The Cold Nowhere (8 page)

Stride studied the teenager’s face. She looked away. Her legs unfurled, and she pulled a foot nimbly into her hand and flecked
red paint off her toenails. He eyed her boots on the floor. ‘Give it to me,’ he said.

‘Huh?’

He got off the sofa and dug inside her boot. The first boot was empty. In the second, he found a medical knife, its blade swathed in gauze. He tightened his fingers around it and frowned at Cat, who grew teary. ‘You stole this at the clinic.’

She bit her lip and nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t like the idea of you carrying a knife,’ he said.

‘I already told you. It’s for protection.’

‘Is that all it is?’

‘Sure, what else?’

‘Have you ever used it?’

Cat tugged her robe tighter across her body. ‘No! What are you saying?’

‘I was wondering if you’d ever been with someone where you felt threatened.’

‘Not like that,’ she murmured, but teenagers were bad liars. She was hiding something. He sighed and sat down next to her again.

‘Listen, Cat, if I’m going to find out who’s stalking you, or if you’re in any danger, I need to know what’s really going on in your life. You have to tell me everything.’

She nodded earnestly. ‘Sure, yes.’

‘You said this started three weeks ago with someone outside your house. Is that right?’

‘Yes. Well, sort of.’

‘Did something else happen before then?’ Stride asked.

‘Not really. I’m not sure. The thing is, I heard that somebody was looking for me. One of the street girls, Brandy, told me about it. Brandy’s a real head case. Crazy eyes. I saw her down near the graffiti graveyard and she cornered me before I could get away. She told me someone was asking around about me and I better watch out.’

‘Did she say who?’

‘No, I figured she was just messing with me, you know? Then, a week later, I saw someone at the house. That’s when I started to run.’

‘How can I find Brandy?’ Stride asked.

‘Talk to Curt. He knows where all the girls are.’

‘Curt Dickes?’

Cat nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘You shouldn’t hang out with him.’

‘Oh, Curt’s not so bad. He’s greasy but funny. When I need something, he helps me out.’

‘That’s not the kind of help you need,’ Stride said.

‘Yeah, I guess.’

Cat climbed off the sofa and Stride gestured at the spare bedroom, where he’d put a few bags from Target with new clothes in. ‘Why don’t you go get dressed? I want to talk to the Greens and check out the area around your house. You can come with me.’

Cat froze. She crouched in front of the sofa with her hands on his knees and shook her head frantically. ‘Don’t make me go back there! Please, I don’t want to!’

‘I’ll be with you,’ Stride said.

‘No, just let me stay here. I’ll be fine.’

Stride watched the pleading in her face. It was as if he’d suggested putting her in a cage. He didn’t tell her his real concern, which was that she would be gone when he returned. Without someone watching her, she would become a runaway again, lost somewhere in the wind.

‘Okay, listen,’ he said. ‘There’s a young woman house-sitting one of the mansions down the Point. Her name’s Kim Dehne. I’ll see if you can hang out with her while I’m gone.’

‘I don’t need a babysitter.’

‘Kim’s not a babysitter. I’d just feel better if you weren’t alone. You’ll like her.’

Cat twirled her hair around her fingers. ‘Yeah, okay. Sure. Whatever.’

‘You leave home a lot,’ Stride added. ‘It’s not safe to be on the streets by yourself. It puts you in dangerous situations. Why do you do it? Why don’t you stay with the Greens?’

‘I don’t like it there.’

‘Are there problems?’

‘Everybody’s got problems.’

Stride pointed at her bare calf, where her skin showed the fading colors of an old bruise. ‘Someone hit you. Where did you get that?’

‘Brandy,’ she said.

‘Why did she hurt you?’

‘Because that’s who she is.’

‘Does anybody else hurt you?’ he asked.

Cat didn’t answer him. She swiveled nervously on her knees and pulled a strand of hair through her pale lips. ‘Can I ask
you
something?’

‘Sure,’ he said.

‘Why are you alone?’

‘That’s a good question.’

‘You weren’t alone when my mother was alive.’

‘No, I was married to a woman named Cindy,’ he said. ‘She was my high school sweetheart.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘Cindy died of cancer.’

‘Sorry. It sucks to lose people.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘What about that woman who was in the house this morning?’

‘Maggie’s my police partner,’ Stride explained.

