Funeral for a Friend

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.”

“What about going to a counselor?”

“I can’t talk to shrinks. I had a shrink once. He abused me, too.”

Brayden exhaled loudly. “Son of a bitch.”

“Yeah. I’ve got the track record, huh? I just hope Michael grows up like Stride. Stride may be the only man I’ve ever met who isn’t a complete and total jerk. And yeah, I know, not every guy is a Dean Casperson or a Devin Card. You’re not.”

“Devin Card was accused of rape. To be fair, that doesn’t make him guilty.”

“Don’t tell me you think he’s innocent.”

“Well, I’m a cop. Everyone’s innocent until proven guilty. I know false allegations happen, particularly in politics. And I know good people can make mistakes in identifying suspects.”

“Rape victims don’t make mistakes,” Cat snapped.

Brayden hesitated, as if he were tiptoeing through a minefield. “Don’t hate me for saying this, but yeah, sometimes they do. The wrong men have gone to jail.”

“Now you sound like a jerk.”

“Sorry.”

Cat focused on Michael’s face until she was calm again, then she looked up and stared across the table at Brayden and felt herself wrapped up in his eyes. Strands of his blond hair had fallen across his face, and she wanted to reach over and smooth them back. There was something so compassionate and strong about him. If anyone tried to harm her, he’d be all over them. He’d take them to the ground. And yet when he talked to her, he had this soft voice, never getting upset, never getting frustrated with her, always smiling at her jokes and rants. When he looked at her, he saw her. He didn’t look through her as if she wasn’t there.

The trouble was, she couldn’t be with any man without seeing the other men she’d known in her life. They were all sitting behind Brayden in the cafe, hiding in his shadow. The ones who’d assaulted her, violated her, made her feel like nothing. They never left her. She didn’t know how to send them away.

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” Cat said. “You’ve been nothing but great to me, and you’re here giving up your free time to protect me, and what do I do? I call you a jerk.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve earned that label plenty of times. My father would be the first to tell you that, and he’d be right.”

“What about your mom?” Cat asked.

Brayden shook his head, and Cat knew she’d touched a sore spot. “I was lucky like Michael was. The Pells were my adoptive parents. Grace Pell loved me just like Krista Olson loves this little guy. She was great. But she got ALS. Ugly, terrible, horrible disease. When she died, it was just me and Bob Pell. That wasn’t a good fit. He was devastated after losing his wife, and I don’t know, maybe looking at me always reminded him that she was gone. I loved him, he loved me, but we were like two dogs who growled at each other whenever we were in the same room. I had to get out of there.”

Cat said nothing in reply. She sat there in silence.

“Cat?” Brayden said. “Are you okay?”

Still she didn’t answer. She barely noticed Brayden opening up his heart to her. She was too focused on a bus coming and going at the stop on the other side of the intersection. As the bus pulled away from the curb, a man appeared like a ghost on the sidewalk, staring at the restaurant.

Staring at her.

“Oh, shit!” she murmured.

Brayden was instantly focused. “Cat, what is it?”

“It’s him. Jesus, it’s him.”

Brayden swung around in his chair.

Wyatt Miller smiled at them, his red dreadlocks shining in the sunlight. His eyes were covered by sunglasses, and he had a backpack slung over one shoulder. As they watched, he began to cross the street diagonally toward them.

“I’ve got Michael,” Cat said, her voice rising with fear. “He knows about my son! What if he comes after my son?”

“I’ll deal with this.”

“I can’t look at him!”

“Take Michael, and go inside,” Brayden told her. “He won’t get anywhere near you.”

Cat stumbled to her feet with her arms wrapped tightly around the boy. She hurried through the glass double doors, dragging the stroller behind her, but she found that she was too shaken to sit down. She went into a section of the restaurant lined with bookshelves, and she stood in the farthest corner, clinging to Michael and keeping her eyes tightly shut. She didn’t know how much time passed. It felt like forever. She wanted to leave, to run, but she couldn’t even open her eyes.

Then, finally, she heard a voice.

“Cat.”

She shook her head, still staring at darkness.

“Cat,” Brayden said again. He touched her face, and she finally opened her eyes.

“He’s gone,” Brayden told her. “I told him to leave. I said you didn’t want to see him.”

“What did he say?”

“He said you texted him and asked him to meet you here.”

“What? That’s a lie! I didn’t!”

Michael picked up on her stress and began to cry, and she cooed in the boy’s ear to soothe him. “I didn’t,” she said again, very quietly.

“He showed me his phone,” Brayden said. “I took a picture of the message.”

He enlarged the screen, and Cat read the text message from the photograph:

“I did not send that,” Cat insisted. “It’s a fake. That number’s not even my phone.”

“I know.”

“The bastard must have sent it to himself,” she went on.

“Maybe.”

“But you can’t prove it. You can’t do anything.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Brayden, what does he want with me?” Cat asked, holding her son even tighter. “Why is he doing this?”

“I don’t know, Cat. He swears he’s not the one. He says meeting you last night was the first and only interaction he’s had with you. And he promised me he’ll stay away from you from now on. If he’s lying, he’s good at it. He seemed genuinely upset at the idea that someone was bothering you.”

Cat realized that everyone in the restaurant was watching them.

“Can we go?” she asked. “I need to go. I need to get out of here.”

“Of course.”

She put Michael down in the stroller and followed Brayden toward the street.

Cat didn’t know which was worse.

Either Wyatt Miller was an obsessive liar, and the police couldn’t do a thing about it, or the person who was doing this to her was still out there.

And still unknown.