“Holy hell! Are you okay, Kitty Cat?”
“I’m fine. But Stride wants Brayden to keep an eye on me for a few days.”
“You never told me someone was stalking you,” Curt complained.
“I didn’t know myself. It’s new.”
Curt eyed the bar. “Well, yikes, I need a beer to handle this news. Colly, you want something?”
“Kombucha,” Colleen replied.
“I don’t even know what the hell that is, but I love saying it,” Curt replied. He announced in a loud voice as he headed for the taps, “Kom-booooo-chaaaaahh!”
Now that Cat had Brayden with her, she felt a little more charitable about seeing Curt with his girlfriend. It wouldn’t kill her to be friendly. She smiled at Colleen and patted the seat next to her, and Colleen slid nervously over on the bench to join her.
“You and Curt look good together,” Cat said. “I’m glad to finally meet you.”
“Oh, thanks. I’m glad to meet you, too. Curt talks about you all the time, you know.”
“How’d you hook up with him?”
“I met him at the spaghetti dinner before the marathon.”
“Oh, yeah, I was there, too. Did you run the marathon this year?”
Colleen laughed. “No way! I was just a volunteer.”
“Serena runs it. She’s my—well, she’s not my mom, but she is. Anyway, she does the marathon every year now, but I think she’s nuts.”
“I’m with you on that,” Colleen said.
“Do you still go to school? Are you off this summer?”
Colleen shook her head. “I work full-time. I graduated last year and didn’t feel like college. I wanted to get my own apartment right away, so I found a cheap sublet in the Central Hillside, and I got a job at Miller Hill Mall. It’s not much, just a kiosk thing, drawing caricatures. I’ve got a couple of other part-time gigs, too. I’d love to be an artist full-time, but that doesn’t pay the bills.”
“Wow, good for you.” Cat was impressed on both counts. The Central Hillside was a rough area of downtown, and Colleen didn’t look like Hillside material.
“Kitty Cat, over here!”
Cat glanced at the bar taps and saw Curt waving at her. He shouted across the beer hall, attracting attention.
“Over here!” he called again.
Colleen smirked. “Watch out. I think you’re getting fixed up.”
“What?”
“Curt has a friend working the taps. Wyatt. He’s into you. Says he’s seen you around.”
“Oh, yeah. Curt mentioned him. Is he cute?”
“Well, he’s a woodsy type.”
“What does that mean?”
“Beard. Dreadlocks. Likes to hunt wabbits. I’m kidding about that. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s a nice guy, just quirky. Curt and I hang out with him at his place sometimes. He lives in my building, and he mostly listens to opera, plays with his cat, and smokes weed.” She eyed Brayden across the table. “You didn’t hear that.”
The cop smiled. “Hear what?”
“Anyway, who knows?” Colleen went on. “Maybe you’ll like him.”
Cat sighed, because she didn’t think that was likely, but she knew Curt wouldn’t give up until she went over to the bar. She glanced at Brayden and said, “Do I need a permission slip to leave?”
The cop chuckled. “No, go have fun. I’ll be here.”
Cat got off the bench and pushed through the crowd. She drew stares from the men in the beer hall, as she always did. It didn’t matter who they were, young, old, married, single. She was used to the looks. When she got to the taps, Curt took her by the shoulders and shoved her to the front. He waved at a skinny white boy in a tie-dye T-shirt and jeans, who was pouring a #21 ale. “Wyatt! She’s here! Cat’s here!”
Wyatt wandered her way with the bow-legged walk of a cowboy and handed the IPA across the bar to Curt. He wiped his hands on a towel and then extended one for Cat to shake. When he spoke, his boyish voice was more like a mumble. “Wyatt Miller. Really nice to meet you.”
“Cat Mateo.”
Curt picked up a glass of kombucha from the bar along with his beer and headed back to the bench. “You two talk! I have to get this to Colly.”
Cat opened her mouth to protest being left alone, but Curt had already disappeared into the crowd. She forced a smile onto her face for Wyatt, and he smiled back at her. He wasn’t bad-looking, but Colleen was right that he was woodsy. He wore an orange bandanna, and his reddish-blond dreadlocks dangled from his head and tumbled over his shoulders like a den of snakes. He had a gold, wispy beard. His nose was wide and flat, his cheeks sunburnt red, and he had very pale eyebrows over brown eyes. The smile he gave her was a little shy and reserved. He was probably in his early twenties.
“Can I get you something?” Wyatt asked. “I mean, not beer. I know you’re only eighteen. But if you want pop or tea or coffee or whatever. On the house.”
His nervousness made him ramble.
“I’m fine,” Cat said. “Curt says you’re new in town.”
“Yeah, I got here a month ago. I used to live in Boulder, but I figured, water over mountains.”
“Sure.”
“What about you? You grow up here?”
“Yup, I’m a Duluth girl.” She searched for something to say. “Colleen says you like opera.”
“Love it. What about you?”
“Um, it’s okay, I guess. I don’t know much about it. I hear you have a cat.”
“Me? No.”
“Colleen said you liked to play with your cat.”