‘There’s nobody else? How about that woman whose clothes you gave me? Serena.’

Stride realized that Cat didn’t miss much. ‘Serena and I aren’t together right now.’

‘That’s sad.’

‘It is what it is,’ he said.

Cat pushed off her knees and kissed him on the cheek. Her breath smelled of peppermint. He saw a small birthmark on her forehead, like a dimple. When she stared at him, he recognized her eyes from long ago, when she was a child, and it took him back to those days.

Bad days.

‘You’re looking at me funny,’ she said. ‘What is it? What do you see?’

‘You look like your mother,’ he said.

It was January. Insanely cold – twenty degrees below zero. Stride felt the wind chewing like maggots at his face. Beside him, Michaela appeared unaffected. He wore a wool cap pulled down over his ears, but she wore no hat, and her straight black hair blew loosely into a bird’s nest around her cheeks.

‘He’s back,’ Michaela told him. ‘Marty snuck into Catalina’s bedroom last night after I was asleep. She won’t say anything to me about it, but I know he was here.’

Stride stared at the girl playing in the winter yard. She was bundled up in a white down coat that was so thick she could barely move her arms, and her pink scarf flew behind her as she chased a smattering of dead leaves. A stand of evergreens towered over her, and behind the trees, the red-and-green lights of antenna towers flashed like sentinels. He smelled smoke. Someone had built a wood fire. Below the porch, he spotted the tracks of deer and rabbits crinkling the fresh snow.

‘Did you talk to her about it?’ he asked.

Michaela’s warm eyes never left her child. ‘All she does is giggle and say it’s a secret. She doesn’t understand. Marty brings her gifts and she hides them from me. What can I do? He’s her father, and she still loves him.’

‘The protective order says he can’t come near either of you,’ Stride said. ‘If he violates again, we can get him back behind bars.’

‘Don’t you think he knows that?’ Michaela asked. ‘He’s careful. He’s smart.’

‘If you see him, you call me.’

‘I never see him, but I know he’s been here.’

She didn’t show fear, but he knew she was afraid. In the years Marty Gamble had spent in Michaela’s life, he’d beaten her savagely on multiple occasions. The last incident had cost him a third-degree assault conviction, with a sentence of almost two years, but he’d spent only forty-five days behind bars before his release on probation. The dirty secret of criminal prosecutions was that it was hard to spend any real time in prison without killing someone or using a gun.

‘You know what I’m going to tell you,’ Stride said. He’d encouraged her over and over to leave town. Run somewhere far away. Hide.

‘Yes, and you know how I feel about it, Jonathan. I’ve worked like hell to make a life for me and Catalina these past six years. To have a home. I won’t give it up because of him.’

Stride wished she weren’t so stubborn, but he knew how she felt. His own cottage on the Point, with Cindy, was a hundred-year-old matchbox, and nothing ever worked. The winter wind sailed through the cracks. The roof leaked. Mice ran underneath the pilings and gnawed through the walls. Even so, they wouldn’t have lived anywhere else. Michaela felt the same way. She’d scraped together a down payment on a house that was barely larger than a trailer, in a section of the city known as the Antenna Farm. It was heavily wooded, with dirt roads, on the peak of a hillside only blocks from the downtown streets. Crossing into the Antenna Farm was like driving into the rural badlands. There was no money there. Michaela and Cat slept in two tiny bedrooms and shared a single bathroom and shower. It didn’t look like a dream, but for Michaela, that was exactly what it was. Her dream. Her escape.

Leaving would have been as bad as dying.

She put a cold hand on his face. She wasn’t even wearing gloves. ‘You look tired, Jonathan. I haven’t heard from you in weeks. I’ve been worried. Are you all right?’

‘It’s the long hours,’ he said. ‘Maggie and I have been working a home invasion case since before Christmas. We finally found the gun that killed the wife and recovered the stolen jewelry. It was an Asian gang member from the Cities. We got him off the streets for good. I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch, but I’ve been thinking about you.’

‘So have I. I saw Dr. Steve last week. I’m afraid I prattled on about you.’

‘I told Cindy that I was seeing you tonight. She said that you and Catalina should come for dinner soon.’

Michaela smiled. ‘I’d like that. I would love to meet the woman who stole your heart.’

When he said nothing, a cloud passed over Michaela’s face, as if she realized she’d said the wrong thing. She covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she went on. ‘I didn’t mean anything. Did you tell her that I … ?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Thank you. I’m embarrassed.’

