Brian Freeman - Stalked

She felt Stride's arm around her.

"I'm okay," she said again.

Abel Teitscher stabbed a shrimp from a greasy paper plate, where it was swimming in a candy-red sauce. It was rubbery as he chewed, but his tongue relished the sweet-and-sour tang, even though it tasted burnt. He took a forkful of fried rice, too, and then washed it all down with a sip of green tea. He leaned back against the stiff frame of his old sofa and watched a school of lemon tetras race around his fish tank in streaks of shining blue.

Sinatra was singing softly on the stereo. Ring-a-ding-ding.

It was a Monday like any other Monday, and like lots of Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as well. Potsticker Palace. Old music. Bubbles whooshing in the tank. "Dad, you've got to get out more," his daughter told him when she called from San Diego, but it was easy to say that when you were living in California.

She was right, though. He was lonely. It wasn't warm enough yet for the spring crime wave to wash over the city, so he didn't have to spend his evenings closeted away in his cubicle in City Hall. Sometimes that was easier than being home.

His doorbell rang, surprising him. He twisted around and looked out the living room window and saw a dirty Ford Taurus under the streetlight that he didn't recognize. He got up, noticing the wrinkles in his untucked white dress shirt. His gray slacks were baggy, because his waist had shrunk by a couple inches in the past year, and he hadn't bothered buying new clothes. He just cinched his belt tighter.

He opened the door.

"Hello, Abel," Nicole Castro said.

They stared at each other across the threshold. He felt self-conscious standing there, wondering if he had Chinese sauce on his mouth. He wiped his face. "Hi."

"Can I come in? It's okay, I'm not going to kill you."

"Funny."

He pulled the door wide, and Nicole wandered into the living room. She was dressed in a Minnesota Vikings jersey and jeans, with a new pair of Nikes. Her gray hair was still short, a prison cut. Her hands were in her pockets. She looked as uncomfortable as he felt.

"I heard you got out," he said. "I'm happy for you."

"Yeah. Free bird, that's me."

She stood in the middle of the room, biting her lower lip.

"You want some Chinese?" he said.

"No, that's okay. It looks like cherry barf, Abel."

"Yeah, it's only so-so, but it's kind of a routine for me."

"Uh-huh."

He rubbed his own flattop steel hair and tried to think of something to say. "Look, I'm sorry, Nicole. I don't know what else I can tell you. I didn't trust you, and I was wrong."

"Actually, I came here to apologize to you."

"What the hell for?"

"For thinking you set me up all these years."

"I would never do that," Abel said.

"Yeah, well, I know that now. I guess I needed someone to blame, you know. You were a big ol' white target."

Abel sat down on the sofa and put his hands on his knees. "I didn't see the big picture. I saw the evidence, and that was it. The evidence said you were guilty, so you were. Same thing with Maggie."

"Not like you were the only one."

"You want to sit down?" he asked.

Nicole shook her head. "I can't stay. I'm driving south. My son and my momma are in Knoxville, and I'm moving down there."

"You going to join the force?"

"No way, not for me. Forget that. I don't want to put anyone in prison ever again, know what I mean? I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand the idea of being wrong. No, momma's got a restaurant, I'll probably work there."

"What kind of restaurant? Chinese?"

Nicole laughed. "That's a good one. I forgot you could be funny."

"I guess I did, too."

She looked around the living room and frowned. "What the hell are you still doing here, Abel? Ain't it about time you got yourself a life? That whore you were married to is long gone, so why hang around?"

He winced, but she was right. His ex-wife had sucker punched him, and he was still sitting here gasping for air. "I wound up in a ditch, and I was stuck for so long I figured I must like it there," he said.

"Well, go down to the pancake breakfast at church and get yourself a chicky."

Abel snorted. "I forgot how to date about forty years ago."

"I'm not talking about dating, I'm talking about getting yourself some." She grinned. Her teeth were yellowed. She was ten years younger than he was, but they could have passed for the same age. He felt responsible.

"You won't believe this, but I miss having you as a partner," Abel said.

"That's 'cause I was the only one who would put up with your shit."

He nodded. "Yeah, you're right about that."

"What say you dump that Chinese barf, and you and I go to dinner someplace, huh? Before I leave town. For old times."

"My treat," he said.

"Damn right it's your treat."

Maggie tilted a bottle of imported lager to her lips and drained the last third, then tossed it into the pile of empties on the sand. "You know what I would have paid good money to see?" she said.

Stride and Serena both looked up, and the orange glow of the bonfire reflected on their skin.

"What?" Stride asked.

Maggie began giggling. "I would have loved to see your face when your beloved Bronco sank to the bottom of that lake."

Serena laughed, too.

"Hey," Stride said. "That's not funny."

The two women laughed so hard they had to hold onto each other to avoid spilling backward off the driftwood.

"Are you kidding?" Maggie said. "I can't believe you didn't dive in after it."

"That truck was a classic."

"Oh, Jonny, it was a piece of junk," Serena said. "It had like six hundred thousand miles on it."

"It was only a hundred and seventy-five," Stride said. He finished his own beer and retrieved the bratwurst that was blackening on a skewer and dripping fat with a rich sizzle onto the circle of flames. He blew on it and bit off its head and sighed. "Oh, man, that's good."

It was the middle of the night. The three of them had stayed on the beach behind Stride's house for hours, stoking the fire pit, watching the stars, and listening to the slap of lake waves a few yards away. The March night was cool, and snow lingered in patches on the sand, but winter had loosened its grip, giving sea-blue color back to the gray sky. The sweetness in the air tasted like spring. It was the time of year when every Minnesotan in the north knew that they weren't yet safe from a late fist of icy anger descending on the arrowhead, but time was on their side.

"I haven't shown you my new trick," Serena told Maggie.

"Go for it."

Serena breathed in slowly through her nose, swelling her chest until her lungs were completely filled with air. For weeks, she had been unable to take a deep breath without a fit of coughing. Now, she held it for fifteen seconds, then thirty, then forty-five.

"Honey, that's great," Maggie said. She added, "How are the legs?"

Stride saw Serena catch his eye before responding. It was sensitive ground. He was so used to thinking of Serena as tough that it brought him up short to find her breaking into tears over how she looked. He told her over and over to be patient and that, however it worked out, it didn't matter to him at all. That got him nowhere. It mattered to her.

"I'm not going to be modeling any swimsuits this summer," Serena said, and her voice had an edge. Stride thought the thin ice holding her up might give away again, but she took another deep breath. "But I'm doing better. It stings when I walk since the last surgery, but that only lasts a few days. It doesn't feel like alligator skin anymore."

The day before, she had lingered in front of a mirror. She hadn't done that in a long time.

"What about you?" Serena asked.

"Don't you worry about me," Maggie said, lifting her arms over her head. "It's spring. My favorite time of year. The lakes melt, the rivers melt, and the bodies all come drifting ashore. I feel like a catcher in the rye."