret what I did,” Cat told him firmly.

  “I know.”

  “Do you think I was wrong?” she asked.

  “I’ll always think it’s wrong if something puts you in jeopardy. That’s just the way it is.”

  Cat had a copy of the new People magazine in her hands. She held it up, which she’d done a thousand times already. The night made it hard to see, but they could both make out her face next to Dean Casperson’s on the cover. She was famous, just as he’d feared. The media had camped outside their cottage all week. Her story was everywhere. For now, she was a hero in the press, but for every hero, there eventually was a backlash. The reality of all the attention was beginning to sink into her head and scare her.

  “This is who I’m going to be forever, isn’t it?” she asked. “I’m always going to be the girl who took down Dean Casperson. Look at the headline: ‘The Teenager Who Exposed Hollywood’s Dirtiest Secret.’ When I die, that’s the only thing they’ll say about me.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “That’s so not true, Catalina.”

  “Come on. You know it is.”

  “What I know is that you’re seventeen years old. You have your life ahead of you, and you can do whatever you want with it. By the time you’re done, nobody will remember Dean Casperson, but I think they’ll all remember Cat Mateo.”

  She shoved him playfully. “You don’t believe that.”

  “Yes, I absolutely do.”

  “I’m nobody special,” Cat said.

  Nobody special.

  Stride wanted to laugh at the very idea of it. He thought about this girl and the amount of death she’d seen in her life and the amount of heartache she’d experienced since she was a child. He thought about a girl who would have the courage to let herself go into a room with a predator and turn on a camera and put her life and her body at risk.

  “Sometimes it takes a while to recognize special,” Stride told her. “Especially in yourself.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long, long time. When he felt a quiver in her shoulders, he realized she was crying silently. He knew it was partly out of love, partly out of terror and relief catching up with her. He simply held her close and let her get lost in her tears. She didn’t stop until they heard the rumble of a car engine and saw Serena’s Mustang plow through the snow and park beside Stride’s Expedition.

  “I figured I’d find you two here,” Serena called to them.

  She got out and joined them on the bench. Cat wiped her face and put on a smile, and Serena put her arm around Cat just as Stride had. The three of them sat on the green bench together in spite of the cold, in spite of the snow. Peaceful minutes ticked by, and none of them gave a thought to getting up and going home.

  They were a family.

  Stride didn’t think about the future. He was done with that. And he was done with the past, too. This month had been a reminder of his mistakes, but he couldn’t change them. He couldn’t go back and undo what had happened to Mort Greeley. He couldn’t save Art Leipold. He couldn’t rescue the victims of Lori Fulkerson. Every journey had its failures and setbacks, and all he could do was try harder and do better at whatever came next.

  The fact was, life had given him more chances at happiness than he deserved. If he’d taken a last breath at that moment, he would have been at peace with his regrets, because his regrets had led him here. He had a wife again and a teenage daughter, two things he never would have believed possible. He decided he wouldn’t change a day of his past or correct his mistakes even if he could.

  They were part of him. They were who he was.

  They were what made him Jonathan Stride.

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  Thanks for reading the latest Jonathan Stride novel. (Or is it a Cab Bolton novel? You’ll have to decide for yourself!) If you like this book, be sure to check out all my other thrillers, too.

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