‘You shouldn’t be.’

Michaela shivered in the cold for the first time. ‘Catalina!’ she called from the porch. ‘Come now, let’s go inside.’

The girl pretended she didn’t hear her mother calling. She fell on her back, making a snow angel. Her cheeks were pink and wet.

‘Catalina!’ Michaela called again testily. She shook her head. ‘That child,’ she said to Stride.

‘As stubborn as her mother,’ he replied.

Michaela laughed, and it made Stride wish that she laughed more often. He liked to see the sadness lift from her face, even briefly. She wasn’t classically beautiful, but he found it impossible not to stare at her. She had dark chocolate eyes. Her nose was rounded and small. For her young age – she was only twenty-six – she already carried the weight of her past, like a smoke ring that never cleared. He could see the lingering effects of the ferocious beatings she’d endured. The scar on her forehead. The dent in her jaw where it had been broken. The wince of pain tightening her lips when she moved.

Her laughter melted, and she gripped the wobbly wooden railing of the porch. ‘Marty is convinced you and I are having an affair,’ she said. ‘I talked to his cousin Bill.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I told him no, of course, but Marty won’t believe anything I say. Sooner or later, he’ll get drunk and come back for me. You know that.’

‘If it would be better, I don’t have to come here myself. I could send someone else to check in on you.’

‘It wouldn’t matter. He thinks he owns me. Besides, I look forward to seeing you. So does Catalina.’

‘She’s a sweetheart.’

Michaela beamed, watching her child in the snow. The girl was dancing now, like a ballerina around the outline of her angel. ‘Sometimes I can’t believe God gave her to me after all my mistakes. I led such a stupid life after I lost my parents. All the parties, all the drugs, all the bad boys. Back then, I thought I deserved the things that Marty did to me.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘Girls can be blind, Jonathan. I loved him. He was tough and hard. That was what I thought I wanted. When we had Catalina, I hoped he would grow up, and I guess he did, a little. He’s good to her. It’s me that he hates.’

Stride said nothing. He saw no goodness at all in Marty Gamble. The man’s chiseled face was emblazoned on his brain: a tattooed skinhead skull, square chin, thin, flattened nose. His eyes were blue marbles. He had scars on his knuckles. He wasn’t tall, but he was buff from lifting weights and boxing at the Y. When he was drunk, his temper was like rocket fuel.

‘Dory tells me I’m a fool,’ Michaela went on. ‘She knew he was a monster from the beginning. She would scream at him to stay away from me, and Marty just laughed at her. It’s pretty sad when your drug-addict little sister has better judgment in men than you do. I wish I’d listened.’

‘This isn’t your fault.’

‘Oh, some of it is my fault. We make our choices, and Marty was my choice. I have to live with that.’ Her face grew worried, and she added,
‘Dory sounded frantic when I talked to her yesterday. Worse than usual. I think Marty went to see her. He’s probably not stupid enough to harm her, but I’m worried.’

‘I’ll have Maggie talk to her.’

‘Thank you.’

Michaela took his arm. It was a simple, warm gesture, but her closeness made him draw back. She knew she’d crossed a line, but before she could remove her hand, her fingers tightened into a vise around his coat. Her whole body stiffened like a wire.

‘Jonathan,’ she said sharply.

He followed her eyes to the road. At the end of her rural lot, he saw the twin gleam of headlights in the darkness. The car lights shot toward the house, illuminating the two of them like escaped prisoners. Catalina, in the snow below the porch, stared curiously at the bright eyes.

‘Get inside,’ Stride told Michaela.

Michaela ran down the porch steps and scooped the little girl into her arms. Catalina squealed in protest, but Michaela carried her inside, slamming the door of the little house behind her. Stride was alone. He marched down the long driveway, shielding his eyes. He drew his gun into his hand. Whoever was in the car let Stride get within twenty yards before lurching backward between the trees. The wheels roared and spun on the dirt. The driver leaned into the horn, blaring noise through the quiet night like a victory wail. By the time Stride bolted into the middle of the snow-rutted road, the car had disappeared. Even the tail lights were gone.

He stood there, holding his gun, his other fist clenched, powerless.

When he returned to the house, Michaela stood on the porch again, blocking the door. Catalina was inside.