“Well, my neighbors have a cat, and I let him into my apartment sometimes. He keeps me company.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What about you? Does Cat have a cat?”
“No. No cat.”
A full minute of silence followed. This was unquestionably one of the least promising fix-ups of Cat’s entire life.
“Well, I should get back to my friends,” she said.
“Sure. Sure. I understand. Listen, do you mind if I call you sometime? The thing is, I’ve seen pictures and thought you were gorgeous, but meeting you in person, I was so wrong. You’re like one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever met.”
Damn.
She couldn’t simply dump him after he said that.
“Tell you what, give me your number, and I’ll call you,” Cat said.
“Cool.”
Wyatt bent over and scribbled something on a small piece of paper. His dreadlocks dangled over his face as he wrote. He folded the note and pushed it across the bar. “It was great to meet you, Cat.”
She fingered the paper in front of her. “Yeah. Same here.”
“See ya,” Wyatt said.
“See ya.”
He headed down the row of taps to wait on another customer. Cat idly took the paper with his phone number in her hand. She didn’t want to crumple it and throw it away in case Wyatt was still watching. Instead, she flipped it open.
When she did, her head shot up, looking to see if Wyatt was staring back at her. And he was. He poured beer at the other end of the bar, but he watched her with the same smile on his face he’d been wearing all along. Like he was waiting to see what she would do.
Like he was daring her to notice.
Cat tried to hide her reaction. She forced herself to smile back, and then she practically ran to get away from the bar.
She had the note in her hand with Wyatt’s name and phone number.
It was written in lime-green marker.
13
Andrea awoke with a start in the middle of the night.
She always slept lightly, attuned to any unfamiliar sound. The bedroom was black except for the red glow of the clock on her nightstand, which told her it was nearly four in the morning. She stare
d at the ceiling, eyes wide open. Her ears pricked up, listening for whatever had awakened her. Her heart hammered in her chest. It didn’t take much to bring the memories back.
A noise. A smell. A touch on the shoulder. And just like that, she’d be back in the darkness. Under him. Struggling.
It never went away.
You are not seventeen years old.
She climbed out of bed in her white silk pajamas. The master bedroom was at the back of the house, with windows on the rear wall facing the lake and windows on the adjacent corner looking down on the neighborhood basketball courts. Sometimes kids hung out there overnight. She swept aside the curtains but saw no teenagers in the park below her.
The bedroom felt colder than usual. She liked it warm, and she typically kept the heat on even during the summers, but she found herself shivering. When she went to the doorway, a draft sneaked up the stairs. Somewhere in the house, a window or door was open. That was never how she left it.
Then, below her, the downstairs floorboards shifted. Someone who was trying to be quiet gave themselves away. She wasn’t alone.
He was back.
Andrea felt all of her emotions drain out of her. The panic left her entirely, and something robotic took over her mind like a strange, dead calm. She backed away from the bedroom door, conscious that she was making noise herself. She wanted him to know that she was awake. If he heard her, if he knew she was listening to him, then he would leave.
It always worked that way.
He never hurts you.
But Andrea took no chances. She opened the drawer of her nightstand and found her 9 mm pistol. She always kept it fully loaded, magazine in place. She pulled out the gun, which was heavy in her hand. The feel of it gave her strength. She had to use effort to drag back the slide and load a cartridge, but the click told her she was ready to shoot.
She carried the gun back to the doorway and stared into the gloom at the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m armed,” she called. “I have a gun. You need to go.”
If he was there, he held his breath, not making a sound. She flipped on the light switch, and bright light filled the foyer, making her squint. She anticipated a thunder of footfalls as he escaped, but the house was silent.
Andrea cradled the gun with both hands, her right index finger along the barrel. That was how Denise had taught her. She took the steps one at a time, stopping to listen. The air from outside got colder. Near the base of the stairs, she could see the front door, which was closed and locked. No one was waiting for her. The draft came from the other side, the back door in the kitchen. She got to the last step, swung left, and slipped her finger around the trigger.
She could see all the way to the rear of the house. It was empty. He’d stolen away while she was getting her gun. Still ready to fire, she continued to the end of the hallway and confirmed that no one was in the kitchen. The back door was ajar, letting in a whistle of wind.
He’d left a package for her on the kitchen table, the way he always did.
Andrea took the gun outside and descended the warped back steps in her bare feet and stood in the wet grass. The wind tore up the hillside and rattled the trees. She couldn’t see much, but she knew he was still out here. Somewhere, he was watching her, because she could feel his eyes like fingertips on her neck.
“I know it’s you,” she called. “It’s been a while. I didn’t think you were coming back. Why now?”
She walked up to a rusted fence behind her property. Across a stretch of green grass was a cluster of trees. That was where he was, somewhere in those shadows.
“Who are you? Why do you do this?”
There was no answer. There never was. She turned away and walked back inside the house. She slammed the door behind her and locked it, although locks couldn’t protect her. Somehow, he always knew how to get inside. She emptied the cartridge from the gun and laid it on the kitchen table, and at that point, she finally broke down. Her knees buckled, and she slid to the floor. Tears fell down her face. Her shoulders jerked as she sobbed, letting out all her fear.
