Brian Freeman - Stalked

"I'm going to love watching your eyes," he said.

The sand gathered in the bottom of the hourglass.

Her fingers were flat on the floor. She reached again and this time felt the piece of metal slide under her palm, where she scooped it into her hand and prayed.

It was a fish hook. Sharp as hell.

Maggie grew increasingly desperate as she crisscrossed the streets of Duluth. The weather made it worse. Her windshield wipers sloughed aside snow, but the downpour was so heavy that she could see little more than a swirling sea of white powder through the beams of her headlights. She squinted to see where she was going, and the car veered and fishtailed on the unplowed streets. The glowing clock in her Avalanche told her it was nearly four in the morning. They had several hours of darkness left, and even when the sun rose, it would be behind an impenetrable blanket of black clouds. The storm would still be howling, spilling a foot of snow over the city and then billowing it into house-high drifts with a wind that swept down from the Canadian tundra and blinded everything.

No one else was out on the streets, not at this hour and not in the middle of the storm. The cars were mounds of white, pasted over with snow-caps. When she passed a van that fit the right size and shape, she had to get out of her truck and brush off enough snow with her hands to make sure that it wasn't the missing vehicle from Byte Patrol.

As she passed along the south end of Portland Square on Fourth Street, she saw windows of light in a house on the opposite side of the park and realized that it was Katrina's upstairs apartment. She must have had every light in the place turned on, and Maggie knew why. For weeks after it happened, she found herself up in the middle of the night, turning on lights and sitting in the kitchen with her gun in reach on the table. It was irrational, but that was what fear did to you.

She turned left and drove around the square to the north side and parked near Katrina's building. When she got out of the car, the gales almost knocked her over. She fought through drifts on the sidewalk and then ducked into the protection of Katrina's doorway. She rang the doorbell.

Katrina's voice crackled through the speaker. "Who is it?"

"It's Maggie."

"Oh. Hi. Come on up."

Maggie tromped upstairs, leaving wet footprints on the steps. Katrina stood in the doorway with the door open when she reached the second floor. She was wearing an extra-large Minnesota Wild T-shirt that stretched to the middle of her thighs. Her legs were bare.

"Sorry it's so late," Maggie said.

"I was up."

"Yeah, I figured."

Katrina nodded. "I was watching TV. I know what's going on with your friend Serena. Sounds bad."

"It is."

"Is it the same guy who…?"

"We think so, yeah."

"You want to come in?"

"For a couple of minutes, sure."

Maggie took off her coat inside and hung it near the door. She did the same with her hat and gloves. Snow melted and dripped on the carpet. Katrina had the gas fireplace turned on, and it gave off a little heat when Maggie sat near the hearth on the yellow futon. Katrina shuffled to the opposite end, and they stared at each other.

"Look, I suppose I should say I'm sorry," Maggie said.

"Why?"

"Because I never reported what happened. Maybe we could have caught this guy before he got to you."

"It's not your fault."

"How are you? How do you feel?"

"Like an empty milk carton, nothing inside."

"It won't always be like that."

"Did you feel the same way?"

Maggie shook her head. "I was out of my skull. I couldn't stop crying."

"Tell me something. Have you had sex since it happened?"

Maggie shook her head.

"Me neither. Thinking about sex makes me nauseous. I feel like he took that away from me, the bastard."

"Give it time." Maggie's guilt showed in her face again. "I wish I'd said something."

"Let it go," Katrina told her. "You don't owe anybody but yourself."

"Stride doesn't get it," Maggie said.

"He's a man. It didn't happen to him. You can't live your life around what he thinks."

"I'm not doing that."

"No? That's a switch."

"He's my safety net. You know that. When things got bad with Eric, I found myself turning to Stride again. It's safe, because I know he's not interested in me anyway."

"Don't be so sure of that."

"Please. I'm a kid as far as he's concerned. And it's not like I can compete with someone like Serena anyway."

"So start living in the real world," Katrina told her. "What do you really want?"

"I have no idea."

"Bullshit. I think you do."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, there's only one thing you've wanted for the last two years. And it's not Stride, and it's not Eric, either."

"A kid," Maggie said.

"Bingo."

"Well, so much for that dream. Three strikes, and I'm out."

"You don't know that."

Maggie shook her head. "No way. I'm not going through that roller coaster again. Get my hopes up and my hormones up, and then feel like my life is over when I lose it for the fourth time? No, thanks. Besides, I'm missing half the equation now. No husband."

"A husband is like an optional extra."

"It's too soon to think about it," Maggie said.

"You could adopt."

"Oh, sure, a single Chinese immigrant, a cop who was suspected in her husband's murder. I'm going to be tops on everyone's list."

"Just think about it."

"Yeah, I will."

The truth was, she had thought about it already. She had even made some calls.

"You want a drink?" Katrina asked.

"I could drink a whole bottle, but no, I can't."

"Are you working?"

Maggie nodded. "Unofficially, but yeah. We've got most of the force out trying to find this son of a bitch. We just don't know where to look."

"Well, I hope you get him. As far as I'm concerned, they can skip the trial and put him in the electric chair. I'll tell you right where they can attach the electrodes, baby."

"Yeah."

"Do you have nightmares?" Katrina asked.

Maggie nodded. "All the time."

"Me too. I keep reliving it, but it's like I'm watching a movie, you know? Like it happened to someone else."

"I've pretty much blocked it out," Maggie confessed. "Usually, I remember everything, but I've built a wall around that night and what happened."

"Lucky you." Katrina added, "Listen, I never should have done the alpha girl thing. I could tell you weren't comfortable with it."

"That was me. I wasn't going to tell you what to do."

"Yeah, but it was in your eyes, girlie. I should have known how awkward it would be. I mean, I never really figured Eric would be there, you know? Hell, I don't know what I was thinking. It was stupid."

Maggie frowned. "I never dreamed you would go through what I went through. After. When it happened to me, I never made the connection to the club. I feel like I let you paint a target on your chest."

"Big target," Katrina said.

"You know what I mean."

"Hey, the worst part for me wasn't the sex thing or having my face look like rainbow ice cream. It's losing my appetite for fish and chips." She laughed sourly.

"What are you talking about?" Maggie asked.

"Come on, I can't even walk past the fish counter in the supermarket. The smell makes it all come back."

Maggie's face was blank. "I don't get it."

Katrina's face scrunched up with surprise. "You telling me you can still eat fish after what happened?"

"Actually, no, you're right. I haven't been able to stomach it for weeks. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Wow, you really did block it out. Well, good for you. I shouldn't have said anything. The fact is, the guy's hands smelled like fish. Even through the gloves. It was this dank, briny smell, like he was underwater. Awful."