Cat got off the bench and pushed through the crowd. She drew stares from the men in the beer hall, as she always did. It didn’t matter who they were, young, old, married, single. She was used to the looks. When she got to the taps, Curt took her by the shoulders and shoved her to the front. He waved at a skinny white boy in a tie-dye T-shirt and jeans, who was pouring a #21 ale. “Wyatt! She’s here! Cat’s here!”
Wyatt wandered her way with the bow-legged walk of a cowboy and handed the IPA across the bar to Curt. He wiped his hands on a towel and then extended one for Cat to shake. When he spoke, his boyish voice was more like a mumble. “Wyatt Miller. Really nice to meet you.”
“Cat Mateo.”
Curt picked up a glass of kombucha from the bar along with his beer and headed back to the bench. “You two talk! I have to get this to Colly.”
Cat opened her mouth to protest being left alone, but Curt had already disappeared into the crowd. She forced a smile onto her face for Wyatt, and he smiled back at her. He wasn’t bad-looking, but Colleen was right that he was woodsy. He wore an orange bandanna, and his reddish-blond dreadlocks dangled from his head and tumbled over his shoulders like a den of snakes. He had a gold, wispy beard. His nose was wide and flat, his cheeks sunburnt red, and he had very pale eyebrows over brown eyes. The smile he gave her was a little shy and reserved. He was probably in his early twenties.
“Can I get you something?” Wyatt asked. “I mean, not beer. I know you’re only eighteen. But if you want pop or tea or coffee or whatever. On the house.”
His nervousness made him ramble.
“I’m fine,” Cat said. “Curt says you’re new in town.”
“Yeah, I got here a month ago. I used to live in Boulder, but I figured, water over mountains.”
“Sure.”
“What about you? You grow up here?”
“Yup, I’m a Duluth girl.” She searched for something to say. “Colleen says you like opera.”
“Love it. What about you?”
“Um, it’s okay, I guess. I don’t know much about it. I hear you have a cat.”
“Me? No.”
“Colleen said you liked to play with your cat.”
“Well, my neighbors have a cat, and I let him into my apartment sometimes. He keeps me company.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What about you? Does Cat have a cat?”
“No. No cat.”
A full minute of silence followed. This was unquestionably one of the least promising fix-ups of Cat’s entire life.
“Well, I should get back to my friends,” she said.
“Sure. Sure. I understand. Listen, do you mind if I call you sometime? The thing is, I’ve seen pictures and thought you were gorgeous, but meeting you in person, I was so wrong. You’re like one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever met.”
Damn.
She couldn’t simply dump him after he said that.
“Tell you what, give me your number, and I’ll call you,” Cat said.
“Cool.”
Wyatt bent over and scribbled something on a small piece of paper. His dreadlocks dangled over his face as he wrote. He folded the note and pushed it across the bar. “It was great to meet you, Cat.”
She fingered the paper in front of her. “Yeah. Same here.”
“See ya,” Wyatt said.
“See ya.”
He headed down the row of taps to wait on another customer. Cat idly took the paper with his phone number in her hand. She didn’t want to crumple it and throw it away in case Wyatt was still watching. Instead, she flipped it open.
When she did, her head shot up, looking to see if Wyatt was staring back at her. And he was. He poured beer at the other end of the bar, but he watched her with the same smile on his face he’d been wearing all along. Like he was waiting to see what she would do.
Like he was daring her to notice.
Cat tried to hide her reaction. She forced herself to smile back, and then she practically ran to get away from the bar.
She had the note in her hand with Wyatt’s name and phone number.
It was written in lime-green marker.
13
Andrea awoke with a start in the middle of the night.
She always slept lightly, attuned to any unfamiliar sound. The bedroom was black except for the red glow of the clock on her nightstand, which told her it was nearly four in the morning. She stared at the ceiling, eyes wide open. Her ears pricked up, listening for whatever had awakened her. Her heart hammered in her chest. It didn’t take much to bring the memories back.
A noise. A smell. A touch on the shoulder. And just like that, she’d be back in the darkness. Under him. Struggling.
It never went away.
You are not seventeen years old.
She climbed out of bed in her white silk pajamas. The master bedroom was at the back of the house, with windows on the rear wall facing the lake and windows on the adjacent corner looking down on the neighborhood basketball courts. Sometimes kids hung out there overnight. She swept aside the curtains but saw no teenagers in the park below her.
The bedroom felt colder than usual. She liked it warm, and she typically kept the heat on even during the summers, but she found herself shivering. When she went to the doorway, a draft sneaked up the stairs. Somewhere in the house, a window or door was open. That was never how she left it.
Then, below her, the downstairs floorboards shifted. Someone who was trying to be quiet gave themselves away. She wasn’t alone.
He was back.
Andrea felt all of her emotions drain out of her. The panic left her entirely, and something robotic took over her mind like a strange, dead calm. She backed away from the bedroom door, conscious that she was making noise herself. She wanted him to know that she was awake. If he heard her, if he knew she was listening to him, then he would leave.
It always worked that way.
He never hurts you.
But Andrea took no chances. She opened the drawer of her nightstand and found her 9 mm pistol. She always kept it fully loaded, magazine in place. She pulled out the gun, which was heavy in her hand. The feel of it gave her strength. She had to use effort to drag back the slide and load a cartridge, but the click told her she was ready to shoot.
She carried the gun back to the doorway and stared into the gloom at the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m armed,” she called. “I have a gun. You need to go.”
If he was there, he held his breath, not making a sound. She flipped on the light switch, and bright light filled the foyer, making her squint. She anticipated a thunder of footfalls as he escaped, but the house was silent.
Andrea cradled the gun with both hands, her right index finger along the barrel. That was how Denise had taught her. She took the steps one at a time, stopping to listen. The air from outside got colder. Near the base of the stairs, she could see the front door, which was closed and locked. No one was waiting for her. The draft came from the other side, the back door in the kitchen. She got to the last step, swung left, and slipped her finger around the trigger.
She could see all the way to the rear of the house. It was empty. He’d stolen away while she was getting her gun. Still ready to fire, she continued to the end of the hallway and confirmed that no one was in the kitchen. The back door was ajar, letting in a whistle of wind.
He’d left a package for her on the kitchen table, the way he always did.
Andrea took the gun outside and descended the warped back steps in her bare feet and stood in the wet grass. The wind tore up the hillside and rattled the trees. She couldn’t see much, but she knew he was still out here. Somewhere, he was watching her, because she could feel his eyes like fingertips on her neck.
“I know it’s you,” she called. “It’s been a while. I didn’t think you were coming back. Why now?”