When she was done, she wiped her face and got up again.
The foil box waited for her on the kitchen table. It was like all the others before, silver, with a yellow bow on top. Her fingers trembling, she took it and removed the lid. She knew what she would find inside. A suncatcher to add to the collection he’d created for her. This one was round, with a white dove in the center, its wings spread. The bird flew in front of a yellow sun, which gave out beams of light that broke into pieces of red, blue, green, orange, and purple glass.
The suncatchers had arrived many times in the past seven years. She’d never seen who it was; she’d never been able to catch him in the act. In the early days, he’d been discreet, leaving the boxes outside, on a doorstep, on the railing of her back porch. It had seemed like a game then, surprises from a secret admirer. Later, he’d grown bolder and darker, breaking inside her house to leave his tokens behind. That was when she was alone and divorced.
She had more than twenty of the suncatchers now. Instead of smashing them, instead of throwing them away, she kept them. At some point, she’d begun to hang them on her kitchen window. She couldn’t even explain to herself why she did that. Maybe she wanted him to see them and realize she wasn’t scared of his nighttime visits.
Or maybe it was something else.
It had been nearly a year since the last one arrived. That was the longest gap without receiving one, and she’d assumed he was done, or gone, or dead. Strangely, she’d almost missed him.
But now he was back.
The timing couldn’t be a coincidence. He’d come back right after Ned Baer’s body had been found, which had a strange symmetry. The very first of the suncatchers had shown up the summer that Ned Baer arrived on her doorstep. Someone had been sending her a message. He still was.
She took the suncatcher out of the box and held it in her hands, and then she looked for the note. There was always a note, written on a fold-over card in block handwriting.
It was the same message every time.
Forgive every sin.
14
Dan Erickson hadn’t changed.
Maggie hadn’t seen Dan in more than five years, but when he came into the conference room the next morning, it was as if no time had passed. His cologne always advertised his arrival. He wasn’t tall, but if she measured by ego, he was a basketball player, and he walked into every room like he owned it. His skin had the artificial glow of hours spent in a tanning bed. His hair was blond, with a trimmed corporate cut. He wore a well-tailored dark suit with a loud red tie that made people notice him.
She couldn’t deny to herself that he looked good. He always did. He still made her feel like a naïve kid, having sex with a married man, foolishly thinking he’d leave his wife to be with her. Dan slumped into a chair and leaned far back, putting his leather shoes on the table. His lips drew into a Tom Cruise grin.
“Maggie, Maggie, Maggie.”
“Hello, Dan.”
“I like the long hair. It looks good. I was never a fan of the bowl cut.”
“I’m so relieved. If you didn’t like it, I would have gone right out and cut it off.”
He chuckled at her sarcasm. “Oh, Maggie, still the same. Still that sharp tongue of yours. Of course, I won’t lie, your tongue was always one of your best features.”
“Fuck you, Dan.”
He didn’t look offended. “And the nasty mouth, too! Dirty talk turns me on, but I’m sure you remember that. Come on, Maggie, lighten up. I was excited when K-2 said we’d be working together. You, me, just like the good old days.”
“I don’t remember the old days being very good,” Maggie replied.
“Seriously? I’m disappointed. How many years has it been since we had our little fling? I assumed we were finally past the hard feelin
gs. I mean, come on, it didn’t last long.”
“As I recall, nothing about you lasted very long.”
“Ouch! Another poison arrow. Look, I know you and Stride were hoping you’d seen the last of me, but here I am. The bad penny back again.”
He was right about that. Dan was a punching bag who kept bouncing back and never stayed down for too long. In his early years as the St. Louis County Attorney, he’d been buzzed about as a statewide political candidate. He had the right connections, the right look, the right wife, the right bank account. But when his appetites got the better of him, he’d lost it all, including his wife. Dan had resigned in disgrace, but he’d remade himself since then as a corporate lawyer. Judging by his appearance, he’d made back most of the money he lost.
Dan opened the thick police file in front of him. “Shall we get down to work? What do you think? Did Stride do it?”
Maggie gave him a frozen look. “Dan, if you can’t be objective—”
“I’m being completely objective,” he replied. “I read the file. I heard your interview. Stride’s the obvious suspect.”
“Well, he didn’t do it. He told me flat out in my interview that he didn’t do it.”
“Oh, wow, a suspect denied committing murder during interrogation? Shut down the investigation and let’s all go home. Is that the standard you’d apply in any other case, Maggie? Seems to me the only one not being objective here is you.”
Maggie hated being outdueled, and she hated even more that Dan was right. “Okay. You’re in charge, not me. How do you want to proceed?”
Dan’s eyes glittered with satisfaction. “That’s more like it. I like seeing the submissive side of you. Look, I know you and Stride go way back and you think he’s innocent. I also won’t deny that he and I have had our difficulties over the years. That doesn’t mean I’m out to get him, but it also doesn’t mean he gets a free pass. As far as I’m concerned, we treat him the way we would any other suspect. We go where the evidence takes us. Period. That work for you?”
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