Cat didn’t leave immediately. The adrenaline of the jump had dissipated, and she felt a little sad and sorry for herself. As it got dark, she finally got to her feet and headed into the woods at a shuffling pace, kicking at the dirt and branches. Her own car was parked off Seven Bridges Road, so she didn’t need to cross the river. Along the trail, birch trees and pines crowded her. The birds had gone quiet for the night, but the crickets had come alive.
Then, out of nowhere, she felt a strange uneasiness.
She stopped on the trail, listening. Her instincts from living on the street always kicked in and told her when something was wrong. It was a sixth sense that had kept her alive more than once. She walked faster, wanting to get in her car and go. She looked back as she hiked, peering into the trees and the overgrown brush, but no one was there. Even so, her anxiety grew. She was sure she wasn’t alone.
Cat saw her car parked at the end of the trail. She began to breathe a little easier, and she broke into a run to reach it. Get in, lock the doors, drive away. But as she got close to the Civic in the semi-darkness, she stopped dead. Her mouth dropped open and she screamed.
Her car was covered in green paint. One message was written everywhere, all over the hood, the doors, the windshield, and the trunk. The same message over and over and over.
I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you.
As Cat stood on the trail, trembling and crying, her phone pinged. She had a new text. She opened it up and saw that someone had sent her a photograph from a number she didn’t recognize. When she clicked on the picture, she saw herself standing on the riverbank near Curt, her almost nude body exposed.
Her stalker had been there, on top of the cliff, spying on her.
Below the photograph was a message.
You’re so beautiful, Cat. Soon we’ll be together forever.
8
The two-story house on 8th Street with the beige siding hadn’t changed at all since Stride had last been here. Neither had the woman who owned it. When Andrea answered the door, he felt as if he’d gone back in time.
In that first moment seeing her again, he found himself reliving the ups and downs of their four years together. He remembered the first time they’d met, when he was up at Central High School investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl. Andrea was a chemistry teacher taking a break behind the school, with a cigarette in her hand and a cynical smile on her lips. The attraction between them had been immediate. She’d been pretty then and she still was, a pert, blue-eyed blond with a trim figure. He did a quick calculation in his head and realized that she must be forty-six years old now. She still looked young for her age and probably always would.
Young. Athletic. Unhappy.
In the early days of their marriage, he’d blamed Andrea’s depression on being abandoned by her first husband. Then he’d blamed himself for not being able to give her what she needed. Finally, seven years ago, he learned the truth about her past, but the revelation had come too late to save their relationship.
“Hello, Andrea,” Stride said.
She stared back at him and didn’t say anything. Her face was distant. He’d wondered whether she would be angry at seeing her ex-husband again after so many years, but then he remembered: this was Andrea. She was the coldest woman he’d ever met. Cold in love. Cold in bed. She kept her emotions buried in a deep hole, like a prisoner she wouldn’t set free.
“Hello, Jon,” she said finally. “Long time.”
“A very long time. How are you?”
“Same as ever. You?”
“I’m okay. I’m good.”
“I heard you got married again,” Andrea said.
“I did.”
“The Vegas girl. Serena. The one you cheated on me with.”
He frowned. “Yes.”
“Well. Isn’t that fucking terrific.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
“Do you want to come in?” Andrea asked.
“I do.”
She opened the door just far enough for him to squeeze past her, and he walked into the house where he’d lived while they were together. It was much bigger than his cottage on the Point, but being here again made him feel claustrophobic, stuck inside bad times. She’d changed almost nothing over the years. He recognized the same furniture and the same art on the walls. She’d recarpeted and repainted, but she hadn’t even changed the colors. Andrea was like a cat, anxious and scared if anything disrupted her routines.
“Come back to the kitchen,” she said.
He followed her. The kitchen was small, and there was an alcove where she had a dinette table near the windows. From there, he could barely see the lake like a gray smudge on the horizon. That was what he remembered about the house, how far away the lake seemed when he was in it. Stride could usually measure his own happiness by how close he was to Lake Superior.
“I made margaritas,” Andrea said, pointing to a half-full pitcher on the table. “You want one?”
“No. Thanks.”
“Too ironic?” she asked.
He let out a short, humorless laugh to tell her that he understood the joke. They’d gotten drunk on margaritas on their first date, and then they’d had sex on his back porch. That was how their relationship had started. For a long time, he’d regretted everything that followed that night — the marriage, the loneliness, the affair, the divorce — but there had come a point in his life when he had to make peace with his mistakes. It was obvious to him that Andrea had yet to do the same.
They both sat down at the table. She sipped her drink, licking salt off her lips each time. He noticed that the window behind her was decorated with suncatchers made of stained glass. They were all shaped in different designs, with a rainbow of colors. A hummingbird, a lighthouse, a rose, a frog, a mother and child, a sun, a heart, a butterfly, a dragonfly. As far as he could tell, they were the only decorations that had been added to the house since he left.
“Are you still teaching?” he asked.
“I switched to Denfeld when Central closed.”
“Sure. Makes sense.”
“I’m head of the department now.”
“Good for you,” he said.
“It’s a little more money.”
“That always helps.”
“And a lot more school politics,” she added.
“I’m sure. I try to steer clear of that.”
“I remember.”
“How’s your sister?” Stride asked. “Is Denise okay?”
“She’s fine. She moved back to Duluth this year.”
“Really? Miami too hot for her?”
“Divorce,” Andrea said.
“Sorry to hear it. Still, it must be nice having her closer.”
Andrea shrugged. “It is. Except when it’s not.”
“Yeah. I get that. What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”
His ex-wife took another sip of her drink without answering, and he could see the manicured tips of her fingernails. Her blue eyes drifted away. He heard the thump of basketballs in the park next to the house. He remembered how the noise had driven him crazy when he lived here. And he remembered how he would find Andrea staring out the windows, watching the kids play.
“We really don’t need to do the whole small-talk thing,” Andrea said. “Just tell me what you want, Jon.”
“Okay.” Stride watched her face carefully. He was back to being a cop now, looking for the tiniest reactions. “I don’t know if you heard, but Steve Garske died.”
“Steve? Really? I’m sorry. I know you two were close. He was awfully young. What happened?”
“Cancer,” Stride said.
“How sad.”