Brian Freeman - The Cold Nowhere

‘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.’