“Maybe he didn’t realize you were serious. I mean, sometimes guys—”
“Really, Denise? You’re defending what he did to me?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Yes, I was drunk. Yes, I agreed to go upstairs with him, and you know what? I probably thought I wanted sex. But when he started taking off my clothes, I did not consent. I told him to get out. He raped me! That’s what happened!”
Her voice had gotten loud. Somewhere along the way, she’d stood up from the chair, and she was shouting and jabbing a finger at her sister. Tears came down her face. The memories roared back the way they always did. She stopped and shut her eyes tightly. Her body twitched, as if he were on top of her again in the dark bedroom. She could still feel him. She could still hear herself begging him to stop, to go away, to get off her. She could still smell the scent of him afterward as she lay there alone, with the awful ache between her legs and the stickiness of her own blood on her thighs.
Andrea opened her eyes.
Denise shook her head. “Jesus, sis. I’m so sorry.”
“I know.”
“I wish you’d told me. I would have tried to help.”
“You couldn’t have done anything. Nobody could. My life was already over.”
Denise got up, too. She went over to Andrea and hugged her, and they stood there in that tight embrace for a long time. It felt good; it felt safe. Andrea couldn’t remember the last time they’d done that.
Then, when they separated, Denise’s face screwed up in disgust as she noticed the television. Andrea turned around, and there he was. Congressman Devin Card, perfectly dressed, serious and earnest, such a decent, moral man. She turned up the volume again.
“I’m not going to speculate on this person’s motives. We’re talking about an anonymous allegation. I don’t even know how to respond to that, other than to say I’ve never done anything like what she says in my life. It did not happen. Is this whole thing political? Is this a smear? Who knows? Believe me, I would like nothing more than for this woman to come forward and tell all of us her name. To share her story in public. Because then maybe we can figure out the truth behind this mistake. And if she won’t do that, then frankly, the voters can draw their own conclusions about her credibility. That’s all I have to say.”
This time Andrea switched off the set entirely.
She stood in the kitchen, breathing hard, still lost in the past.
“You can’t let him say that about you,” Denise told her. “You can’t let him get away with it. Andrea, please. You can’t stay quiet anymore.”
Andrea inhaled, then exhaled.
It was like that moment right before you jumped out of the airplane. And once you did, there was no going back.
“You’re right,” she said to her sister. “I can’t.”
25
Cat huddled in a window seat in the far corner of the great room in Stride’s cottage. She was invisible to everyone else. The police talked about her, but no one talked to her, and she hated that. She didn’t like listening to other people making decisions about her future as if she was just a bystander.
Stride and Serena were both there. So were Guppo, Brayden, and four other uniformed officers. Brayden had a wrapped bandage extending below the cuff of his T-shirt. He was in pain where the bullet had grazed him, and she could see his mouth grimace when he moved. She kept trying to catch his eye. He knew she was there, but he refused to look her way. Now that it was over, he was pretending as if the kiss had never happened.
There was an urgency among the people in the room. She could feel it. Shots had been fired, a police officer had been wounded, and suddenly, this was about more than a stalker sending anonymous notes. She heard Serena talking about attempted murder. She heard her saying that if it was Wyatt Miller, he was not going to stop with one attempt. Cat believed her. She already had a sixth sense about the future that she wouldn’t have admitted to anyone else.
People were going to get shot.
People were going to die.
Because of her.
“What did you find up on Hawk Ridge?” Stride asked.
Guppo shifted his girth in his chair. “We found where the shooter hid out on the hillside. There were lots of 9 mm shell casings. It looks like he unloaded the entire magazine at them. Brayden and Cat are lucky to be alive.”
Lucky, Cat thought bitterly. Oh, yeah. She felt lucky.
“What else?” Stride asked.
“He tore his shirt on some sharp branches and left behind a patch of fabric. Tie-dye.”
“Any DNA?”
“No, but I went over to Hoops, and two of the bartenders gave me affidavits that they remembered Wyatt Miller wearing tie-dye shirts. Brayden confirmed that Wyatt was wearing the same style the other night at the brewery. That was enough for Judge Edblad. He signed off on a warrant, and we went into Wyatt’s apartment an hour ago.”
Cat called from the corner. “Did you find the box under the bed? Did you find the photos he took?”
All the heads in the room snapped around to stare at her. It was as if they’d forgotten she was there.
“I’m sorry, Cat,” Guppo replied. “No, the box wasn’t there. Either he has it with him, or he moved it because he figured we might get in and do a search. But we did find something else. At the back of a kitchen drawer, we found an open package of green Sharpies that match what was used to write the notes to Cat. He was definitely lying when he told Brayden that he had no idea where the marker came from.”
Stride shook his head. “Where the hell is this son of a bitch?”
“We don’t know. We’ve got his photo out there and the license plate of his car. Everybody’s looking for him, boss. I left a uniform to watch his apartment building, and we’ve got somebody down at Hoops. Apparently, Wyatt also does fill-in shifts at Va Bene, so we’re watching there, too. As soon as we spot him, we’ll bring him in. I got Judge Edblad to do a specific order for a GSR test. If we can establish that he fired a weapon, that should be enough to hold him over while we look for more evidence.”
“That’s good work, Max,” Stride said. Then he called to Cat and jabbed a finger at her. “Until we find this guy, I don’t want you leaving the house.”
Cat shrugged. “Whatever.”
He was treating her like a child again. For a few minutes the previous day, he’d talked to her like a real person. A woman, an adult, who was smart and sensitive and sexual. But not anymore.
“I bought a security system,” Stride added. “We’ll have motion-sensitive cameras on the front and back doors.”
“Is that for him or for me?” Cat asked sullenly.
Her comment cast a pall of uncomfortable silence over the room. Stride didn’t answer, and his face showed no apology. Cat shot a look at Serena, asking her to stand up for her, but Serena was in mother mode now.
“It’s only until we have Wyatt in custody,” she said to Cat. “We’re trying to lock him up. Not you.”
“Right.”
Stride bulldozed over her unhappiness. “Is that everything, Max? Are we done?”
“Yes, sir. For now.”
The meeting broke up, and everyone began to disperse. A few of them looked over at Cat and then looked quickly away. She expected something from Brayden, a smile, a glance, anything to acknowledge that things had changed between them, but he turned his back and headed for the front door without a word.
Cat refused to let him walk away from her. Not like that.