“Yes, but I also know both of you well enough to assume that you’ll find a way to stay in the middle of it anyway.”
Serena nodded. “Okay. You’ve passed along your message. I’ll make sure it gets to the police. Now I have a question for you.”
“Go ahead.”
“What about the rape?” Serena asked.
Peter stared back at her, and she thought again: Too smooth.
“I already told you, it never happened,” he said flatly.
“The woman’s lying?”
“I have no idea. Maybe the whole thing was a setup to take down Devin. Or maybe she’s misremembering events from decades ago. Regardless, Devin is innocent. He didn’t do it.”
“You just told me about having blackouts, Peter. You didn’t remember what went on between you and Denise. Isn’t it possible that the same thing happened to Devin? He raped that girl while he was drunk and he doesn’t even remember it?”
“No.”
“That’s not possible?”
“No. It’s not.”
Serena shook her head. “Maybe you don’t want to believe that your best friend was capable of something evil.”
Peter took a long time to reply. She tried to read his face for the truth, but if he had doubts, he would never admit them to her or say them out loud.
“You’re right, Devin’s my best friend,” he told her. “That means I know him. Yes, we did some crazy things back then. Some highly offensive things, I’m sure. And you’re right, I don’t remember a lot of it. But rape? That’s not who he is, and that’s not who he was. I don’t know why this woman thinks it was him, or what got twisted around in her mind, but she’s wrong. If she was really assaulted, then someone else did it.”
16
“It’s him,” Cat told Brayden. “I know it’s him.”
She picked at the cranberry wild rice French toast on her plate, but memories of the previous night distracted her, and all she could see was the face of Wyatt Miller behind the bar at Hoops. She sat with Brayden on an outdoor patio at a Duluth hot spot called At Sara’s Table. It was almost noon, under a bright sun, and a green umbrella kept them in shade. She faced across the street toward a bus stop built at a corner lot that was overgrown and undeveloped.
This was a babysitting morning. Cat’s two-year-old son, Michael, slept next to her in a stroller with the sun bonnet pulled down over his forehead. Michael’s adoptive parents, Drew and Krista Olson, had a weekly staff meeting at their Canal Park camping store, and Cat took the boy whenever they needed help. She kept a protective eye on the sleeping child, and her face bloomed with love whenever she studied his face.
But even her son couldn’t calm her today.
“He’s taunting me,” Cat went on softly, not wanting to wake up Michael. “He knows there’s nothing we can do to him. This guy gets to stalk me, and I have to sit here and take it, because I can’t prove it.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Brayden replied. “Wyatt may be the guy.”
“But a green marker isn’t enough to search his place, right?”
“That’s right. I’m sorry.”
Cat shook her head. “You don’t believe me, either, do you?”
Brayden reached across the table and put a hand over hers. She liked that his palm was warm, and she liked the calloused feel of his skin. “It’s not that. If Wyatt is the one doing this to you, we’ll find a way to prove it. But I won’t pretend that it’s going to be easy, unless he makes a mistake. I talked to him at Hoops last night. He said the green marker wasn’t his. He said it was lying on the bar and could have come from anywhere.”
“Sure, it’s just a coincidence,” Cat said sourly.
“Well, it could be. Or he could be the one. Or the real stalker could have planted it there. The thing is, if Wyatt is the one, now he knows you’ve got protection, and he knows I’m watching him. That may be enough to make him stop on his own. Most of these guys are cowards.”
“It won’t stop him,” Cat said.
Brayden eased back in the patio chair. His eyes were always moving, watching their surroundings, which made her feel safe. “Look, after I dropped you at Stride’s house last night, I went back to the department. I was there half the night, doing research on Wyatt Miller. There’s nothing to find. He doesn’t have a record here or in Boulder. No complaints, no assaults, no indications of any kind of violent behavior. Since he moved to Duluth, he’s gotten an apartment, a job, and a driver’s license. His background doesn’t raise any red flags.”
“I don’t care about his background.”
“Maybe not, but it limits what a judge will let us do.”
Cat frowned in disgust. “Can I tell you something without offending you?”
“Go ahead.”
“I hate men. I feel like men should come with warning labels, like they do with cigarettes. Slap a big label on their foreheads. ‘Men Suck.’ I mean, we’ll date them anyway, but at least then we’d know the risks.”
“You may be on to something.”
“I’m pissed today, can you tell?”
“Yes, I can tell.”
Michael fussed in the stroller and began to wake up. His eyes blinked, trying to find Cat among the strangers on the patio. Quickly, she reached under the boy’s arms and pulled him into her lap. His face scrunched, threatening to cry, but she smoothly distracted him with Brayden’s car keys and bounced the toddler on her knee. He settled calmly against her chest.
“You’re good with him,” Brayden said. “You’re a natural mom.”
She blushed. “Thanks.”
“See, not all men suck. Michael doesn’t suck.”
“He’s just a little boy.”
“Well, men start out as boys. What happens after that is mostly because of their parents. So Michael is lucky to have a mom like you, along with his adoptive parents.”
“You really are sweet.”
“Was it hard?” Brayden asked with a quiet seriousness. “Did you struggle with letting the Olsons adopt your son?”
Cat’s eyes never left the boy. “It was very hard. All along, when I was pregnant, I wanted to keep him. I thought if I let him go, that made me a failure. Eventually, Stride and Serena made me realize I had to think about what was best for him, not me. I met Drew and Krista, and I knew they’d be amazing parents, but it was still hard. I cried so much after they took him. But at least I still get to be a part of his life. That helps.”
“It’ll help him, too.”
“I just hope he’ll grow up okay. I told you, men suck.” Cat inclined her head at the table next to them, where a woman was reading a copy of the Duluth News-Tribune. “Look at the headline. Everyone is talking about Devin Card. How he raped a high school girl while he was in college. I know so many pigs like that who think they can get away with anything. I don’t want Michael to be one of them.”
“He won’t be.”
Cat shrugged, because Brayden was just being kind. “I hope not, but he didn’t exactly win the genetic lottery. His father paid to have sex with a teenager. And then there’s me, the princess of poor choices.”
“I couldn’t disagree more,” Brayden told her. “That actor who assaulted you? He was rich, entitled, and thought nobody could stop him. But you did. If Michael has half your courage, he’ll make you proud.”
Cat frowned at the compliment. “I wasn’t brave or anything when I did that. I just jumped in, stupid and terrified. That’s what I always do. I never learn.”
“Being scared doesn’t change what you did.”
She looked at Brayden and then looked away. “I don’t usually talk about this stuff with anyone. I’ve never told people how bad it really was. Not even Stride and Serena. But I like talking to you.”