Brian Freeman - The Cold Nowhere

‘What was Huizenfelt working on before she disappeared?’ Stride asked.

Maggie shook her head. ‘Nobody knows. Her notes, her laptop, everything was gone. Somebody wanted to cover it up.’

‘Okay, I’ll talk to Cat,’ he said.

‘There’s somebody else you need to talk to, boss.’

Stride knew who she meant.

Serena.

The Margot Huizenfelt disappearance was Serena’s case.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’ll call her.’

‘Lucky you.’ Her voice was curt.

‘Mags.’

She said nothing. They’d both put their hands on a hot stove.

He knew she saw something in his eyes that was missing when he looked at her. She’d wanted him to be wildly in love when they were together, but it just wasn’t in his heart. Not when he was in love with someone else.

She turned and stalked for the doorway but stopped as Stride’s office phone started ringing, like an alarm bell between them. It was Saturday night. The phone rarely rang. He didn’t recognize the caller ID, but he picked it up, half-expecting to hear Serena’s voice. There had always been a kind of sixth sense between them.

‘Stride,’ he said.

‘It’s me, it’s me, oh God!’

‘ Cat? ’

The girl’s voice was choked with panic. ‘Help me!’

‘Cat, what’s going on? Where’s Kim?’

‘She told me to run — I know it was him — he was there!’

‘Cat, tell me what’s happening. Are you still at the house?’

‘No, no, no, I had to get out of there. I ran. Please help me!’

‘I’ll help you, just tell me where you are.’

‘I’m — I’m on the beach. On the Point.’

‘Stay there. Don’t move.’

‘No!’ Cat hissed into the phone, barely louder than a whisper. ‘No, I can’t stay. I have to go. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. He’s coming! ’

Cat pushed the phone back into the hands of the ten-year-old girl, whose damp round face peered curiously at her through the flaps of the bubble-shaped tent. The tent was pitched high on the beach, above the lake’s crashing waves. Raindrops slipped down the nylon like tears.

‘Are you okay?’ the girl asked.

Cat felt as if death were following her like a dog that wouldn’t go away. ‘Go inside,’ she told the girl. ‘Right now.’

‘But Mom and Dad said I could sleep out here tonight. We’re going camping in Canada next week.’

‘ Go inside! ’

The frightened girl scampered with her sleeping bag and pillow into the long grass and disappeared. Alone, Cat slogged through the heavy sand to the wet fringe of the beach, which was packed down like brown sugar. Rain spat on her face. White waves thundered from the lake and shocked her ankles in a swirling bath. The gauzy lights of the city tracked the hillside to the north. Behind her, everything was dark on the finger of the Point, but then she saw a flashlight beam whip like a laser from the water to the sand.

He was two hundred yards away. He’d found her.

She kicked through the water, dodging bleached driftwood littering the beach. Above the surf line, she labored frantically through humps of sand toward the city. The lift bridge over the ship canal towered like a giant barely half a block away, and spotlights on the piers made the web of steel shimmer. The rain intensified, falling in streaks through the light and blinding her eyes. Where the beach ended, she vaulted a low concrete wall into a small square of dead grass beside the bridge, and she lost her footing, spilling into the mud. Righting herself, she slid like an awkward dancer toward the bridge deck stretching across the water. Two hundred feet of interlocking steel looked down on her.

She was alone, but when she stared back down the Point, headlights flashed to life on the street. A car engine roared. His car.

She charged across the bridge with the wind assaulting her face. Below her, choppy lake water rose and sank in troughs between the piers. She couldn’t run fast enough to escape him, but as she neared the city side a deafening alarm clanged in her ear, and she jumped. She saw an ore freighter well beyond the piers, gleaming like an electric centipede as it steered for the harbor. A voice boomed over her head, and it could have been the voice of God.

The bridge was going up.

He wasn’t going to make it across.

She skidded off the bridge onto the sidewalk on the town side. The bell clamored, warning everyone away. She looked across to the Point side and saw his headlights trapped there, but her relief died in her chest. As she watched, helpless, the car shot onto the bridge deck just before the barriers fell.

With a scream, Cat dove toward the pier. She half-ran, half-fell through the slick grass to the walkway bordering the canal. Waves jostled against the concrete, sending spray over the low wall into huge puddles. The standing water mirrored the streetlights. She splashed through the water and ducked under the bridge. The wheels of the car whined on the honeycombed metal only inches above her head.

The car cleared the bridge and hit the wet street, but she didn’t hear the squeal of its brakes. It didn’t stop; it kept going, traveling deeper into Canal Park, farther away from her.

Cat hesitated, but she didn’t stop running. She sprinted to the end of the pier and turned the corner at the brick wall of the old Paulucci factory, which led her into an empty parking lot. She listened for a car engine; she watched for lights. She saw no one. Walking briskly now, she hugged the railing overlooking the water. The narrow channel led toward the big ore boat, the Charles Frederick . She reached a pedestrian bridge and jogged to the other side, which left her in front of the sprawling DECC complex. She stayed in the shadows of the convention center and made her way toward the south end of Harbor Drive.

She felt the burn of eyes from somewhere. He was still out there.

Cat reached the south-east corner of the DECC. The open harbor was on her left. The Duluth Aquarium was immediately across the street. She bit her lip and shivered in the cold. Her feet were soaked inside her boots. The road in front of her led toward the north-south overpasses of Interstate 35. Hidden under the freeway roadbeds was the graffiti graveyard, but to make it there she would have to cross a quarter-mile in the open, fully exposed. Anyone who was watching would see her.

She saw the blinking lights of the Antenna Farm high above the city, and it made her think of home. Her real home. It felt far away. She inched along the DECC’s south wall and checked each door. The DECC had so many doors in the huge complex that at least one door was usually open on any given night. Inside, it was a maze of dark rooms and corridors in which she could hide.

She reached the next corner, which faced north toward downtown. Near the DECC’s parking ramp, a long skywalk led all the way from the entertainment complex over the freeway into the heart of the city. She raced for the main entrance, which was a row of nearly twenty glass doors. She tried each door, one after another, but they were all locked.

Until the eighteenth door. The eighteenth door was open. Cat slipped inside out of the wet night.

She’d never been here, and she could barely see in front of her. She made her way past the lobby and found herself in a long, lightless hallway lined with doors. She opened each one but saw only empty meeting rooms with barren walls. She could tuck herself into a corner of one of the rooms, but there was nowhere to escape if he found her.

Cat held her breath.

Somewhere in the building, another door opened and closed. The sound was hollow; she didn’t know if it was ahead of her or behind her. All she knew was that she wasn’t alone anymore.